Start from 42 curated places around Vail, CO, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Sweet Basil
Forty-plus years on Bridge Street and still one of the best meals in the valley — caviar-topped lobster donut, whipped feta, Iberian pork, and one of Colorado's best wine cellars. The Vail institution that keeps the bar where the bar is.
La Nonna
Date-night Italian on Meadow Drive built on olive-oil-dipped focaccia, hand-cut pastas, and grilled Spanish octopus. Quiet enough to talk; loud enough to celebrate.
Trails & outdoors
Booth Falls Trail
4-mile round-trip from East Vail to a 60-foot waterfall — popular for a reason, with aspen groves, meadow benches, and a payoff cascade. Trail continues to Booth Lake for a longer day.
Pitkin Lake Trail
9-mile round-trip from East Vail to an alpine lake at 11,400 feet — quieter than Booth, steeper, and prettier. The locals' choice when Booth Falls fills up.
Things to do
Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater
2,500-seat outdoor concert venue in Ford Park — Vail Dance Festival, free Hot Summer Nights concerts, headliners during GoPro Mountain Games. Open-air with a roof over the stage.
Colorado Snowsports Museum
Free museum in the parking structure between Vail Village and Lionshead — Colorado ski history, 10th Mountain Division gear, and an Olympic medalists gallery. Quietly excellent.
Landmarks & sights
Betty Ford Alpine Gardens
Highest-elevation botanical garden in the world at 8,200 feet — 19 themed alpine gardens with marked walking paths, free admission, and a 1922 schoolhouse education center. Open dawn to dusk, every day of the year.
Vail Village
Bavarian-alpine pedestrian center built in the 1960s as a planned ski-resort village — cobblestone Bridge Street, fountain plaza, and chalet-style buildings. The aesthetic is constructed but committed; it's worked for 60 years.