Durango or Cortez, CO as a base location?
 

Looking into a possible trip to Mesa Verde and Arches, as well as exploring more of the region. Cortez would be closer to both and mean less driving, but Durango is larger and looks like it has more facilities for visitors. Which city would you recommend as a base? Thanks.

Trip now or next year?

mesa Verde isn’t worth visiting without going on a guide tour of the archeological sites. Tours are cancelled because it involves crowds.
navsjo reservation and other reservations in the area are closed and Black their roads.

you can’t use this area as a base for Moab. It’s too far one way.

cortez to Durango is an hr drive. Cortez to Fsrmington is sn hr drive.

thingsyou can see as a day trip...

1 drive up to ouray or telluride and back. There is Durango dilverton old style train you can ride oneway thrn bus the other.
near Cortez sndin Utah are numerous national monuments fort ancient dwellings like hovrnwerp, canyon of the ancients, Aztec near Farmington, Chaco Canyon.

there is bear ears NM in Utah, chimney rock east of Durango
monument valley and canyon de chelley can be done as day trips being two hrs one way away.
you can do needles district of canyonlands as a day trip
in SE Utah there is also natural bridges no, goosenecks state Park.
Driving from natural bridges to goosenecks you drive down switchbacks on the side of a cliff with an u dear 10 mike speed limit.
pagisa Springs has can also be visited
doing a loop of Durango to ouray to telluride to cortez and then to Durango will take around 7 hrs to drive

durango is an old western town. Hotels are more expensive here but it’s very walkable with shops and restaurants. It’s the nicest of the towns
cortez is an older hotel town with lower level hotels that have lower cost.in the downtown area there are a coup,e blocks that are walkable. Fatminyon is also cheaper. Here it has done cheaper higher name brand hotels that might still have cheaphotel pt rates. I don’t know what it is now, but Farmington had a Courtyard that was around 10K pts.. day vet stayed there.it was fine.

For a future trip. I still won't be going anywhere for a while. I was just wondering about the differences between the two towns.

Durango gave me the impression of sprawling and overdeveloped with historic area overrun with crowds... moab area has so much to do that i would stay there and/or pick some smaller town for san juan mountains

A few years back, I stayed at Purgatory, about half an hour north of Durango. It's a full resort. I was skiing there, but the area looked awesome for hiking. We also took the Silverton Railway, which was decent - we sat in the bar car. Sometimes the staff gets kind of touristy, but then you can just head out to an outdoor observation car.
We drove to Mesa Verde on our way back to LA (this was a road trip in March), it was open, and accessible, tours on a limited schedule. Definitely worth it.
All of this was 6 years ago.

My brother and I went about 3 years ago and actually stayed in each of the towns. The first night we stayed in Cortez, found a decent Mexican restaurant for dinner, then got up early to visit Mesa Verde the next day. We only stayed in Cortez because we wanted the full day at the park. That evening, we stayed in Durango, which had a whole lot more in terms of amenities -- restaurants, bars, shops, microbrewery, etc. Walk-able downtown area. If you don't mind an hour drive to each of your activities, then I'd say stay in Durango. But we were very happy we stayed in Cortez the first night, and didn't have to get up too early.