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I think you may be reading something incorrectly into the assessment of Lander as "white collar" as opposed to some of the other towns you're mentioning ....
Lander has some college level schools ... NOLS, and others ... which become significant because there aren't that too many towns across WY that have such post high school facilities. But that's the extent that it differs from those others, and these are small institutions by any measure. NOLS, for example, is not some big campus with dedicated school buildings, it's a couple of small buildings in Lander which are in the commercial strip area. The focus is programs running 10 days to a semester length, and much of their activity is out of the area at their other sites and camps. Paul Petzoldt may have had a set of good intentions when he founded the concept, but ... well, here's a review of the operation by a former student posted online:
"A Google User
Overall Poor to fair
DONT LET THESE SCUM BAGS TRICK YOU!!! dont give them a dollar in reality that is the only green they are concerned with. want to do something good for the planet plant a tree. want to learn outdoor skills learn from a real wilderness instructor. this is a trap for un-suspecting wealthy young outdoors people. as it was for me and i wound up losing $3500 that i earned breaking my back lugging around heavy machinery for low pay and planning this dumb trip for years. worst mistake of my life!! dont make the same mistake please!! Put this in the perspective that the It's still primarily in an agricultural/ranching/tourist area"
I've been through the Lander area frequently over the last decade, with particular frequency in the last two years. Several times, I was nearby on business and walked past the NOLS main building. There was some student presence there, but the "museum" was always closed ... from what I could see of it through the windows, a simple display of some outdoor camping gear and little else.
While I like the Lander area and it's access to much of what makes WY life attractive, particularly it's well established older neighborhoods ... it's not an inexpensive town to live in, given the costs of housing there and it's remoteness. It does, however, has issues with the unskilled labor force ... I've seen restaurants in town post notices at the front door advising that they are short-staffed and if you can't spend the time waiting for slow service, ask that you go elsewhere. Unlike a lot of "college towns", this is one place where there aren't a lot of struggling students seeking any form of gainful employment.
That may work to your advantage as a "21 yr old female without a degree", but be advised too, that the wage levels for such work as you may find don't rise to a living wage.
I've stopped at the Thai Chef restaurant there just about every time I've been through the town, it's one of the best restaurants in WY. But noticeable that it's a small family operation, they don't have much staffing and I've had many a lunch where I was the only patron in the place. Service was adequate, the real reason to stop here is the food. Otherwise, pass on CowFish and head to Hudson where another WY treasure ... Svilar's ... is located.
Given the seasonality of a lot of the non-professional type employment in the Lander area, you may find getting living wage jobs a challenge. One significant factor in the Lander labor market, however, is that many semi- and skilled workers have found a better overall income by heading to the extractive industry sector of NE WY & the Dakota's. They typically commute for a several week (or longer) work stay in that area (RV or trailer) and then come back home to Lander for their breaks. I've seen numerous businesses in Lander that cannot pay comparable wages and so are running very short-handed. Be aware that much of the tourist traffic disappears in the winter months. I've stayed at all the campgrounds by the disappearing spring in the off-season all by myself in the last two years.
IMO, if gainfull employment is a consideration for your ability to locate to WY, then you'll find it easier to narrow your list of desirable places down to those where you and your husband have realistic job offers that are commensurate with the availability of housing and costs of living. Lander, Buffalo, Cody ... would all be desirable places to live if you can find an adequate income stream to match the costs of living. Riverton is OK, too; the res is a non-issue and the town is the economic center of the area for non-skilled jobs. Dubois is one of my favorite places in WY, but the cost of living there could be daunting unless you've got an independent outside source of income or a bringing a lot of money with you to the place.
FWIW, the scaling back of extractive industry activity on public lands throughout WY has had a devastating financial ripple effect upon many towns which are now down from their "boom" cycles of just a few years ago. The ranching and farming sectors have been hard hit with the recent regional drought of several years, and their product marketplaces haven't kept up with the costs of production; ie, money is pretty tight for folk who depend upon ranching and farming for their living income. Tourism is still active, and businesses related to that industry may be the best non-government job sector for unskilled employment ... but again, wage rates in this sector aren't very high.
As always, I urge you to come visit the towns of your choices with an eye towards finding the acceptable to you housing price points and availability in view of the income that you can realistically earn there.
There are a few pictures of the Bighorns and the Sheridan, Buffalo, Ranchester areas in the picture thread, but you'd have to go through it to find them. The Bighorns are similar to other major mountains in Wyoming. They top out at 13,100 feet (Cloud Peak) and are long enough it would take all summer to hike them. There's no major river running out of them but lots of good streams. I've not seen any sheep, goats nor grizzlies in them, but most other wildlife found in any of Wyoming's mountains are also in the Bighorns.
