Estes Park, CO
Where Should We Go for Our Anniversary Trip?
Exploring a National Park seemed like the perfect idea for two introverts. The Redwoods in California? Glacier National Park in Montana? Or Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park? After planning a nine-day trip, including two travel days, we realized the Redwoods might not provide enough activities to fill our days, and early October in Glacier National Park is already freezing cold. So, Colorado it was! We had never been to Colorado before, and we always enjoy experiencing fall during our early October anniversary.
Heading to the Rocky Mountains: What Do We Need to Know?
What will the weather be like? What should we pack? And most importantly (for two picky eaters), how’s the food? As we started planning, we quickly realized that our usual spontaneous travel style wouldn’t cut it this time. Rocky Mountain National Park introduced a permit system during the COVID era, which seems to be a permanent fixture. The park’s growing popularity has necessitated a system to manage visitor access during peak times, especially for the most popular area: Bear Lake Road.
As a landscape and wildlife photographer, I knew I needed to plan carefully to ensure I could access the best spots at the right times. While we won’t go into the full details of the permit system here, we highly recommend reviewing the park’s website, recreation.gov, to prepare for your trip.
Our Plan: Permits, Daily Itinerary, and Flexibility
In this blog series, we’ll share our day-by-day itinerary, including the permits we purchased and our backup plans. If you follow our approach, you’ll have a practical guide that aligns with the park’s permit rules. Whether you’re visiting for photography, hiking, or simply soaking in the views, our plan will help you make the most of your trip.
While some say three days is enough to experience the park, we spent seven full days in the Estes Park area—five of them exploring the main sections of Rocky Mountain National Park. Honestly, we could have stayed even longer!
What’s Next?
In our upcoming posts, we’ll break down each day of our trip, sharing the highlights, lessons learned, and insights to help you plan your own adventure. Hopefully, you’ll avoid some of the mistakes we made. We even used Excel pivot tables to organize everything—so you won’t have to!
To start, check out our post on the basics of getting to the park. Each blog entry will outline the primary permits we secured for that day.
Note: If you’d rather skip the detailed day-by-day posts, you can download our Site Map, Planner Tool and Instructional Guide to leverage to immediately begin planning your trip.
