Top Things to Do in Fort Collins, CO

Go on the New Belgium Brewery tour

A trip to New Belgium Brewing is a must when visiting Fort Collins. The brewery offers free, guided tours for guests 21 and over that include tastings of some of their most popular beers.

New Belgium is one of the largest craft breweries in the United States, brewing more than 350,000 barrels of beer every year. They are also dedicated to sustainable practices such as recycling spent grain and water conservation; in fact, they use 50% less water than the industry standard to brew their beer.

Tour Times: Monday through Saturday: 10:00am – 6:00pm (tours depart every half hour), Sunday 12:00pm-5:30pm (tours depart every half hour)

Address: 500 Linden Street

Costs/What’s Included? Free tasting tickets for up to 3 beers at the end of your tour! You will have plenty of time on your tour to decide which three beers you’d like to try. For those who are non-drinkers or underage guests, we offer free root beer and juice samples throughout the tour!

Hike

There are wonderful hiking trails accessible literally within the city limits. Horsetooth Mountain Park and Lory State Park are great places to get more than just a toe-dip in nature.

It’s $7 per day to enter each park, but if you’re planning on spending a lot of time in the outdoors during your visit, it’s worth buying the season pass for $70—that will get you into all of Colorado’s state parks for free all year long.

Horsetooth Mountain Park has some steeper trails that will challenge you and reward with amazing views from the top, including panoramic views of the city, plains, and mountains.

Bike the Mason Trail

Biking the Mason Trail should be on your to-do list if you’re visiting Fort Collins. The trail is six miles long and paved, making it perfect for a leisurely bike ride. Plus, the trail connects Old Town Fort Collins to the foothills, so you can enjoy beautiful scenery while biking!

There are bathrooms at the north end of the trail in Lee Martinez Park. You don’t have to bring your own bikes with you—you can rent bikes at the Old Town Bike Shop near the south end of the trail near Laporte Avenue.

Tour Old Town by bike

Fort Collins is a bike-friendly town, and one of the best ways to take in the sights downtown is to rent bikes from a local shop and tour Old Town. This historical district is home to many restaurants and shops, so it’s also a great place for people watching. And since it’s all out in the open, you can bring your dog or stop by when it’s raining.

You can rent bikes from around $8 an hour (and $1 additional per hour after that). If you’re renting for just one day, though, you might want to consider something more like a $24 daily rate—which comes with free parking!

So get on those wheels and see what Old Town has to offer.

Rent a stand-up paddleboard

You can rent stand-up paddleboards near Horsetooth reservoir. The rates are reasonable for an hour or for a full day, and you can rent just one or completely outfit your whole family. You’ll have a blast paddling down the river or floating on Horsetooth Reservoir; it’s not uncommon to see people fishing from their paddleboards.

You can do a lot of amazing things in Fort Collins without ever leaving town.

When we first moved to Fort Collins, I was skeptical about how much fun you could have in a city that small; it seemed like the kind of place where you could easily get bored and busy for a few days. But the more time I spend here, the more I enjoy the unique mix of people and activities (even the simple things like finding the best hammock spot in my backyard) that make up this town. The way my life is organized now is all thanks to living in a small town; there’s little traffic, no one-hour waits at grocery stores, no need to be anywhere other than home and work—and, best of all, there are enough things to do that when I’m not working or busy with friends, I never feel bored.