I like the towns along the eastern edge of the Bighorns. When I moved to Wyoming from Iowa 40+ years ago I was offered similar jobs in Cody and Greybull but picked Gillette. Actually, I was first offered a job in Lander, but when it came down to it, the official offer vanished. It would have been my 1st choice. (I was living in Alaska the first time the jobs were offered. When Lander disappeared from my choices I turned down the others, but after 6 months in Iowa I was ready for mountains and clear waters again.)
The Powder River Basin (east of the Bighorns) is greener than the Big Horn Basin (west of the Bighorns). It's also a day's drive to most parts of Iowa, whereas it would be tough to get anywhere in Iowa from Cody in a day. I don't know how important that is to you, but it was one of the considerations of my wife, since she wanted to remain within striking distance of Iowa to visit her parents, especially after we had kids.
You might even want to consider Gillette as a possibility. I like it because it's only slightly more than an hour from either the Bighorns or the Black Hills. As avid campers, it's nice to have that option, because if it's hot we head west to the high elevations of the Bighorns, but if it's coolish we head east toward lower elevations, such as Devils Tower. Options are also nice to have when one area has campfire restrictions and the other doesn't. Camping without a campfire is the pits. Gillette is a prairie town, not nearly as scenic as the towns up against the mountains, but if it's where you/your husband can find a good job, it might be worth considering. Historically, it's been a good town for jobs.
Interesting that WyoNewk doesn't mention Keyhole Res, not too far from Gillette, a place I consider one of the premiere facilities in the state. Close enough to Gillette that you could get off work on a summer day, drive there and spend a very enjoyable rest of the day ... and return to work in the AM without difficulty. I could envision keeping a boat at one of the marina's if I lived in Gillette.
I've camped there several times in my RV over the last year, and other than the fishermen that come off the water around sunset ... I've had the campgrounds entirely to myself mid-week. Makes for a pleasant experience and it appears to be a nice lake to sail; I've camped down by the small boat yard and often wanted to bring a Catalina 22 or one of my Lasers to this lake for a recreational sail. Sizable enough lake to stretch out in a boat and the fishing appeared OK for the folk I visited with.
Also ... this is the only campground in the entire state of WY where I've had my parks pass and overnight camping permit window stickers checked, on two separate visits. The rangers must not have much to do around this place ....
There are a few pictures of the Bighorns and the Sheridan, Buffalo, Ranchester areas in the picture thread, but you'd have to go through it to find them. The Bighorns are similar to other major mountains in Wyoming. They top out at 13,100 feet (Cloud Peak) and are long enough it would take all summer to hike them. There's no major river running out of them but lots of good streams. I've not seen any sheep, goats nor grizzlies in them, but most other wildlife found in any of Wyoming's mountains are also in the Bighorns.
I like the towns along the eastern edge of the Bighorns. When I moved to Wyoming from Iowa 40+ years ago I was offered similar jobs in Cody and Greybull but picked Gillette. Actually, I was first offered a job in Lander, but when it came down to it, the official offer vanished. It would have been my 1st choice. (I was living in Alaska the first time the jobs were offered. When Lander disappeared from my choices I turned down the others, but after 6 months in Iowa I was ready for mountains and clear waters again.)
The Powder River Basin (east of the Bighorns) is greener than the Big Horn Basin (west of the Bighorns). It's also a day's drive to most parts of Iowa, whereas it would be tough to get anywhere in Iowa from Cody in a day. I don't know how important that is to you, but it was one of the considerations of my wife, since she wanted to remain within striking distance of Iowa to visit her parents, especially after we had kids.
You might even want to consider Gillette as a possibility. I like it because it's only slightly more than an hour from either the Bighorns or the Black Hills. As avid campers, it's nice to have that option, because if it's hot we head west to the high elevations of the Bighorns, but if it's coolish we head east toward lower elevations, such as Devils Tower. Options are also nice to have when one area has campfire restrictions and the other doesn't. Camping without a campfire is the pits. Gillette is a prairie town, not nearly as scenic as the towns up against the mountains, but if it's where you/your husband can find a good job, it might be worth considering. Historically, it's been a good town for jobs.
I agree that Gillette would be a good choice as well. It may not be as scenic but it's nice to be that close to the Bighorns and to the Black Hills. In general I also get a very good vibe from that town.
I am not sure what WyoNewk considers "Major Rivers" coming out of the Big Horns, but I certainly wouldn't classify them as "good streams".
