The most popular attraction in the park are the cliff dwellings. These are multi-building structures that are located on the sides of the steep cliffs within the mesa. There are a few short trails that bring you to overlooks for these dwellings and some that take you to other historic sites.

Soda Canyon Overlook: 1.2 miles round trip. This is a mostly flat trail with a maximum elevation gain of 70 feet. This trail brings you to multiple overlooks of the canyon as well as a view of Balcony House (a cliff dwelling). 

Square Tower House: Less than a ¼ mile round trip. This is a completely paved trail that takes you to an overlook for the Square Tower House.

Petroglyph Point Trail: 2.4 miles round trip. You follow this trail along the canyon wall until you reach the largest petroglyph wall in Mesa Verde. You can make this a loop trail by continuing past the petroglyphs up to the top of the canyon and following it back to the parking lot. This trail is a little more challenging because you do climb down and up the canyon walls.

Far View Sites: This was one of the most densely populated area on the mesa. Almost 50 different villages have been located in this area. People lived here starting in 900 AD and continued to live on this site after people started moving into the cliff dwellings.

In order to actually walk around the cliff dwellings you need to be on a ranger led tour. These tours are only offered during the summer season and are only offered for a few of the cliff dwellings. To get on this tour you need to get a reservation on recreation.gov.

Cliff Palace: This a 45 minute tour that goes to the largest cliff dwelling in North America. For this tour you climb 100 feet down a narrow sandstone staircase and down four 8 to 10 foot ladders.

Balcony House: This tour is 1 hour long, but slightly more difficult to access. For this tour you will need to climb a 32 foot ladder, two 17 foot ladders, walk down uneven stone steps on the side of a cliff, and crawl though an 18 inch wide, 12 foot long tunnel.

Square Tower House: This tour is an hour and half long. It is considered a backcountry tour due to it being an uneven trail that descends 100 feet. There is some maneuvering over boulders and cross steep areas that are gravel.

The Wetherill Mesa is currently road is closed due to construction (2024).

This road splits off from the main access road after the Far View Area. The end of this road ends on a 6 mile biking and walking trail called Long House Loop. There are a few more cliff dwellings located on this trail like the Long House and Step-House. Wetherill Mesa is only opened during the summer months and typically has a few tours for the cliff dwellings in this section.

There is a lodge located inside the park called Far View Lodge, otherwise the closest place to stay outside the park is Cortez, Colorado located about 7 miles away from the entrance. Another possible location is Durango, Colorado. Durango is an old railroad town that is located 50 minutes from the park gates.