Denver, Colorado

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Please help. Is the air very bad in Denver? Does anyone know if tourists have problems with their health or nose bleeds, or heart trouble, etc. when they visit Denver because of the high altitude? Any help would be most appreciated.

Don't know about everyone.

I myself have been in the Mile High City (so called because it 5280 feet in altitude), and in Colorado springs without ill effect, and I am from near sea level Washington DC.

When I was a kid we even drove the highway to the top of Pike's Peak, and played in the snow in mid July, at 14,000 feet with no ill effects.

Years later I spent half of week in Mexico City (a mile-and-a-half high) which is not only much higher than Denver, but is located in a bowl that collects the smog. And I had no effects. But I ran into an American lady with her two grown sons in the famous Anthropology museum, and one of the sons was really suffering and spacey from the high altitude. So everyone is different.

Most people who visit Denver have no altitude issues. The common wisdom is to take it easy for a day or so and to drink plenty of nonalcoholic fluids. Then you start working your way up in elevation and see how things go. If you get a headache or feel nauseated, you drop down in elevation. It really is that simple. In the last year or two "oxygen bottles" have started appearing at retail stores here, but that's unnecessary.

So my visitors typically do some sightseeing around Boulder.
Then we head up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Or Mt. Evans. Or whatever.
Plenty to see in RMNP, and if you're up to it, the Alpine Visitors Center is at 12k feet and the road has some amazing views.
Also the headwaters of the Colorado River are in the park, and wadeable.

And the air here is fine. Occasionally we get a thermal inversion layer that traps pollutants (that includes dust), but the air is usually pretty nice.

I live in Colorado, Denver's air quality sucks (the entire front range does for that matter) but it's due to the air pollution that most metropolitan areas have, not the altitude. You'll feel a little tired for the first 24 hours when you get there because there's less oxygen in the air due to that altitude, but your body will adjust very quickly. I live higher than that (~7000 feet), so going to Denver is energetic for me, lol. If you're coming to vacation I highly recommend heading to the mountains first thing, that's where the true beauty of Colorado resides as well as most of the recreation. Denver itself is like any other large city, once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all.