When we were at Rocky Mountain National Park last summer, we were pleasantly surprised by how cute and fun the gateway community of Estes Park was! There is tons of shopping and restaurants in this cute little town just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.

How to Get to Estes Park:

Estes Park is located just outside of the East entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. You basically have to drive through it to get into the park from the East side. If you’re coming from the West side of the park, you will have to drive all the way through the park and then you will exit into Estes Park on the other side.

What to do in Estes Park:

In Estes Park there are quite a few things to do. First off, there are lots of shops and stores to shop for souvenirs or other fun travel items. There are also a handful of outdoor stores in case you forget anything when you’re camping or hiking.

In addition to shopping, there are quite a few restaurants and sweet/treat shops. We cooked at our campsite or had picnic lunches in the park so we didn’t really eat anywhere except stopping to get ice cream one evening when it was super hot.

There are also a lot of adventure-type shops in Estes Park. There are places you can set up all kinds of different tours to take you through the park and the surrounding area as well as shops that sell adventure-type gear in case you forgot anything or need to replace any equipment while you’re in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Sum Up:

Estes Park is one of our favorite gateway communities! It is a really fun place to spend an evening when you’re tired from the park. There are lots of great shops and the downtown area is very walkable. Parking can be hard to find, but we were able to park kind of in the middle of downtown fairly easily in one of the public parking lots and then walk up and down the main street without too much trouble. To see more of Estes Park, check out our Youtube video on our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.