Weird & unusual things to do in Denver
The genuinely offbeat side of Denver: 225 hand-vetted hidden spots — oddity shops, hidden bars, haunted history, sound baths, weird outdoor finds — built for an unusual date night, a weird afternoon, or showing a visitor a side of the city they'd never find alone. Like Lincoln's, Cat Alley (Alley Cats by Kelly Monico), Crawford Hotel Lost & Found Wall. Local secrets even locals miss — you didn't hear it from us.
-
Lincoln's
There's no sign, no ads, and the owner flat-out refuses to tell you how to get in because 'that takes the mag…
-
Cat Alley (Alley Cats by Kelly Monico)
Wander into the right unmarked alley off Larimer between 14th and 15th and you'll start noticing them — cats.…
-
Crawford Hotel Lost & Found Wall
When crews restored Union Station they pulled apart the original wooden waiting benches and found a century o…
-
Wynkoop Brewing Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout
Denver's oldest brewpub keeps a stout on the board brewed with 25 pounds of hand-sliced, roasted bull testicl…
-
Oxford Hotel Room 320
The Oxford is the city's grand old 1891 hotel, but almost no one books knowing what 320 is. In 1898 a woman s…
-
Hell or High Water Tiki
Behind an unmarked door on Walnut sits a haunted gay-pirate-ship tiki bar where a shimmering phallic 'Disco D…
-
RUMTUM UV-Reactive Mural
RiNo is wall-to-wall murals, but this RUMTUM piece has a second painting hiding inside it that daylight never…
-
One River North (MAD Architects canyon floors)
A 16-story RiNo apartment tower with a literal canyon torn through its middle: floors 6 through 9 are split o…
-
Rocky Mountain Land Library at the Puritan Pie Co.
A 1911 building that used to crank out pies for the Senter Pie Company is now stuffed with one of the strange…
-
Cassady's — Neal Cassady's Barbershop Site, 2558 Champa St.
A 400-square-foot shack wedged between two houses on Champa was once a two-chair barbershop where a young Nea…
-
Black American West Museum & Heritage Center
Tucked into a Victorian on California Street is the museum almost nobody tells you about: it argues that one…
-
Welton Street Cafe
The Dickerson family has been feeding Five Points since 1986, and Welton Street Cafe is the last Black-owned…
-
Denver Story Trek — Five Points Phone Audio Tour
Free and almost invisible: you dial up audio recordings tied to spots in Five Points that look like nothing a…
-
The Learned Lemur
Set inside a restored Victorian house on East Colfax, the Learned Lemur is Denver's longtime oddities dealers…
-
Cheesman Park Pavilion & Its Buried Dead
Cheesman Park looks like any leafy Denver green space, but it was the city's first cemetery — and when it was…
-
Bar Max
A craft cocktail bar on East Colfax that throws out the menu entirely: instead of ordering a drink, you descr…
-
Saint Germain Foundation "I AM" Sanctuary
Take up nearly a full acre of Capitol Hill: a 14,000-square-foot Colonial Revival mansion (the 1915 Blackmer…
-
Kilgore Books & Comics
A narrow, hand-curated used bookstore wedged into the row next to Wax Trax on 13th, with no flashy storefront…
-
Potager
Denver's original farm-to-table restaurant, running quietly out of a brick Cap Hill rowhouse since 1997, year…
-
The Shakespeare Elm
In the southeast corner of City Park stands an ordinary-looking elm that is secretly a piece of Shakespeare.…
-
Park Hill Treasures
An antique and artisan market crammed into a former bank branch on a stretch of East Colfax most people only…
-
The Art Garage
It's a working nonprofit art studio crammed into an old converted mechanic's garage on a Park Hill corner — f…
-
The Cherry Tomato
An old-school, friends-run Italian room that's barely changed since 1997, hidden in a little retail pocket am…
-
Prismatic Electric Fountain (Ferril Lake)
By day it reads as a plain fountain in the middle of Ferril Lake. Come back after dusk and it becomes a diffe…
-
Vaultaire
Beneath La Foret's woodsy dining room on South Broadway, a cellar door drops you into Vaultaire — no sign abo…
-
The Oddemporium
An oddities shop crammed floor-to-ceiling on Antique Row, with arguably more items per square inch than any o…
-
Invisible City
Behind an unmarked door on Santa Fe Drive is a private immersive lounge stuffed with artifacts the founder ha…
-
Black Sky Brewery
Denver's only heavy-metal brewery, shredding away in a black-walled warehouse off South Santa Fe since 2013.…
-
Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center
The oldest theater company of any kind in Denver — founded in 1972 by CU-Denver students as a protest against…
-
910Arts (former 7-Up bottling plant turned artist live-work complex)
Most people only hit the Santa Fe Arts District on First Friday, when it's mobbed — so almost no one knows yo…
-
Room for Friends … a wine bar!
