Trip Ideas This Colorado Mountain Town Has the Most Beautiful Flower Field in the U.S. Some of the world's most spectacular flower fields are found in the tiny mountain town of Crested Butte, Colorado. By Evie Carrick Evie Carrick Evie Carrick is a writer and editor who’s lived in five countries and visited well over 50. She now splits her time between Colorado and Paris, ensuring she doesn't have to live without skiing or L'As du Fallafel. Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines Published on April 23, 2024 Trending Videos Close this video player Photo: Danica Bona, Sweet Tea Studios/Courtesy of Gunnison Crested Butte Tourism Of all the signs of spring — birdsong, spring training, green grass — none can quite compare to the return of flowers. Be it a bouquet from the farmers market or a field of colorful blooms, flowers usher in the arrival of warm weather, bidding farewell to winter with the bob of their head. It is perhaps appropriate that the most beautiful flower fields in the U.S. (and the second most beautiful in the world) are located in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where snow tends to linger. Crested Butte, Colorado, a tiny town nicknamed the “Wildflower Capital of Colorado,” has long been a shining example of the state’s natural, high-alpine blooms. The annual Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, which runs for 10 days every July, showcases the colorful bounty. The flower field ranking was facilitated by PremierInn.com and used eye-tracking software to record what images participants’ naturally lingered on. The longer participants looked at an image, the higher the flower field’s ranking. In the end, the Daisy Flower Field in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park topped the charts, capturing participants’ gaze for an average of 3.89 seconds. Just behind the daisies of Chile was an image of the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival and Monet’s Garden in Giverny, which both had an “average fixation length” of 3.46 seconds and tied for second place. Unlike Monet’s Garden, which is cultivated, the flowers showcased at the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival are completely wild. The blooms can be found anywhere from just outside town to 11,000 feet above sea level. It doesn’t hurt that the backdrop is dominated by peaks in the Rocky Mountain Range and accented by stands of aspen trees. The flowers range from delicate snow lilies and fairy slipper orchids to dwarf larkspur and Colorado blue columbines, the state flower. To see the fields of wildflowers of Crested Butte, you have to hike from town and into the alpine — a journey that only adds to the experience (and wonder) of stumbling upon a field of colorful blooms. The Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, which runs July 12-2, 2024, proudly showcases the area's blooms through led hikes and over 200 workshops, including talks on the role of pollination, conservation, flowers as food, and photography and painting classes. The top 10 most beautiful flower fields, according to the eye-tracking study, include one other U.S. destination, the Bluebonnet Fields in Ennis, Texas which was ranked No. 8 on the list. 1. Torres del Paine National Park Daisy Flower Field, Chile =2. Monet's Garden at Giverny, France =2. Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, U.S. 4. The Butchart Gardens, Canada 5. Mainau Island, Germany 6. Wild Lupins Lake Tekapo, New Zealand 7. Kaas Plateau, India 8. Bluebonnet Fields in Ennis, U.S. 9. Hallerbos Bluebell Forest, Belgium 10. Hitchin Lavender Farm for Sunflowers, United Kingdom