Fantasy vs. Reality- Our First CO Trip- Questions/ Observations

[SkyDog77]

Thanks for the update. Agree on Santa Fe vs the rest of New Mexico.

I love Durango. Texas is generally too Texan for me, but Austin is nice. Some of the Hill Country areas are absolutely gorgeous.

[Sunderpig2]

Thanks for the update. That's so good that you are exploring and getting those all-important reality checks with your own eyes in the actual environments. So much better than trying to read data, statistics, and even opinions online.

That will be great for you to eventually check out the PNW area too (Oregon and Washington). Coming from FL and the lushness there, I bet you will like the PNW more than the dry SW.

I agree that Austin is weighted more for the young (being a college town and a place for young entrepreneurs). But other areas of the Hill Country offer a good balance of age range and should be kept on the list. As far as political stuff goes, I tended to differ from other Texans when I lived there, but it was never a problem. I just kept it to myself. No big deal. And even though CO is considered to be more liberal than there, I haven't found that to translate into anything better as far as daily living in CO goes. I tend to chuckle inside when I hear people rave about benefits of political thinking in CO vs. TX and elsewhere. Bottom line though, if you aren't concerned with politics (like me), you should be fine. As far as Utah and LDS go, that's a completely different matter. That transcends political thinking and is an all-encompassing way of life.

It's great and very smart that you are taking time to look, research, and think, rather than do a knee-jerk relocation.

[Kathy884]

OP and Fligsidem, I totally understand what you are saying. We lived in Denver in the late 80s (job move) and lived in a cute close to downtown neighborhood called Washington Park. We were just their for jobs, but I did fall in love. I think you might like the charm of that neighborhood and others close in neighborhoods mentioned in these posts -- older, quite charming, quite cute (I remember an earlier poster mentioning a few like Cheeseman Park -- I like that neighborhood a ton too). The problem is that so do so many other people. I checked on Zillow and our little house that we sold for maybe $89,000 back in 89 is worth about $500,000, with average prices in that neighborhood at about $850,000 -- ouch. We considered maybe moving back to Denver for retirement till last summer. What we saw on our visit is way more traffic and expensive housing compared to what it used to be, etc. And those two factors means it's not on our list of a place to consider moving to. // With other looking around too, where we actually do live looks pretty good. I think we'll probably stay put and rent a condo in one of the Colorado mountain communities for about a month each summer. // I do wish you well finding your Paradise. On paper Boise looked pretty good to us, but not quite good enough to consider a move. We on our last visit to Colorado saw a great place in Evergreen right in our budget that I loved. For me, though, Evergreen seemed way too remote. // I think at this point I'll probably a regular vacationer vs. a native.

[Dirty-Mill]

Originally Posted by Kathy884

I think at this point I'll probably a regular vacationer vs. a native.

Colorado is a great place to visit and is turning into a not so great place to live.