Longmont

Last checked: August 8, 2026

The free parks, which is most of them

Button Rock Preserve

Walk-in only, along North St Vrain Creek, with two reservoirs, hiking and fly fishing. Free. Dogs have been banned here since May 15, 2023, which is a change from what older guides say, and the single most likely thing to ruin a Boulder family's morning. The lot holds 60 cars and closes when full. The northwest corner shuts December through March for elk. Bears, mountain lions and rattlesnakes are genuinely present. Fishing Ralph Price Reservoir needs its own permit.

McIntosh Lake

1929 Harvard Street. A 3.5-mile loop around the water, shoreline fishing, carry-in boats only. Free, dogs on leash. No swimming, and life jackets are required for everyone on the water, mandatory for children 12 and under.

Golden Ponds

2651 3rd Avenue. Eighty-eight acres, four ponds, 2.6 miles of trail, an accessible fishing pier, and the western trailhead of the St Vrain Greenway. Herons and cormorants. Free, dogs on leash. The easiest of these to do with anyone who doesn't want a climb.

Sandstone Ranch

3001 Highway 119. A 313-acre park with ball fields, an Adventure Playground built for climbing, digging and splashing, and a lighted 17,700 square foot skate park with a street course and vert, free, dawn to dusk. The visitor center is a house first homesteaded in 1860 and on both state and national registers. The best thing on this page for families with older children.

Museums and art

The Longmont Museum at 400 Quail Road is $8 for adults, $5 for students and seniors, free for children 3 and under. Its permanent exhibit covers 14,000 years of the St Vrain Valley, and the attached Stewart Auditorium runs film, concert and talk series. We saw a third-party claim of penny admission on first Saturdays and a 25 cent rate for Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cardholders; we couldn't confirm either on the museum's own page, so ask rather than counting on it. There's no planetarium here, whatever you may have read.

The Firehouse Art Center at 667 4th Avenue is always free, with a dozen or more exhibitions a year. It's the anchor of the Longmont Creative District and the best free hour in town. It also runs the ceramics classes on our pottery and jewelry page.

The Callahan House at 312 Terry Street is an 1892 Queen Anne Victorian, free to walk through during open houses. Worth knowing why: Thomas Callahan founded the Golden Rule Stores, and a young employee of his named J.C. Penney went on to found his own chain. That's a real thread of American retail history running through a Longmont front parlor.

Downtown, and the parking

Parking downtown is free. Every public lot, every on-street space. Time limits are enforced only Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm, and there are no limits at all at weekends or on city holidays. The Roosevelt Park lot at Coffman and 8th is free all day, every day, with no time limit. After Boulder, that alone is a reason to point the car north.

Free summer concerts run on Fridays at 4th and Kimbark; the 2026 season opened May 29. A ticketed Wine Walk takes in about two dozen downtown businesses, though the organizer's page was still showing 2025 information when we checked, so the 2026 date is unconfirmed.

The breweries, and a correction

Four serious ones, close together. Left Hand at 1265 Boston Avenue, of Milk Stout Nitro fame. Wibby at 209 Emery Street, German-style lager specialists who have been named brewery of the year in their class at the Great American Beer Festival. 300 Suns at 335 1st Avenue, locally owned.

And Oskar Blues, whose Tasty Weasel taproom at 1640 S Sunset Street sits at their main Colorado production brewery. Oskar Blues is routinely described as a Lyons brewery. The brewing is in Longmont. It started in Lyons as a brewpub in 1997 and that restaurant is still there, but the beer is made here.

Events, including one that isn't where you think

The Boulder County Fair is in Longmont, at the fairgrounds on Nelson Road, not in Boulder. It's the oldest county fair in Colorado, with free live music and a paid carnival. People assume the name is the location every year.

The Longmont Farmers Market runs Saturday mornings from April 4 to November 21, 2026 at the fairgrounds, free to enter with free parking and more than a hundred growers-only vendors. Rhythm at Roosevelt, the city's largest free summer event, moved from Roger's Grove and now runs at Roosevelt Park; the 2026 date had not been posted when we checked.

Niwot, worth twenty minutes on the way

An unincorporated community southwest of Longmont with a compact historic strip on Second Avenue. The first commercial building went up in 1905, most of the rest by 1915, and it includes the oldest operating Grange in Colorado. Boulder County designated it a historic district in 1993.

The Niwot Sculpture Park is free, with rotating juried work on loan from local and international artists, mountain views, a playground and restrooms. Just west of it on Niwot Road are tree carvings by the late Eddie Running Wolf. Whistlestop Park hosts the Rock and Rails summer music series beside the railway line, with a historic caboose and a bandstand. The name Niwot means Left Hand, after the Southern Arapaho leader, and the town has hidden left-hand chairs around it for people to find.

Two live caveats. A Second Avenue closure was reported to be frustrating businesses in late 2025, so expect possible disruption, and there's an active 2026 effort to incorporate Niwot as its own city. Neither was resolved when we checked.

What's free

The Firehouse Art Center, all downtown parking, the Friday summer concerts, Rhythm at Roosevelt, McIntosh Lake, Golden Ponds, Button Rock, Sandstone Ranch and its skate park, and the Callahan House open houses. Union Reservoir is the one park here that charges.

What we couldn't confirm, and what has changed

Unconfirmed: the museum's discount admission days, Sandstone Ranch shelter rental fees, Get Air trampoline park pricing, Callahan House rental rates, Longmont Symphony ticket prices, and 2026 dates for both Rhythm at Roosevelt and the Wine Walk. Kids Galaxy we couldn't verify is still operating at all, so it's deliberately absent rather than listed.

Changed: Twin Peaks Mall no longer exists under that name. It was redeveloped into Village at the Peaks at 1250 S Hover Street. If you're searching for the mall, that's what you're looking for.

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