Free Things to Do in Boulder

A free day in Boulder can quietly turn into a thirty dollar one. The trails cost nothing to walk, but the parking permit does. The reservoir looks free until you learn it charges per person, walkers included, for seven months of the year. So this list has a column most free-things-to-do pages leave out.

Boulder's trails are free to walk. Where it costs money is the car, and the rule turns on where your vehicle is registered.

If your vehicle is not registered in Boulder County, you need a permit to park at Flagstaff Mountain, Gregory Canyon, Doudy Draw, Flatirons Vista, Greenbelt Plateau, Marshall Mesa, South Boulder Creek West, or South Mesa. It is $5 for a day or $25 for a year. Which means a rental car pays and a local does not, at the same trailhead, on the same afternoon.

Chautauqua is its own system. Parking there is free on weekdays and free through fall, winter and spring. It costs $2.50 an hour only on summer weekends and holidays, which in 2026 means May 23 through September 7.

Three ways to pay nothing:

• Go on a weekday. Chautauqua's paid parking never applies Monday through Friday.
• Take the free summer shuttle. The city's Park-to-Park shuttle runs every 30 minutes, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., weekends and holidays, May 23 to September 7 in 2026, from downtown garages where the parking is also free. The one exception is the 11th and Spruce garage, closed for construction this season.
• Start somewhere off the fee list. Centennial Trailhead, which serves Mount Sanitas, is not among the city's listed fee locations.

Full detail on every trailhead in the outdoors guide.

This is the part of free Boulder that gets overlooked, probably because the two museums everyone names both charge.

• CU Art Museum, in the Visual Arts Complex on campus. Free, no ticket, donations welcome. Groups of ten or more need to book two weeks ahead. Typically closed on Saturdays with a daytime home football game.
• The Dairy Arts Center galleries, at 26th and Walnut. Free and open daily from noon to 6 p.m. The cinema and theatre are ticketed, but the galleries are not.
• BMoCA, at 1750 13th Street. Pay what you want, in their words "whether it's one penny or one hundred dollars, you pick your admission fee." A $1 minimum applies only on card payments.

Add NCAR's Mesa Lab, which charges nothing for admission, nothing for parking, and nothing for its guided tours at noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The catch there is access, not money: there is no public transit up the mesa, and the nearest bus stop is a 2.1 mile walk with 610 feet of climbing.

The Pearl Street Mall is four car-free blocks between 11th and 15th, and it is legally a city park, so wandering it costs nothing. The street performers you will hear are all acoustic, because the city bans amplification on the mall. Just know the park rules: no dogs, no bicycles, no skateboards, and no smoking.

The Boulder Creek Path runs 5.5 paved miles from Boulder Canyon on the west end out to the Stazio Ballfields past 55th Street, passing the main library, the Civic Area and the Dushanbe Teahouse. Flat, free, stroller-friendly, and the one Boulder outdoor experience with no parking problem at all if you start from downtown.

And the Boulder Farmers Market at 13th and Canyon costs nothing to walk through, Saturdays April through November and Wednesdays May through October. No pets, service animals only.

Downtown Boulder runs three free recurring events, all on the 1300 block of Pearl in front of the county courthouse. Bands on the Bricks is a free outdoor concert series on Wednesday evenings in early summer, June 10 to July 29 in 2026. The Pearl Street Stampede is a free CU pep rally at 7 p.m. the night before each home football game, led by a 1948 fire truck. Switch on the Holidays lights the mall and the courthouse on a Sunday in late November, the 22nd in 2026. The Pearl Street Arts Fest takes the third weekend of July.

More seasonal detail in the this weekend guide.

Most of the free outdoor options are covered properly in the outdoors guide, the free museums in the Pearl Street and museums guide, and the indoor ones in the rainy day guide. The full Boulder guide covers every other category.