Where to Stay in Boulder, Colorado

What is Boulder known for?

Boulder is known as a university city in Colorado, built around the campus of the University of Colorado. The campus carries much of the city's cultural life, from the Fiske Planetarium to the CU Art Museum and the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Beyond the campus, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the Boulder History Museum add to the mix.

A ring of preserved early houses records the older town. Learning shapes the place.

What are the main landmarks in Boulder?

Boulder gathers its landmarks between the University of Colorado campus and the old town. On campus stand the Fiske Planetarium, the CU Art Museum, the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, and the CU Heritage Center. In the town beside it, the Boulder History Museum and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art tell the city's story and show its art.

Early houses survive too. The Arnett-Fullen House, the Hannah Barker House, the Squires-Tourtellot House, the Woodward-Baird House, and the First Baptist Church of Boulder remain from the nineteenth-century town.

What is the history of Boulder?

Boulder was founded in 1858 in Colorado. It began as a small supply town for the diggings of the gold-rush years, and the houses of that first generation still stand along its streets, a record of the settlement that grew up after 1858. The Arnett-Fullen House, the Hannah Barker House, and the David Hull Holmes House survive from the years when the town was young.

Older homes remain. Nearby, the Woodward-Baird House and the Nelson House keep company with them from the same early decades. The arrival of the University of Colorado changed the town's course.

Around the growing campus Boulder shifted from a mining supply point to a university city, and learning came to define it. Two older markers survive that change: the First Baptist Church of Boulder and the Squires-Tourtellot House. As the university drew scholars and students, the city gained its museums, among them the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and the Boulder History Museum, which now keep the long record of how the place began and what it became.

Where is Boulder?

Boulder lies inland in Colorado, on the high, dry ground that runs across the state. The city sits well above sea level, on the elevated plain where the land begins to rise, and the thin, clear air of that height marks the place. Altitude defines it.

The University of Colorado campus and the historic town spread across gently sloping ground, and from the streets the wider Colorado country opens out around the built-up centre of Boulder.

What is the climate of Boulder?

Boulder has a dry, sunny climate typical of the high country of Colorado. Its altitude brings cold, snowy winters and warm summers with cool nights, and the air stays clear and thin through much of the year. Sunshine is constant.

Sharp swings between day and night, and between the seasons, shape the calendar at this height on the elevated Colorado plain where Boulder stands.

How do you get to Boulder?

Boulder is reached mainly by road, connected across Colorado by the highways that cross the state. Drivers arrive from the larger cities of the region along these roads, and buses run the same corridors into the heart of the city. The route is straightforward.

The nearest major airport lies a drive away across the Colorado plain, and from it the highways carry travellers up to Boulder and the University of Colorado campus at its centre.