Looking for a change (Lakewood: houses, good schools, camping)

[stagemahem]

I live in VA in the suburbs between Richmond and DC. I am a single teacher and Colorado seems to be calling to me. I don't like big cities, but I don't want to have to drive an hour to go shopping either. I prefer the burbs or a small city. Also a place where I can get a nice appartment on Teachers pay. I'm thinking of Ft. Collins or Lakewood, any comments on that or other suggestions?

[Mike from back east]

Hello, welcome to city-data.... you're gonna love Colorado.

Considerable info provided by many posters is already in the threads, including much of the infomation you seek.

Newbies may find such data on any location by going to the main state or city forum and using the Search this Forum tool. Insert key words like Collins or Lakewood or school or pizza or hockey or whatever is your interest.

Pictures of most cities in the USA are found at www.city-data.com. Drill down to city of choice.

One thing we seek to avoid on this site is the repeating the same info over and over....believe me, almost everyone wants to know where are the parts of town to avoid... where are the good schools.... where are houses cheap... where is it walkable to the things you need.... etc... Newbies can help themselves get much better info, immediately, by using Search.

….the Search function is very specific....if you put in schools it will find every case of schools, but it will NOT find the singular version school. It won't find word segments either, you can put in camp, and it will find camp, but it won't find the word camping.

Savvy surfers will love Advanced Search, where you search multiple states or for posts by a particular member, etc.

If the search tool cannot find the info you seek, let us know what you still need.

Thanks!
s/Mike from back east