In September I traveled around the US for about 2 weeks. I initially purchased a flight to visit my friend in Austin, Texas but found that the flight included a one night layover in Denver. In the end I thought it would actually be kind of cool to spend a night in a new state (I had never visited Colorado before). I had no idea what to expect as the only thing I knew about Colorado was that it was one of the first states to legalize recreational marijuana…

I got into Denver quite late, unfortunately, arriving to the AirBnB around 5-6 PM. My flight was also early the next day, so I only had maybe 4-5 hours to explore the city. The host was nice enough to give me a ride to downtown Denver.

How to Spend an Overnight Layover in Denver, Colorado

16th Street Mall

My host dropped me off at the 16th Street Mall, which is actually a one-mile long street of restaurants and stores.

They have a free shuttle that you can take up and down the street. Here’s a picture I took of a drunk girl riding it…

Poke at Menya Noodle Bar

I decided to grab some Asian food so I picked up some avocado poke and kimchi fried rice. They were delicious!

Arcade at the Mall

I checked out this arcade at the mall. It was kind of like our version of Dave & Buster’s. They had bars next door and arcade games that you can play with point cards you swipe.

The mall is pretty nice!

Concerts

Unfortunately there wasn’t time for me to check out any concerts, but SZA was playing the night I was there. A bunch of awesome R&B artists were actually performing in Denver when I checked, so this may be something worth checking out :).

Dispensaries…

And if you really want to, cannabis is legal here!

Conclusion

I didn’t do that much in Denver as you can tell, but I wanted to give some quick recommendations in case you are only there for a few hours. Please comment if you have any other good recommendations!