A husband-and-wife pair of ex-United Airlines folks turned this skinny Santa Fe storefront into a wine bar th…
-
Denver Art Society
A registered nonprofit co-op where the gallery is run entirely by its artists — 100-plus members log voluntee…
-
Highland Park / Scottish Village Historic District
Denver is a relentless grid until you turn off Zuni near 32nd and the streets suddenly start curving, with na…
-
Diebolt Brewing Company
A father-and-son team (Dan and Jack Diebolt) quietly brews French-style ales out of a former meat-packing war…
-
The Monkey Barrel
From the corner of Tejon in Sunnyside it looks like any other neighborhood building, but inside is a music-an…
-
Alley Brews
There is no street door — the only way into Alley Brews is from the alley between 43rd and 44th, tucked behin…
-
Old Elitch Carousel Dome (with floor labyrinth)
On the corner where Berkeley meets Tennyson sits a 12-sided, bell-roofed pavilion built in 1926 that most peo…
-
Manhattan Beach Historical Marker
Thousands of people loop Sloan's Lake every week and walk straight past a 1953 bronze plaque bolted to the no…
-
Future Drawn oneLINE Gallery — Easter Art Hunt
A working line-art gallery on Tennyson runs a hunt almost nobody catches: framed, signed original oneLINE ink…
-
BOWS — Patrick Marold Steel Arch Installation
On the wooded eastern edge of Cranmer Park, a run of reflective steel inverse arches lines the passageway bet…
-
Revampt
A furniture-and-goods shop on a Cherry Creek corner where literally everything is built from somebody's trash…
-
Fairy Doors of South Pearl Street
There are roughly two dozen fairy-sized doors, shrunken storefronts, and mossy hobbit hideaways tucked into t…
-
Buried 1893 Streetcar Tracks Under South Pearl Street
The entire South Pearl commercial strip exists because the Denver Tramway Company ran a streetcar line up it…
-
Fort Greene
There's no sign. You'll walk past it, double back, and second-guess which door in this Globeville industrial…
-
Riverside Cemetery History & Mystery Tours
Denver's oldest cemetery (1876) sits forgotten on 77 acres of dry, overgrown ground in Globeville — National…
-
Contreras Market & Panaderia
What started in 2000 as the Contreras family knocking on doors selling bread wholesale now eats an entire Mor…
-
El Tianguis de Westwood
On a stretch of Morrison Road most Denverites only know as a traffic corridor, BuCu West built a real Mexican…
-
B&GC (Boys & Girls Club)
Beneath the Halcyon Hotel in Cherry Creek — in a former post office — sits a 44-seat cocktail room that does…
-
Trybal African Speakeasy
There's no sign downtown — you're looking for an African mask on the door, and you won't get in unless you've…
-
The Terrorium Shop
Tucked into a little brick storefront in Berkeley, this is the place that makes 'terroriums' — living-plant t…
-
Dikeou Collection Pop-Up: Colfax
From the sidewalk it reads as a shuttered old record store on a gritty stretch of Colfax — which is exactly w…
-
That Witch Apothecary
That Witch is a queer- and trans-owned ritual-goods brand by founder Rory, a practicing witch of 10+ years, a…
-
Noctavia Obscure
A barely-a-year-old occult shop tucked into a storefront on Santa Fe Drive, with a full in-house apothecary w…
-
Alchemy Ritual Goods
BIPOC- and women-founded ritual shop in the historic Savoy building that hides something most shoppers walk r…
-
Botanica Yemaya
A floor-to-ceiling cavern of candles, incense, oils, charms, and devotional statuary on Federal, serving Afro…
-
Botanica Caridad Del Cobre
Since 1984 this has been the mother church of Denver botanicas, hiding in plain sight on a stretch of Federal…
-
Botanica Ochun
Most people would never guess that a fully stocked Santeria botanica is hiding in an Aurora strip mall off 6t…
-
HORRID
Tucked down S. Acoma behind the Brutal Poodle, HORRID started as one woman's spare-bedroom horror brand and h…
-
The Wytch's Brew
On gallery-row Santa Fe Drive, this woman-owned tea house quietly fuses Persian tea culture with a working me…
-
Galapago Space
It's a literal residential garage on Galapago Street that someone hung gallery walls inside, and you get in t…
-
Understudy
Inside the Colorado Convention Center, in a 700-square-foot wedge under a stairwell that was too small and we…
