Christmas Wish List: Perfect Stocking Stuffers for Travelers Under $25

I remember my first trip to Telluride.

I was heading to Towaoc, Colorado for a remote job. I’d recently met two of my colleagues at the Denver Airport, who boarded a tiny aircraft with me to cross the Rockies.

Right as the plane rose above the mountains, we were met with a wall of dark storm clouds.

Cue a cinematic amount of turbulence. Cue my maniacal laughter (this was the day I learned I’m one of those people who cackles in the face of death). Cue flashing lights across the control board.

Despite the dramatic moment, the plane eventually landed in Telluride. I remember looking around and feeling like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz; spit out of a tornado and transported into a fairytale.

Or, more appropriately, a Hallmark movie set. Telluride is home to a historic main street framed by gorgeous mountains and lined with unique restaurants, shops, and local haunts.

Oh, and Christmas trees, Christmas markets, and Christmas events as far as the eye could see.

I’d consider Telluride during the winter months to be one of the state’s best-kept secrets—and you don’t need to flirt with death to get there.

Want to learn about Christmas in Telluride, one of the United States’ best holiday towns? Here are five reasons to keep this Rocky Mountain outpost on your radar.

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5 Reasons to keep Christmas in Telluride on your travel wishlist

Christmas events out the wazoo

Christmas in Telluride is a big deal—I meant what I said about the town transforming into a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Local business owners and the city council work together to organize multiple holiday scenes for the public, from gorgeous light displays to Christmas decorations.

If you plan your trip around major Christmas events in Telluride, you’ll have a full itinerary. I suggest checking out the Torchlight Parade. Snowboarders descend down the mountain and zip through town with lit torches to ring in Christmas Eve.

If that’s a little too rock’n roll for you, you can schedule a trip to the Holiday Prelude ice skating showcase, the choral society’s annual holiday concert, Noel Night, the sleighs and wagons event, or the prelude in Mountain Village, which is decked out like the North Pole.

I could keep listing out events, but I think you get the point. Christmas in Telluride is an affair that the whole town comes together for—like a little Whoville.

And Christmas markets, too

And what would a real-life Whoville be like without a few Christmas markets?

Along with Telluride’s extensive Christmas event schedule, you’ll also notice a few markets around town. The biggest is the Ah Haa School for Arts Holiday Bazaar, an annual event that showcases some of the best crafts from Telluride’s leading artisans.

Noel Night (mentioned above) also includes temporary stalls where locals sell all types of goods. If you miss out on that, too, don’t worry—you can always head to the Christkindlmarket, which is another day-long festivity that takes place on December 22.

Tons of snow for outdoor activities

The Torchlight Parade is one of Telluride’s biggest Christmas events—and the snowboarders couldn’t do their thing without plenty of fresh powder.

Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, Telluride regularly fills with snow in December. That makes it an ideal place for outdoor enthusiasts.

Snowboarding and skiing are possible at any of the lodges dotting the mountainsides around town. But even if you want to move a little slower, you’ve got options. Locals enjoy snowshoeing and even snow-cycling.

If you want to take an even lazier look at the outdoors, you can also book a sleigh ride. 

A picturesque setting—no, really, you’ll want to take pictures

If you’ve been following closely, then you might already have an image of Telluride in your head: mountainous, snowy, and decked out in Christmas lights.

Having used the term ‘Hallmark’ a few times in this article, you might also by picturing a quaint, charming setting.

It’s really that beautiful—enough so that I escaped a near-death experience and almost immediately pointed at Telluride’s main street and said, ‘Hey, that’s cute.’

And as someone who loves a picturesque Christmas town with plenty of holiday fanfare, I really can’t recommend Telluride enough. Just so you know I’m being objective, this might be a good point to mention that Telluride is very pricey. (All that cheer ain’t cheap, my friends.)

Remote, restful, & re-visitable

What’s my top metric to judge a destination? Whether or not you’d revisit.

Some vacations delight you, others shake up your preconceived notions about life. Others will lure you in secretly, tying little strings around your heart.

I think Telluride is one of those places. It’s far off the beaten path for many Americans, making it remote and removed. It’s also small enough that there’s no metropolitan hustle.

And it’s charming enough that I imagine I’m not the only one who has crossed the Rockies on pain of death more than once to reach it.