Vail Family Trip in October Recap

I thought it would be fun to share a little recap of our Vail family trip in October. I spent this week sharing some outfits I wore during the trip on Monday and Wednesdays posts. I mentioned it was MUCH colder than we planned. When we booked the trip the weather was in the 60s. When we arrived, the high was 40 and the low was 20 with snow almost every day!! To be honest, I had no idea it was that cold this early in the season! I think we hit a bit of a cold snap as it is back to 50s this week. Regardless, we had a lot of fun!

Vail in Mid-October

We went during Ivy Jean’s fall break of school and learned it was a bit of an off season for the area. October in Vail is after peak summer season and before peak winter ski time. The gondola was closed as were some restaurants. We spent one day hiking nearby. We opted for an easy, family friendly hike and rented a backpack from a local place. It worked out so well! They dropped it off at our hotel and picked it back up when we were done. So easy! Another day we just explored the town, went to the park, and walked around the shops. We heard that Piney River was beautiful, but the road was too muddy for us to brave it.

Below are pictures from our hike! The aspens were still really pretty, but you could tell a lot of them had already lost their leaves. It was breathtaking in my opinion! I’m so glad we got to experience it.

Where to Stay in Vail

Though I cannot speak to other hotels, we did some research and decided we wanted to stay in Vail Village. There are two main areas to stay, Vail Village and Lionshead. We opted for Vail Village. It has a ton of shops and restaurants nearby, and staying in the area meant you could walk to everything. This sounded the easiest to us. I’m so glad we did this because you cannot park on most of the streets. Although there are public parking garages and a free bus that runs, it was much easier to just stay in the area. We were lucky enough to find an Airbnb at Austria Haus. It was a condo set up that was perfect for our family. The photos below are from the creek that runs right below the hotel through Vail Village. We had a view of it from our balcony.

Where to Eat in Vail

Our favorite meals were Mexican food at El Segundo and pizza at Pazzo’s Pizza. We also loved the ice cream shop called Sundae. Other places we tried were Bully Ranch and Little Dinner both of which we also liked and came recommended. Another place that was recommended to us but we did not make it to is The Vintage. We thought it was a bit too nice sounding to go with Jane Evelyn. 😉