-
Dateline Gallery
Founded in 2013 by curator Jeromie Dorrance and artist Adam Milner, Dateline sits at the awkward, deliberate…
-
Spectra Art Space
A women-run gallery on a nondescript stretch of South Broadway that builds two completely different walk-thro…
-
Sidewalk Joy Free Little Art Galleries
Tiny plexiglass-roofed gallery cabinets bolted to the sidewalk in front of people's homes, stocked with origi…
-
OddKnock Test Kitchen
Three New York actors who cut their teeth at Sleep No More took over an empty 3,700-square-foot storefront at…
-
National Wildlife Property Repository
Tucked inside the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge sits a 16,000-square-foot federal warehouse…
-
NSF Ice Core Facility
On the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood, behind unremarkable government doors, sits a walk-in freezer kept a…
-
Cussler Museum
Adventure novelist Clive Cussler (Dirk Pitt, 'Raise the Titanic') spent decades quietly hoarding rare automob…
-
Forney Museum of Transportation
A 70,000-square-foot warehouse on a forgettable industrial stretch of Brighton Blvd holds 800-plus vehicles,…
-
Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls & Toys
The cutesy name undersells it: this is a serious collection of 20,000+ objects dating back to the 1680s, cram…
-
Laughing Escalator
Ride the escalator down from the exhibit-hall level at the Colorado Convention Center and you'll start hearin…
-
Retrograde
Walk into Sweet Action Ice Cream, ignore the cones, head for the walk-in freezer door, flip the light switch…
-
Rocky Mountain Punk Nature Art & Oddities
A completely unremarkable Wadsworth strip-mall storefront hiding handmade bone jewelry, pinned-moth-and-butte…
-
Chicky the Prairie Dog
In the Gems and Minerals hall sits a roughly nine-foot Brazilian amethyst geode, and if you crouch and look i…
-
Carpio-Sanguinette Park (Former Sewage Treatment Plant)
On the north bank of the South Platte in Globeville sits a park almost nobody visits, built directly on top o…
-
Impossible Winterbourne Steampunk Street Sculptures
Since 2010 an anonymous artist calling himself The Impossible Winterbourne has been bolting tiny rusted steam…
-
Riverside Cemetery Block 12 — Denver's Forgotten Potters Field
Riverside is Denver's oldest operating cemetery (1876) and a National Historic District, but almost no one kn…
-
Historic Elitch Theatre
Everyone thinks 'Elitch' means the Six Flags coaster park on the Platte — almost no one knows the original 18…
-
Lumber Baron Inn & Gardens
This ornate 1890 Queen Anne looks like any restored Highland mansion, but by 1970 it was a carved-up flophous…
-
The Espinosa Brothers' Heads at the Colorado State Capitol
Everyone sees the gold-domed Capitol; almost no one knows it once warehoused two severed human heads. In 1863…
-
John Chivington's Grave at Fairmount Cemetery
Fairmount is Denver's beautiful Victorian garden cemetery — heritage roses, a Gothic chapel, pioneer notables…
-
Henry Treat Rogers Mansion Site — Where 'The Changeling' Was Born (Now Summer House Condos)
Stand at 13th & Williams and you're on the footprint of a vanished mansion that birthed a horror classic. In…
-
Recollect Records
Open barely three afternoons a week out of a little row-house storefront on Delaware, Recollect is a crate-di…
-
Invincible Vinyl
There's no sign you can read from the road. Invincible sits at the corner of 1st and Kalamath in a half-indus…
-
City Records (City Records, Comics & Toys)
Two of the people behind this 2023 East Colfax shop met working at Mutiny Information Cafe, the cult undergro…
-
Chain Reaction Records
Run by brothers Josh and Justin Lent - longtime fixtures of Denver's hardcore scene via their band Clusterfux…
-
Sold Out Vinyl Records
Westword crowned this Best Suburban Record Store in 2025 and called it 'easy to miss but well worth discoveri…
-
Little Horse Vintage (and the Electric Room)
Upstairs it's Mike Price's decades-deep warren of mid-century furniture, rare books, and 10,000-plus records…
-
Denver Ecstatic Dance
Every Sunday morning a roomful of sober strangers in the Highlands move however they want — no booze, no phon…
-
The Sexploratorium
Two former Red Rocks Community College professors (one taught human sexuality, the other erotic literature) b…
