Fairplay is the county seat of Park County, Colorado, sitting at 2,989 metres altitude in South Park — the sweeping high-altitude valley ringed by the Front Range, the Mosquito Range, and the Tarryall Mountains. It is the community that inspired the animated TV series of the same name, and it retains an unpolished, workaday quality that the resort towns nearby have mostly traded away.
The main reason to stop is South Park City, one of Colorado's better open-air history museums, which recreates a 19th-century mining town using 43 original buildings from across Park County. Beyond that, Front Street has a few intact Victorian commercial buildings, including the Hand Hotel (reputedly haunted) and the Colorado Mountain Hat Company, where custom cowboy hats are fitted using traditional measuring methods dating back 150 years.
Fairplay sits just over Hoosier Pass from Breckenridge, about 30 kilometres away — making it a quieter and considerably cheaper base for exploring Park County. The Brown Burro on Front Street serves reliable Mexican food; the huevos rancheros are worth stopping for.