Fort Collins

We arrived in Fort Collins on a Friday evening, and within twenty minutes Lia had already spotted the detail that would define our weekend: nearly everyone on the street was on a bicycle, weaving unhurried between Old Town Square and the tree-lined avenues beyond. Old Town itself — all restored Victorian brick facades in mustard, rust, and teal — was apparently the inspiration for Disneyland’s Main Street, a fact three separate locals volunteered to us unprompted, each with visible civic pride. We took a table outside, ordered a flight of local pale ales, and watched the college town do its slow Friday shuffle.

Old Town and the beer trail

Fort Collins claims more breweries per capita than almost anywhere in the country, and Old Town is the proof: New Belgium’s sprawling campus sits just blocks from downtown, alongside Odell, Equinox, and a dozen smaller taprooms tucked into converted warehouses. We spent an entire afternoon on what locals casually call the beer trail, riding rented cruiser bikes between patios, comparing hazy IPAs against a backdrop of the Rockies turning purple in the distance. At New Belgium’s tour, our guide poured samples in a converted freight elevator and told us the brewery still tests small batches on staff before anything reaches a can — a level of craft obsession that seemed to explain the whole town’s temperament.

Poudre Canyon

The next morning we drove west out of town on Highway 14, and within fifteen minutes the strip malls gave way entirely to the granite walls of the Cache la Poudre Canyon, Colorado’s only nationally designated Wild and Scenic river. We pulled off at a rocky bend to watch kayakers thread the rapids, then hiked a few miles up the Gateway Natural Area trail, the river roaring below us the whole way, cottonwoods just starting to gold at the edges. It struck me how quickly this town lets you leave it behind — twenty minutes from a craft-beer patio to a canyon with almost no cell signal.

Getting There

Fort Collins sits about an hour north of Denver via I-25, making Denver International Airport the natural gateway — roughly seventy-five minutes by car or the FLEX regional bus. There’s no passenger rail service directly into town, so renting a car is the easiest option, especially if a drive up Poudre Canyon or into Rocky Mountain National Park (about an hour further west) is on the itinerary. Once downtown, Old Town itself is entirely walkable, and the city’s extensive bike-share network makes two wheels the fastest way to see the rest.