-
B&GC
Built into the bones of the former Cherry Creek post office in the basement of the Halcyon Hotel, B&GC takes…
-
Riverside Cemetery
Denver's oldest operating cemetery (1876) got swallowed by the city it served — today it's boxed in by indust…
-
Cranmer Park Sundial Terrace
Hidden in the residential streets of Hilltop is a hundred-yard WPA-built terrace anchored by a giant quartzit…
-
Fairmount Cemetery Arboretum & Heritage Rose Garden
This is Colorado's largest and most diverse arboretum — over 4,000 trees and shrubs first planted in 1890 by…
-
Grave of Silas Soule
Silas Soule was the Union cavalry officer who, at Sand Creek in 1864, ordered his men to hold fire and refuse…
-
Sand Creek Regional Greenway Trail
A near-13-mile creek-and-cottonwood corridor that threads straight through Denver's industrial north — past r…
-
Ninth Street Historic Park
Tucked into the middle of a sprawling commuter campus is one intact block of 1870s-1900s Victorian houses — m…
-
Castlewood Canyon Lucas Homestead Ruins
Most people drive out to Castlewood Canyon for the collapsed-dam ruins, never realizing a second, weirder rui…
-
Ubisububi Room (at the Thin Man Tavern)
Below the narrow Thin Man bar in Uptown there's a 35-seat cave lined with tapestries and Christmas lights tha…
-
Squirm Gallery
This small brick warehouse on Brighton was Rhinoceropolis — one of the most mythologized DIY spaces Denver ev…
-
Ante Up
Opened January 2026 by a husband-and-wife team, Ante Up is a totally substance-free all-ages punk/hardcore/em…
-
The DMV (Denver Music Venue)
A queer-run warehouse on a forgotten industrial block of Elyria-Swansea, the DMV exists for the sounds no LoD…
-
Creepatorium
A 4,000-sq-ft Baker warehouse the regulars call the Haus of Horrors, built by and for Denver's alt, horror, a…
-
D3 Arts
A nonprofit community arts-and-music space on Morrison Road in Westwood, one of Denver's most overlooked and…
-
Walker Mansion Ruins and Unfinished Summer White House
On Mount Falcon, tucked off the Castle Trail, sit the lightning-gutted stone bones of John Brisben Walker's 1…
-
Morrison Natural History Museum
This storefront-sized museum south of Morrison is so small you'd drive past it on the way to Red Rocks, but i…
-
The Electric Cure
Two service-industry veterans built a rum-and-tiki bar that answers the question 'what if a tropical bar fell…
-
Tower of Memories
Drive past Crown Hill Cemetery on Wadsworth and you'll see a 158-foot Gothic tower most people assume is off-…
-
African Grill and Bar
Tucked into a Kipling Parkway strip mall you'd blow right past, this is one of the few places in metro Denver…
-
Piggin' Out Smokehouse
From the road it's just a small red house on Morrison, which is exactly why people drive past quality brisket…
-
Garibaldi Mexican Bistro
Yes, the good Mexico City street food is inside the Conoco station next to an automated car wash on South Bro…
-
Alferd Packer's Grave
Colorado's only convicted cannibal is buried in plain sight in a front row of Littleton Cemetery, marked with…
-
Urban Burma
Tucked in a corner of the Mango House — a shared food hall built for resettled refugees on East Colfax — Urba…
-
Havana Street Night Markets
Once a month from late spring through September, the parking lot around Leezakaya on South Havana turns into…
-
Cold War Horse
On a lonely stretch of Highway 72 northwest of Denver, a life-size horse stands in an electric-red hazmat sui…
-
Bernard's Tiki Room
The Arvada Tavern is Olde Town's original cocktail bar, but the real secret is upstairs: Bernard's Tiki Room,…
-
National Eagle Repository
Inside the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge sits a nondescript federal building that is the on…
-
Odd Aly-Kat Emporium
Brighton's most unexpected new storefront: a 5,800-square-foot antique mall packed into a century-old Main St…
-
Edgar Experimental Mine
This isn't a tourist gold mine with fake gunfights — it's the Colorado School of Mines' actual working resear…
-
Georgetown Energy Museum
Tucked at the end of a Georgetown side street sits a hydroelectric plant that's been spinning since 1900 and…
-
Hamill House Museum
Everyone photographs the silver baron's restored Victorian mansion; almost no one clocks the real story out b…
