Travel Guide: My Best Tips For Traveling To Vail, Colorado

We just got back from a fun trip to Vail, Colorado! We hadn’t been on a vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon so it was really nice to get away together. I would be remiss if I didn’t take this time to share a travel guide to Vail with you guys. If you’ve never been to Vail before, I’ve got some important tips for you so keep reading!

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Travel Guide To Vail: Tip #1 Altitude sickness

You’ve heard people say it’s harder to breathe in Colorado. For certain people, that’s the understatement of the year! It affects everybody differently, but for my husband, it was awful. I was affected too but not as much as him. He really struggled to sleep! We did not do very much research before choosing Vail, so we didn’t realize that it’s one of the places with the highest altitude! Upon further research, we found that you should visit places like Denver or Colorado Springs before making the jump straight to Vail.

Luckily, there are companies like Alpine Oxygen that let you rent oxygen machines for your hotel room. After our first night, which was a major struggle, we ordered one for the rest of our trip! They deliver it straight to your hotel room and it’s really easy to set up. We used the oxygen the next night and we felt really great the next day. It made the trip 10x better! It takes a couple of days for your body to adjust and that sped up the process so we could enjoy our trip.

If you do experience a little bit of altitude sickness, the advice we got was to treat it like a hangover! Drink Pedialyte and stay hydrated. We also noticed eating junky foods, like sodas and cheese fries, made us feel better. Lol!

They also sell little oxygen cans everywhere, which look like Febreeze bottles that you can stick in your bag when you’re walking around! They help a lot, too. Make sure to take lots of breaks as you’re walking around, because your body gets winded a lot faster. We just took it slow!

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Travel Guide To Vail: Tip #2 Free Bus System

The coolest thing about the little community of Vail is that they offer a free bus service throughout the long stretch of shopping/food/etc. There are mini communities all throughout Vail and it would have been a crazy long walk if we did it all on foot. We loved being able to hop on a bus and ride 5 minutes down the street and hop out for dinner! Especially since we were struggling to breathe half the time! Haha!

There is another bus system that goes out of Vail – that is what we took to and from the airport. It is only $4 which was great! We saved so much money not renting a car, and I don’t regret it one bit! There is plenty to do and see within Vail without feeling any need to travel elsewhere. We were there from Thursday-Sunday which was the perfect amount of time. If you’re going for a week or longer, you might want to include another city like Breckenridge or Denver, but we were totally fine relaxing in Vail for our entire trip.

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Travel Guide To Vail: Tip #3 Where We Stayed

I absolutely fell in LOVE with Gravity Haus. It was so warm and cozy, and since it’s a smaller hotel it felt really homey. The staff was unbelievably helpful, especially with us Alabamians being wimpy about the altitude!

There is a restaurant, The Slope Room, and a coffee shop, Unraveled Coffee, right inside the hotel lobby.

The best part is, this hotel is smack in the middle of everything so it was super easy to walk to dinner or to the shops nearby. We came back to our room several times throughout the day to rest, or change into warmer clothes as the temps dropped, and it was very convenient to be able to do that.

Gravity Haus has several other locations and if we travel to Colorado again, those would be my top choice!

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Travel Guide To Vail: Tip #4 Where To Eat

There are several restaurants that offer gluten free items! We ate at El Segundo for lunch when we arrived and it was really yummy Mexican food. The chips and salsa are amazing! Blue Moose Pizza does a great GF pizza. The Big Bear Bistro had delicious GF bread for any of their sandwiches. We ate lunch one day at The Red Lion and I got the biggest nachos I’ve ever seen!

We found a really cool place underneath a hotel called The George where we ate wings and watched football. We had the whole place to ourselves it felt like!

The Four Seasons has the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. They bring it to you with some sort of chocolate lattice and a marshmallow sitting on top. They pour the hot chocolate over it until eventually the chocolate melts and the marshmallow falls in! It’s so fun and tastes amazing. It is not cheap, though! We shared one because it was so rich, we hardly even finished just one. We would never have finished two of them. It’s an experience you can’t miss!

Travel Guide To Vail: Tip #5 Take It All In

There are so many gorgeous views everywhere you turn. If you are a photography/videography lover like we are, you will have so much fun capturing the scenery. We truly enjoyed walking around the trails behind our hotel and stopping for every single photo op. It’s a beautiful place! There are a lot of benches everywhere to stop and enjoy the views. We loved getting a coffee or hot chocolate and sitting together on a bench near the water. I will treasure those sweet memories forever!