moving to colorado from florida (Denver, Colorado Springs: living, low cost, fun things to do)

[skluk90]

My boyfriend and I are moving to Colorado in October. We are looking into Grand Junction right now. We want a smaller city with fun things to do but affordable. Which is why are looking at GJ. GJ is considered a desert city in Colorado. I'm kinda worried it won't be green enough. We want pretty scenery and lots of trees and plants. Looking at the hiking around GJ and everything looks dry. Any information on Grand Junction is greatly appreciated. Thank you for helping me out.

[bluescreen73]

Grand Junction is a high mountain desert. The greenest areas of the Grand Valley are the orchards and vineyards. Overall, though, it's what you'd expect from a desert - many hues of orange and brown. Durango and Glenwood Springs are better, but probably not as affordable as Junction.

[Snikt]

I like Grand Junction, but it's a different kind of scenery and is a little more like Utah than the Colorado you're probably used to seeing in pictures. There's some greenery around especially up on Grand Mesa, but that's about 50 minutes, an hour or so drive.

Just got back from Palisade a couple days ago actually, where it was 100F+ for several days straight



Grand Mesa:



Other side of Grand Mesa, near Paonia:

[Sunderpig2]

It's hard to get a lot of greenery in such a dry part of the country. The areas with any notable green are where water has been unnaturally added to force it into that appearance. If you are smart, you'll pay a visit first to *seriously* look at the area. You'll use much less money than moving and then realizing what it's like. I moved from a Gulf Coast state to CO, and now consider it a big mistake. Make sure not to overlook cultural/regional differences between FL and CO (people think quite differently in those two areas), and what outdoor activities you'd lose in CO. You might gain some new activities in CO, but really miss those from FL. I'd think FL in general would be more affordable than CO, but maybe not.

bluescreen73 has a good description above.

[bartonizer]

One of the issues that we ran into with CO is that there aren't many smaller cities that size- and we like cities that size. Outside of the Front Range there is really just GJ (and a couple other substantially smaller towns like Montrose or Durango, which I do like a lot). The poster above put up a pretty good description, though the pictures make it look much greener than it really is. The greenery is up at elevation, so near GJ that would be up on Grand Mesa or behind Colorado NM at Glade Park. I'll agree that for a Floridian, it will be a huge change, both scenery and culturally. If you like four wheeling, off-roading, dirt bike riding and mountain bike riding, you may really like it. But it can look pretty bleak, and there's not much going on. If you're looking for a lot of trees and plants, it's not the place. Have you considered other towns in the west, perhaps in ID or MT? What activities do you like to do? Do you need jobs?

[NW Crow]

Probably should look around Colorado Springs instead if more greenery than GJ is wanted and you want at least that size and affordable. If size and affordability are real flexible then Glenwood Springs and Durango might qualify.

If you want smaller and more affordable than CS, you could look inside Pueblo. May not be the final choice but it is an option some open minds might at least consider.

First CO city doesn't have to the one, only, last. Get jobs then look around at other places.

[lurtsman]

How is it that you know that you are moving to Colorado but are only contemplating Grand Junction. There is nothing else over there (with employment). If you are moving to Colorado but could choose something on the front range, how did you know Colorado was the right option?

If you want "Green + low cost of living", you should be looking at Pueblo. Since you selected Colorado but don't know much about GJ and have not selected a city (thus not moving for work/family), it is probably the retail pot. Again, consider Pueblo.

[skluk90]

Thank you everyone for replying. My boyfriends uncle has done a lot of traveling to CO. He said the western part is better and one of the towns mentioned was grand junction. Whenever I think of something as "desert" I think "dead". I don't want to look around and see everything looks dead. I moved from a small town in rural Illinois with less than 10,000 people to Jacksonville, FL which has roughly 900,000. After living here I have decided I don't like extremely busy cities which is why we are staying away from Denver. It will take about a year for me to decide if I really like it or not. Especially since I haven't experienced winter in almost 4 years . We don't mind driving a few hours to bigger cities also for fun. I will look into pueblo. All of you are very helpful. Thank you for responding.

[Snikt]

Originally Posted by skluk90

Thank you everyone for replying. My boyfriends uncle has done a lot of traveling to CO. He said the western part is better and one of the towns mentioned was grand junction. Whenever I think of something as "desert" I think "dead". I don't want to look around and see everything looks dead. I moved from a small town in rural Illinois with less than 10,000 people to Jacksonville, FL which has roughly 900,000. After living here I have decided I don't like extremely busy cities which is why we are staying away from Denver. It will take about a year for me to decide if I really like it or not. Especially since I haven't experienced winter in almost 4 years . We don't mind driving a few hours to bigger cities also for fun. I will look into pueblo. All of you are very helpful. Thank you for responding.

You should definitely visit Grand Junction in both summer and winter to see if you really like it. Also it's not just a little drive to the nearest big city, you're looking at 4 hours to either Denver or Salt Lake City. Grand Junction is the "big" city of Western Colorado, and it still doesn't really have lots to do.

It's not like FL where everything is compressed and you can drive from JAX to Orlando or DAB pretty quickly. (I grew up in Daytona Beach)