I visited Aspen, the most expensive ski town in America, for the first time. Here are 12 things that surprised me.

Aspen, Colorado is a booming destination for the rich and famous.

It's the US' most expensive ski town based on the listing price for prime ski property, according to a 2021 report from Engel & Völkers, a global real estate company.

The average Aspen home sells for $11.4 million, according to Aspen Daily News.

Guests also spend a lot of money to stay there, and every year, Aspen competes with the country's other top ski resorts like Dear Valley in Utah, according to a HomeToGo report cited by Forbes.

Each winter, celebrities flock to the town to show off designer ski gear on the town's snowy slopes.

I visited the town in early December before peak ski season and experienced a taste of the lavish lifestyle that comes with living and vacationing in Aspen. Several things surprised me.

By the end of my trip, I learned that luxury is all in the details, like when your hotel room has real plants instead of fake ones, and how every restaurant opts for cloth over paper napkins.

I thought those tiny elements cast a surprising spotlight on how Aspen's become such an expensive place to live and vacation.

As I booked my trip, I noticed that hotels advertised themselves as ski-in/ski-out. But since I've never skied before, I hadn't realized how literal that term was until I visited Aspen.

From my hotel room, I could walk just a few hundred feet and be at the base of Aspen Mountain, where I'd have access to the mountain's 87 ski trails.

But even if they weren't staying in a ski-in/ski-out accommodation, people still trekked across the town in their ski gear. Everywhere you looked in Aspen, people were heading to the lifts in their ski boots or just off the slopes and biking home with their snowboard in tow.

Each winter, celebrities flock to Aspen, but I was surprised at how willing and eager servers were to share their celebrity sightings.

At the White House Tavern, one waitress told me that she sent musician Leon Bridges to the bar and mentioned Dua Lipa had recently stopped by for a meal.

At Ajax Tavern, our waiter counted off all the A-listers he's seen, including Neil Patrick Harris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Katy Perry, to name a few.

"In the winter, you're going to see celebrities every day," my waitress at the sushi restaurant Matsuhisa casually mentioned.

I was surprised to see miniature bottles of the bubbly next to cold-brew cans and coconut water in a coffee shop.

The shop also stocked orange juice, so, in theory, customers could make their own mimosas before the café closed at 2 p.m.

I have never seen a town protect its water fountains and bicycle stations like Aspen does in the winter.

I'm more familiar with NYC's winter, where you can rent Citi Bikes year-round, and Central Park's water fountains end up covered in snow.

In Aspen, the bicycle rideshares close, the bikes are stored away, and plastic covers are placed on the docking stations.

The same goes for the water fountains. Each water station in Aspen had a snug cover protecting it from the colder temps.

In the town's main square, over 300,000 bricks were laid in 1976, according to the Aspen Times.

Decades later, signs can be spotted all over the town highlighting the efforts to preserve those bricks. Signs tell people not to bike over the bricks, and for the most part, everyone I saw followed the rules.

I'm used to seeing Free Little Libraries, which are like mailboxes filled with free books, across my neighborhood in Denver. But I'm not used to them being filled with books that have sat on my Goodreads wish list for months.

After peeking inside the free library, I grabbed a copy of "The Vanishing Half," a book that's topped the New York Times bestseller list.

Any book that popular would be gone in a free library in Denver in minutes, so I was thrilled to get my hands on such a popular title.

After talking to a few Aspen locals, they gushed about how their town is known for so much more than skiing.

They bragged about the Aspen Art Museum's new exhibit on Andy Warhol and listed off the small galleries that fill practically every town block.

While Aspen is known for its nature, I was surprised to discover an equally strong emphasis on the arts.

Everyone knew every restaurant in Aspen, no matter who I spoke to — whether it was a luxury real estate agent or a bellhop.

And almost every local I spoke with had their favorite.

I was urged to go to Clark's for seafood and told Steak House No. 316 served the best steak. A trip to Aspen wouldn't be complete without tasting sushi from Matsuhisa or having the Wagyu burger at Ajax Tavern, I was told.

Food was clearly a significant part of the Aspen experience.

As my stomach growled on my first night in Aspen, I eyed the room-service menu at The Little Nell hotel.

A $21 French toast and a $25 Cobb salad were as expected, but there was also food for your four-legged friend. The menu advertised "Canine Delights Daily, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m."

The meals, which were served in dog-friendly bowls, included carrots, brown rice, scrambled eggs, and the owner's choice of protein. They cost $19.

Within minutes of stepping foot into Aspen, a sign advertising $8 burgers lured me into Aspen Pie Shop, a restaurant selling pizza, burgers, and sandwiches.

Knowing that Aspen isn't just home to $25 entreés and $20 cocktails was a relief. For the next few days, I continued to find affordable eats like a $9 sub or an $8 shot and beer drink deal.

My friend tagged along for the trip, and on our first night, we walked over to City Market, a part of the Kroger grocery-store chain, to grab a few snacks and breakfast items for the week.

We expected Aspen's groceries to be pricier than we were used to in Denver. But the prices were surprisingly comparable.

I spent my first day in Aspen debating whether the snowy slopes or brick sidewalks gave the town its charming appeal.

Then I realized it was the lack of skyscrapers — or really any tall building for that matter. The vast majority of buildings were just two or three stories high, and I had unobstructed views of the sky and mountains.