Family Adventure Guide: Where to camp, play, hike and explore in Colorado Springs

Where to camp, play, hike and explore in Colorado Springs, Colorado! Family Adventure Guide Part 1 of 5 in this series!

I have searched countless times for “family friendly camping in Colorado” or “family friendly hikes in Colorado Springs” or “kid friendly off-road trails” only to turn up empty handed and nothing in my notebook of “Great Ideas.”

In this 5 part series of our Colorado Springs Family Adventure Guide, I am going to outline a good place to camp with kids, a great playground that feels safe, a family-friendly hike and an off-road trails that the kids will love!

Most of these locations will be in Colorado Springs or surrounding areas. Those of you that have been hanging around us for a while know that we LOVE Woodland Park & Green Mountains Falls. So yes, there will be places in that area too.

Where to Camp in Colorado Springs

There aren’t many nice, clean, safe, classy places to camp in Colorado Springs. AND I don’t like to recommend staying at places that I haven’t stayed at before.

Garden of the Gods RV Resort is nice, clean and safe feeling. Parts of Highway 24 were sketchy with the amount of homeless camps set up. But over the past 2 years they have dwindled down to almost nothing. I feel comfortable suggesting this RV Park because the area has cleaned up. This RV park isn’t on Highway 24 and it’s very clean and well kept. The surrounding neighborhoods are very nice. The proximity to Garden of the Gods is amazing too.

Amenities:

• 2 heated pools
• Arcade and game room
• General store
• Free wifi
• Can accommodate large rigs (the site doesn’t specify this but we have seen very large Class A’s there, I would call to double check)
• Playground
• Laundry (They have HOT driers. I may have shrunk a load of laundry!)
• Lodging options: Cabin rentals and RV spots

Where to Play in Colorado Springs

Gateway Park is a park that is next to an Elementary school. There is a bathroom there, but it’s a porta potty. We, of course, needed to use it and it was clean at that time. Since the playground is next to a school, you are unable able to play on it during school hours.

The playground is wooden which adds an extra fun element to it. The kids refer to it as the wooden castle park.

Where to Hike in Colorado Springs

Siamese Twins Trail at Garden of the Gods is a great family friendly hike. It’s only 1/2 a mile round trip. There are a lot of “steps/stairs” while you hike up to the rocks, but they are very doable with toddlers and grandparents. The elevation gain is only 104 feet. Not bad when there are “nature” stairs on the trail.

Anyone who comes to visit us, we try to take them on this trail. My flatline Floridian family members complete this hike just fine. 😉

Where to Explore near Colorado Springs

Hotel Gulch/Winding Staircase Loop is the kids favorite Jeep trail. This Jeep trail used to be in the FunTreks book, but the newest edition doesn’t have this trail in it.

What make this trail fun for kids: The rock formations that they can climb on. There are several places on the trail that you can pull over and get out to explore. That is what we like to do. There is also a pond on the right side of the trail going in, that we’ve seen a mama and baby moose.

On Winding Staircase Loop there are very large rock formations that we have lunch on and explore. If you watch the YouTube video linked above, about 4:40 minutes in, you’ll see the rock formations.

Copy and paste the GPS Coordinates for this trail into OnX, GAIA or Google Maps to get directions to the trail head. 39.09889, -105.09611

Wrapping up part 1 of the Family Adventure Guide in Colorado Springs

If you are planning a family trip to Colorado Springs or you live here and want to find a good off road trail you can take the kids on, this guide will help you!

Check out Part 2 of the Family Adventure Guide!!!

Happy Trails!