Aspen is a cool place to visit. The recipe for success includes equal parts mountains, image-driven development, whistling to the big dogs and luck. At the risk of oversimplifying, locals love nature, challenging skiing and each other.
Tourists dig the town’s shiny veneer, nightly ski slope grooming and servitude attention making them feel like high rollers. Needless to say, when visitors outnumber residents, Aspen’s identity reflects travel-magazine gloss. And when locals dominate the scene, Aspen looks and functions like a town where you could buy a pair of Levi’s.
The proof is off-season vs. the holidays. Aspen is now, more often than ever, populated with billionaire transients, part-timers and those aspiring to wander the world in private jets than it is with working residents.
A wealthy tourist has every vacation nicety imaginable in Aspen. The place is a sanitized version of a mining town, from the completely refurbished historical downtown buildings that look exactly like the originals would have, if builders in late 1800s had access to brushed aluminum and anti-reflective glass, to modern mansions awkwardly tucked behind and attached by red tape to what one can imagine were once homey Victorian cottages. The best way to understand Aspen’s popularity is to walk its streets in inappropriate but fashionable footwear.
It’s hard to argue with the fantasy of it all. Never mind the blisters; picture the bell staff stationed at your hotel anxiously awaiting your cal.