USA Sherpa

One thing everyone agrees on is that beautiful Telluride knows how to party. Nestled in a remote box canyon in the San Juan Mountains toward the southern end of the Rockies, the city came into being as a mining outpost in the 1870s. A hundred years later, it turned over a new leaf as a champagne powder ski resort. Now a scenic gondola connects the ski area’s chic Mountain Village resort with the original, largely preserved Victorian town below (the whole hamlet enjoys National Landmark status), and fun rages from sunup to well after sundown, 365 days a year.

Off the slopes, visitors hike, bike, snowshoe, camp, fish, kayak, golf, ice-skate and rock-climb, depending on the season. But what really sets good-time Telluride apart from other well-heeled mountain retreats are its festivals. The town-wide party season kicks off in June with an internationally renowned balloon rally, when hundreds of the humongous contraptions take to the air at sunrise. After that, multi-day fests come fast and furious throughout summer and fall. Among the top draws: Bluegrass, Wild West, Wine, Jazz and Mushroom. By the time the world-class Telluride Film Festival pulls up stakes in September, fresh powder typically blankets the peaks. That’s the way they like it in Telluride: Every season flows seamlessly into the next, with never any doldrums between.