-
Bread Bar
Take Exit 226 off I-70, one of the corridor's most-ignored, and you land in Silver Plume, population ~200, wh…
-
Hiwan Heritage Park & Museum (Hiwan Homestead)
Tucked in an old-growth ponderosa grove off a quiet Evergreen street is a 25-room log lodge that grew like a…
-
Cherokee Ranch & Castle
A genuine 15th-century-style Scottish stone castle rising from the Colorado prairie, Cherokee Ranch & Castle…
-
Wood Shark Trading Company
Founded in 2002 by Jim Corey and now run by his son Matt, Wood Shark Trading Company packs crystals, incense,…
-
Scileppi's at the Old Stone Church
Scileppi's is a family-owned Italian restaurant operating since 2018 inside an 1888 rhyolite-stone Catholic c…
-
B&B Cafe
The B&B Cafe has anchored downtown Castle Rock since 1946, and two bullet holes — one in the pressed-tin ceil…
-
Provision
Provision is a genuine 1920s-speakeasy-style craft cocktail bar on Castle Rock's historic Wilcox Street block…
-
Palmer Lake Star
Hand-built by volunteers in 1935 to lift Depression-era spirits, the Palmer Lake Star is a 457-foot-wide, fiv…
-
Castlewood Canyon Dam Ruins
The crumbling concrete shell of the 1890 Castlewood Dam still stands in two massive broken halves, the gap be…
-
Cantril School House
This 1897 Roman-arched stone schoolhouse — a National Register of Historic Places landmark purchased by the T…
-
The Estemere
The Estemere is a genuine 1887 Queen Anne Victorian mansion — 18 rooms, seven fireplaces, a billiard room wit…
-
A Sanctuary Center
A Sanctuary Center is a free, volunteer-maintained nonprofit sacred garden open sunrise to sunset daily, feat…
-
Devil's Head Lookout
Devil's Head is Colorado's last staffed fire lookout — a working ranger mans the historic 1912 tower from rou…
-
Lafayette Vampire Grave (Fodor Glava)
Teodor "Fodor" Glava, a Transylvanian coal miner who died in the 1918 flu pandemic, was buried here and becam…
-
License No. 1
License No. 1 is a dimly lit, Prohibition-era cocktail den in the basement of the historic Hotel Boulderado,…
-
The Speakeasy (Imperial Hotel basement)
The Speakeasy is a real, operating basement bar tucked beneath the 1881 Imperial Hotel (originally the Zweck…
-
Dickens Opera House
Built in 1881, this lovingly restored Victorian opera house is Longmont's most famously haunted landmark — em…
-
Seven Keys Lodge Key Room (formerly Baldpate Inn)
Built in 1917 and now operating as Seven Keys Lodge, this mountain inn's key room drips from ceiling to floor…
-
Old Firehouse Museum
This genuine one-room 1910 firehouse — credibly claimed to be the world's smallest museum — spent 24 years hi…
-
Redman (Trail of the Whispering Giants)
Redman is a 37-foot folk-art wooden head carved in 1979 from a fallen cottonwood by Hungarian-American artist…
-
The Lighthouse Bookstore
The Lighthouse Bookstore has anchored the Pearl Street Mall since 1986, filling two floors with metaphysical…
-
Medusa Gothic
Medusa Gothic is a Fort Collins boutique stocking gothic apparel, witchy jewelry, crystals, herbs, tarot deck…
-
Lyons Memorial Labyrinth
Built on the first anniversary of the catastrophic 2013 flood using rounded cobbles and boulders deposited by…
-
Saul the Sticker Ball (StickerGiant lobby)
Saul is a 231-pound Guinness World Record-holding ball built from over 171,000 stickers, named after Saul Goo…
-
Faces Bridge
Tucked beneath the Wilson Avenue bridge along the Big Thompson River trail, dozens of bronze faces — human, f…
-
Little Thompson Observatory
The Little Thompson Observatory is a fully volunteer-run public observatory on the Berthoud High School campu…
-
Niwot Tree Carvings (Eddie Running Wolf)
Three towering figures — Spear Lodge Man, The Eagle Catcher, and Cheyenne Holy Man — were carved from dead wi…
-
Mon Ami Salt Cave & Spa
Mon Ami Salt Cave & Spa is a real, operating wellness retreat in Loveland where 3,000 lbs of Himalayan salt b…
-
The Lyric
The Lyric is a genuine Fort Collins oddity: a locally owned cinema-bar-music venue that screens cult classics…
-
Eldorado Springs Pool & Artesian Spring
A genuine 1905 canyon resort fed by 6,000-year-old artesian water that runs a bracingly cool 76°F year-round,…
-
Charlie Tayler Water Wheel
