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I have been doing a lot of research on various states as I plan to leave Indiana soon. I am disabled and have been advised to consider relocating somewhere sunny. I also want to move somewhere less crowded. Indiana is OK, but it's overcrowding. You cant go anywhere without being surrounded by people. I notice NM is roughly 3 times the size of Indiana, yet has under 2 million people. Indiana has over 6 million. Nerve racking here for a guy who likes his space.
So are the numbers I am reading correct? Is NM a place where I could actually be able to go for a drive and not be shoved down the road? Go for a walk and not have dozens of people with noise all around?
I have been through Albuquerque a few times, and drive around a little, but I'd like a decent little town that just laid back and not crowded. Does this exist? Any help is appreciated.
I have been doing a lot of research on various states as I plan to leave Indiana soon. I am disabled and have been advised to consider relocating somewhere sunny. I also want to move somewhere less crowded. Indiana is OK, but it's overcrowding. You cant go anywhere without being surrounded by people. I notice NM is roughly 3 times the size of Indiana, yet has under 2 million people. Indiana has over 6 million. Nerve racking here for a guy who likes his space.
So are the numbers I am reading correct? Is NM a place where I could actually be able to go for a drive and not be shoved down the road? Go for a walk and not have dozens of people with noise all around?
I have been through Albuquerque a few times, and drive around a little, but I'd like a decent little town that just laid back and not crowded. Does this exist? Any help is appreciated.
Hobbs, