Anyone driving to a trail
Trailhead parking and fees
Four different authorities charge for parking at Boulder trailheads, and one permit does not cover all of them. Every lot in one table, plus the three legitimate ways to pay nothing.
The printable guides
Five one-page guides, built from the same checked sources as the rest of the site. Read them here, or take the PDF. No email needed for either.
Last checked: August 2026
Each of these started as a question we got tired of seeing answered badly: what does parking actually cost, what will a day here really run to, where can the dog go. They are free, and they stay free. The PDFs are the same content laid out to fit one page, so you can print it or keep it on your phone when the signal goes.
Anyone planning a budget
What a day in Boulder actually costs
Real numbers for a day here, from parking and coffee to dinner and a drink, at three honest spending levels. No 'from' prices that nobody pays.
First-time visitors
48 hours in Boulder
An hour-by-hour weekend plan that accounts for how long things actually take, including the drive and the parking, so you are not rushing between two things that were never compatible.
Families
Boulder with kids, free and cheap
What genuinely works with children, sorted by age and by weather, with the free options first because most of the best ones are free.
Dog owners
The dog owner's Boulder rulebook
Where dogs can go off-leash, where they cannot go at all, what the green tag scheme actually requires, and the seasonal closures that catch people out.
Why these are not behind a form
Because the whole point is that the information is right. Putting a checked parking fee behind an email form hides it from search engines and from the AI assistants people increasingly ask first, which would make it useless to the person standing in the lot wondering whether they owe $5. If you want to hear from us, the weekly note below is the thing to sign up for, and it is a separate decision from taking a guide.