Colorado's largest wooden waterwheel — all 30 feet of it — still turns beside a cascading waterfall, built in…
-
Hotel de Paris Museum
Built in 1875 by Louis Dupuy — an army deserter and culinary eccentric who imported French wines and fresh oy…
-
Central City Opera House
Built by Welsh and Cornish miners in 1878 and one of the oldest professional opera companies in the country,…
-
Mother Cabrini Shrine
A free, open-to-all mountaintop pilgrimage site where visitors climb 373 steps past the Stations of the Cross…
-
Buffalo Rose
The Buffalo Rose is genuinely Colorado's oldest bar, operating continuously since 1859, and its main venue si…
-
Tiny Town & Railroad
Built starting in 1915 by a moving-company owner for his daughter, Tiny Town is a genuine foothills curiosity…
-
Indian Hot Springs Geothermal Caves
Rock caves bored into the mountainside in the early 1900s form pitch-dark, steam-filled grottos where you soa…
-
Knights of Pythias Cemetery
A small, atmospheric hilltop cemetery belonging to the secretive Knights of Pythias fraternal order, where so…
-
The Face on the Barroom Floor
In 1936, Denver artist Herndon Davis — furious after a fight with his project director — snuck into the Telle…
-
Triceratops Trail
A free, 1.5-mile gravel trail through a reclaimed clay-mining canyon where 68-million-year-old Triceratops an…
-
Mount Falcon 'Summer White House' Ruins
At the end of Walker's Dream Trail sits a marble cornerstone and foundation — all that remains of John Brisbe…
-
Underhill Museum
The Underhill Museum preserves the Victorian home and office of Dr. James Underhill — a mining engineer and U…
-
Central City Masonic Cemetery (Woman in Black)
This 1860s gold-rush-era cemetery sits atop a knoll overlooking the mountain towns of Central City and Black…
-
Carousel of Happiness
Marine veteran Scott Harrison spent 26 years hand-carving 56 whimsical, one-of-a-kind animals — inspired by a…
-
Fifty-Two 80s: A Totally Awesome Shop
Crammed into 900 square feet on South Broadway, Fifty-Two 80s is equal parts retail shop, personal museum, an…
-
12 Spirits Tavern
Tucked into the carriage house basement of the 1891 Croke-Patterson Mansion — billed as one of Colorado's mos…
-
Rock Rest Lodge
Built in 1885 as a stagecoach stop and trading post, Rock Rest Lodge spent its early 20th century as a brothe…
-
National Ballpark Museum
One block from Coors Field, tucked into a 1,500-square-foot LoDo storefront, sits the only museum in the worl…
-
South Park Coney Island
Sitting on a grassy riverbank off Highway 285, this 42-foot hot-dog-shaped diner is one of the last surviving…
-
Forsythe Canyon Waterfall Trail
Everyone funnels into Boulder's marquee trails and never turns up Magnolia Road, which is exactly why this on…
-
Sleepy Lion Trail to Button Rock Dam
Most people aiming for "a hike near Boulder" never turn down the dirt road to Button Rock Preserve, which is…
-
Rattlesnake Gulch Trail
Eldorado Canyon is famous for its sandstone walls and the climbers dangling off them — so almost everyone clu…
-
Chief Mountain Trail
Most people barreling up I-70 toward the famous 14ers drive right past this one — and that's the gift. Chief…
-
Forgotten Valley Homestead Trail
Most Denver hikers blow past this one for the showier summits, and that's exactly the point. A flat 1.3 miles…
-
Mount Morrison South Ridge Trail
Everyone drives past this one. Mount Morrison is the jagged peak looming directly over Red Rocks Amphitheatre…
-
Mestaa'ehehe Mountain Fire Lookout
Almost everyone driving CO-103 toward Mount Blue Sky blows right past this one: a squat 14x14 granite cab rin…
-
RitualCravt
A coven-run, Indigenous-owned metaphysical shop and folk-magic school running since 2015, with a 200+ herb ap…
-
CC Oddities by Cera
An ethically sourced oddities and curiosities shop run by artist Cera, stocked with responsibly foraged or gi…
-
Ghost Saloon
A speakeasy hidden behind a welcome room in the former Green Russell space, connected to neighboring Disco Pi…
-
Herbs & Arts
A metaphysical healing sanctuary on Colfax since 1993, known for in-house ritual oils, incenses, and bath sal…
-
Dark Side of Denver Ghost Tours
An immersive paranormal walking tour that goes inside some of Denver's most haunted buildings, descends into…
-
Denver Immersive Repertory Theater (D.I.R.T.)
