8 places to get up-close and personal with dinosaurs in Colorado

Dinosaurs once roamed around Colorado many years ago, and today, the state is full of places to learn about these fascinating prehistoric creatures. As well as simply viewing fossils, the following places offer everything from hands-on, interactive experiences to displays that feel like 'real-life' encounters.

From museums to paleontological sites, here are eight places to find dinosaurs in Colorado.

1. Dinosaur National Monument

Spanning 210,000 acres, Dinosaur National Monument offers plenty of places to explore and things to see. Visitors can see a wall of approximately 1,500 dinosaur bones at the Quarry Exhibit Hall, containing the remains of numerous species of dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic period.

2. Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center

This 12,000-square-foot museum is dedicated to fossils from North America's cretaceous period. The museum's services include fossil mounting, molding and casting, 3D scanning and printing, traveling exhibits, and more. As well as dinosaurs, visitors can check out displays related to marine reptiles, flying reptiles, and fish of the cretaceous period.

3. Dinosaur Ridge

Located near Morrison, east of Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, this world-famous dinosaur track site offers self-guided and guided tours of excavation sites and exposed fossils. Dinosaur Discovery Days include guided tours to view tracks, bones, and other examples of geology and paleontology.

4. Picketwire Canyonlands

According to the U.S. Forest Service, these canyons in the Comanche National Grasslands are the largest dinosaur tracksite in North America. There are over 1,900 prints in 130 separate trackways across a quarter-mile of bedrock along the Purgatoire River. The round-trip hike to the dinosaur tracks is 11.2 miles and starts at the Withers Canyon Trailhead.

5. Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience

The Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience is a 16,200 square-foot building which features a world-class collection of interactive displays, full-scale dinosaur fossil casts, real dinosaur fossils, and guided tours. Outside, there are skinned animatronic dinosaurs and a multi-story ropes course.

6. Dinosaur Journey Museum

Located in Fruita, this museum is all about hands-on experiences. It includes 15,000 fossil specimens in collections, exhibits, and displays that feature discoveries from the region. There's also a viewable paleontology laboratory, a sandbox for making your own dinosaur tracks, and a "quarry site" where kids can uncover actual Jurassic dinosaur bones.

7. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

According to the National Park Service, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is home to one of the richest and most diverse fossil deposits in the world. Visitors will see petrified redwood stumps and thousands of detailed fossils of insects and plants.

8. Denver Museum of Nature & Science

The Prehistoric Journey exhibit, films and dinosaur themed events make the Denver Museum of Nature & Science a great place to discover dinosaurs. You'll witness a battle between a stegosaurus and 80-foot-long diplodocus, then you'll see prehistoric habitats, view ancient plants, and get the chance to pick up fossils from the museum touch carts in the Prehistoric Journey exhibit.