I live next to one of the streams called the Tongue River and it is about 40ft across and 3 ft deep where I am. We have boats going downstream, just about daily until mid July. Even today. After that there are some shallow areas that will still pass a flat bottom boat, but not much else.
There is also the Little Horn River that is up along the Montana State line.
The Big Horns have great fishing, hiking, camping, hunting and yes, even boating.
OP is from Iowa. It's bordered by the Missouri and Mississippi. Major rivers.
Actually, by major rivers I was thinking along the lines of the Yellowstone, Snake, Bighorn and Montana's Flathead (East, Middle, West) Forks that I used to float every year. And I didn't realize the Tongue was that wide.
I guess the Big Horn River flows from the Bighorns, technically. (More *through* them.) That's a great river, and I hadn't thought about it coming out of the Big Horns. I used to fish it several times each year from Ft Smith down, when I still had my plane. Very, very nice browns and rainbows in that river! If I remember right the 'bows have to be 24" to be keepers, the browns I think 18" or 20". I never kept any except once when I took a young kid up to float it. He caught a rainbow, barely big enough to be legal. It was the biggest trout he'd ever caught. Darn right I let him keep it!
Yeah, the Tongue is pretty good sized, nothing you'd motor up and down. There are a lot of people that use motorized on the Little Horn (not the Big Horn, nor the Little Big Horn, but the Little Horn). They use those boats that are round bottom from front to back, river boats.
No, we don't have a Mississippi, nor a Missouri, however, we have the Powder River, that is much like the Cheyenne in South Dakota, an inch deep and a half mile wide.
Game Warden was down here yesterday pulling boats out of the water and either ticketing the occupents or forcing them to load up because they didn't have a sticker for passing through the port and getting their boats inspected. They even pulled two kids out of the water that had a paddle boat that they took from their back yard and floated down about a quarter mile and then drug it back to their yard and did it again. About the 3rd trip, Fish and Game had them out of the water calling mom and dad.
I was never really impressed by the dirty as heck Mississippi, not when I lived in Illinois as a younger child, not now haha.
I liked driving over the snake river 14 times, that was pretty neat. It wound around... of course like a snake... I liked hopping over the small winding creeks in parks and reserves, picking up rocks only to drop them again after 50 bugs came skittering out from underneath...
You guyses input on locations is very valuable!!! I'm going to start broadening my horizons after hearing good and bad from other towns. Gillette in particular!
As far as a living wage goes, I have only earned hourly so far in my life, ranging from $9-$11.62/h. My husband makes somewhere in the 30k range I think per year. My higher paying jobs were the 'no raises ever' kind, where you only get one when A. the Dept. of Labor decides to make a cost of living increase (which hasn't happened in 7 years or something I heard for Iowa) or when they up the wages across the world (huge corporation). My lower end wage is in a locally owned business, which I loved the most so far, and it hurts to ask for a raise...but if I had more than 15 hours a week I could do any small business work happily.
What is a living wage in Wyoming? I am getting that tourist towns with pretty scenery nearby are a lot more expensive, and from what I saw, a lot of the shop workers only worked there in the summer and they scamper back to wherever they came from when winter comes around.
Towns that are doing well will have higher costs. Jackson is highest in almost all regards, but some of the huge mansions in Jackson Hole skew that a little. Because it has huge summer homes for the rich and famous, the average home price will be higher. A better comparison would be the cost of a 1500 sq ft home. Alas, Jackson would still be very high. Other than Jackson, cost of living in Wyoming is generally slightly above the national average with growth towns like Gillette, Rock Springs, Sheridan, Lander, Cody, Douglas, etc. being a little higher, while the more depressed towns like Lusk, Newcastle, etc. have a lower cost of living -- mostly just in housing prices. I wouldn't necessarily look for towns with lower COL, as you'll also find jobs harder to find and wages a little lower in them. Also, keep in mind that the national cost of living is based more on large cities than small towns, so when you consider that Wyoming's small towns are slightly higher than average, that means they're considerably higher priced than most small towns across the midwest. My house is 30 years old and 1400 sq feet plus 600 finished in the basement, and it would sell for around $210K. In a small Iowa town it might go for $150K. Groceries are also a little higher because of shipping costs, while utilities cost a bit less.
I'd guess you'd need to earn 20%-25% more in Wyoming than in your typical Iowa town for the same standard of living. In Gillette the starting wage at a place like McDonalds is around $9/hr while coal mine heavy equipment operators (untrained) start at around $30/hr.
All figures are guestimates.
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