A resident immersive-theater venue whose debut, Midnight's Dream, sends masked, silent audiences wandering th…
-
Isak Heartstone
A 15-foot recycled-wood troll by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, built for the 2018 Breckenridge International Fe…
-
Nineteen 25
A hidden 1920s-styled venue in a former brothel-and-speakeasy, with sealed Prohibition-era tunnels in the bas…
-
Camp Hale–Continental Divide National Monument
Those concrete bunker ruins along the Eagle River aren't just 10th Mountain Division leftovers. From 1958 to…
-
House With the Eye Museum
In 1879, carpenter Eugene Robitaille worked a stained-glass all-seeing eye into his gable, and Leadville spen…
-
Interlaken Resort Ruins & Dexter Cabin
In 1883 a Leadville mining millionaire named James Dexter bought a luxury resort on the south shore of Twin L…
-
Minturn Saloon
The back bar came out of Missouri in the 1830s and did time in a Leadville brothel before the railroad hauled…
-
The Legendary Silver Dollar Saloon
Pouring since 1879, back when it was the Board of Trade and Doc Holliday dealt cards up front — his piano is…
-
Nomad Neon
Nomad Neon is a working neon studio that runs a six-hour beginner workshop where you actually melt and bend g…
-
Flux Studio
Flux is a working hot-glass studio and gallery in the RiNo arts district that lets visitors gather molten gla…
-
Hardy & Fuller
Hardy & Fuller is a Denver metal makerspace at 900 W. 1st Ave running forge, hammer, and anvil classes multip…
-
Fleur
Fleur runs a half-day stained glass workshop that walks beginners through the full copper-foil process in a s…
-
Ember & Stitch
Ember & Stitch is a leather studio in Denver's Santa Fe Arts District with a workshop space and a branding ba…
-
The Furnace: A Glassworks
The Furnace is a glassworks and gallery in Lakewood, about ten minutes from downtown Denver, that offers hand…
-
The Terrorium Shop (Terrorium Annex classroom)
This Denver oddities shop runs hands-on insect-pinning and taxidermy classes in a separate classroom space ca…
-
Cronk Art & Curiosities
Cronk Art & Curiosities is an insect-conservation-through-art shop in north Colorado Springs (1710 Briargate…
-
Akihabara Arcade and Bar
Akihabara is built around imported Japanese 'candy cabinets' you almost never see stateside, leaning into fig…
-
The 1Up Arcade Bar - Colfax
The Colfax 1Up is the largest of Denver's 1Up arcade bars and packs in one of Colorado's biggest collections…
-
Colorado Pinball Pub
This is a pinball-and-whiskey hybrid, pairing a wall of pinball and classic arcade games with a deep 200-plus…
-
Secret Level Arcade & Bar
Secret Level is an 80s-soaked arcade bar in walkable Olde Town Arvada, mixing pinball and retro cabinets with…
-
SomePlace Else Brewery
SomePlace Else is a dog-friendly 'brewcade' that has paired house-brewed beer with a mostly vintage pinball l…
-
HD Escape Rooms
HD's escape rooms are built into the basement of an actual 1889 Denver mansion, in the space where a real Pro…
-
Wynkoop Brewing Company Billiards Parlor
Wynkoop is Colorado's first brewpub (1988), founded by future governor John Hickenlooper, inside the 1899 J.S…
-
Pindustry
Pindustry is a two-level, 54,500-square-foot warehouse-style complex with the rare East Coast import of duckp…
-
Monster Mini Golf Denver
Monster Mini Golf is an indoor 18-hole course lit entirely by blacklight, so the monster-themed obstacles and…
-
Chamberlin Observatory (Denver Astronomical Society Public Nights)
Denver's historic red-sandstone Chamberlin Observatory still opens its dome on Tuesday and Thursday evenings,…
-
Fiske Planetarium Laser & Liquid Sky Shows
On CU Boulder's campus, Fiske runs a 65-foot dome (the largest between Chicago and Los Angeles), and after da…
-
Sommers-Bausch Observatory Open House Nights
