Colorado is home to four astoundingly vibrant National Parks:
1. Rocky Mountain National Park
2. Mesa Verde National Park
3. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
4. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
All of these parks provide visitors with a spectacular range of scenery. They are open to the public and offer some form of camping on their grounds. These range from RV sites with ready-access to electricity and water, to outback camping. If you wanted to enjoy a pampered stay though, you will not find any onsite National Park hotels, but you will definitely find plenty within close distance of the parks. With these hotels, you can live in comfort and enjoy every amenity and so much more right within your room.
National Park Gateway Communities
Each National Park is close to a community, and these communities are the gateways to the parks. You can find plenty of convenient places to stay. For example, for Mesa Verde National Park, the usual choice for accommodations of all that are available is the Cortez. The Cortez offers not only exceptional lodging, but excellent dining opportunities too. This hotel is about an hour’s drive from the park.
If you want to stay near the dunes of Great Sand Dunes National Park, you can arrange to stay in the town of Alamosa, which is within a 20 minute car ride from the dunes. You may also want to take a trip on the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad that leaves from town.
If your destination is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, you can consider finding a hotel in the community of Montrose. The sharp, sheer cliffs of the canyon are the major nearby attraction in Gunnison. This community is located about 10 minutes from this beautiful scenery.
For those who want to stay in National Park hotels near the Rocky Mountains, two communities present delightful options: Estes Park and Grand Lake. It is possible to find comfortable lodgings in both of these communities and Estes Park is a very popular summer spot. It is also home to the famous Stanley Hotel, first opened in 1909.
At Grand Lake, visitors find themselves at the gateway to the Crown Jewel Park of Colorado. This village has so much to offer its visitors. During the summer, you can take a short drive to the Park, or in the winter, can snowshoe around town or in the park. As the snowmobile capital of Colorado, you can not only rent a snowmobile to ride the trails, but also drive it all around and through the town too. You can go shopping along the famed Boardwalk or go fishing in the nearby Grand Lake. While some communities close after the summer ends, Grand Lake is actually open year around and truly a town for all seasons.
National Park Hotels
While it is true you cannot stay in a hotel in a national park in Colorado, you can surely find an amenable compromise. National Park hotels cannot be found, but nearby communities fill in this gap. Comfortable accommodations in Grand Lake and other communities are there to meet the need of all their visitors!