On CU Boulder's main campus next to Fiske Planetarium, this working teaching observatory throws open its roof…
-
Smokey Jack Observatory & Wet Mountain Valley Dark Skies
Westcliffe and neighboring Silver Cliff form Colorado's first International Dark Sky Community, and the littl…
-
Rocky Mountain Paddleboard Full Moon Paddle
Once a month around the full moon, this outfitter launches themed night paddles onto Front Range reservoirs a…
-
88 Drive-In Theatre
The last original drive-in in the Denver metro, glowing on the plains north of the city since 1971 and now ro…
-
Adulti-Verse at Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Once a month Meow Wolf's four-story sci-fi dreamscape turns 21-plus for the evening, and you can roam its glo…
-
Smile High Tours Cannabis-Friendly Cheesman Park Ghost Tour
This isn't the standard lantern-walk ghost tour: you start inside a licensed cannabis lounge sampling strains…
-
Candlelight Concert at Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum
Fever's Candlelight series stages string-quartet evening concerts inside an actual air and space museum, so y…
-
Comanche Drive-In Theatre
Billed as the highest-elevation drive-in in the United States, Comanche sits three miles west of Buena Vista…
-
Glowing Wild at Denver Zoo
On select spring nights the zoo turns off the daylight routine and lights up as a lantern walk, with around 1…
-
Sweet Action Ice Cream
A beloved Denver scoop shop churning small-batch flavors that lean gleefully strange — Stranahan’s Colorado w…
-
The Jessie Mine and Mill
Dating back to the late 1880s, the Jessie Mine and Mill was once one of the largest gold, silver, and lead mi…
-
7:30 Mine
The 7:30 Mine is an abandoned 19th-century silver mine perched on the cliffs above Silver Plume, Colorado. Na…
-
Sallie Barber Mine
Established in the 1880s, the Sallie Barber Mine was a prominent zinc and lead producer that operated intermi…
-
Old Town Mine
Located in the historic Russell Gulch mining district, the Old Town Mine was one of the most consistently pro…
-
Historic Tallman Homestead
Located in the secluded 'Forgotten Valley' of Golden Gate Canyon State Park, this historic homestead was esta…
-
The Birch Ruins
Perched on a rocky outcropping in the Knoll-Willows Open Space, these stone ruins are all that remain of a bu…
Unusual things to do in Denver — FAQ
What are some unusual things to do in Denver?
225 hand-vetted weird spots — like Lincoln's, Cat Alley (Alley Cats by Kelly Monico), Crawford Hotel Lost & Found Wall — plus oddity shops, hidden bars, haunted history, sound baths, and offbeat outdoor finds. Every one is real and sourced, not a top-ten landmark.
Where can you go for a weird date night in Denver?
Try Lincoln's, Cat Alley (Alley Cats by Kelly Monico), Crawford Hotel Lost & Found Wall — strange-but-real spots that make a memorable date. Filter by neighborhood, vibe, or how far you'll drive: in town, nearby, or a day trip.
What's a weird thing to do in Denver tonight or this weekend?
For tonight, filter to "in town" and low-key picks; for the weekend, the day-trip ring opens up genuinely strange spots a short drive out. Start with Lincoln's, Cat Alley (Alley Cats by Kelly Monico), Crawford Hotel Lost & Found Wall — and sort by how far you're willing to go.
Are there free or cheap weird things to do in Denver?
Yes — 141 Denver spots are free or low-cost, like Lincoln's, Cat Alley (Alley Cats by Kelly Monico), Crawford Hotel Lost & Found Wall. Roadside oddities, public art, and outdoor curiosities usually cost nothing.
How is this different from the usual Denver tourist lists?
We skip the landmarks everyone knows. An agentic research system digs up the genuinely hidden, offbeat spots — the local secrets even locals miss — and verifies each against real sources before it makes the list.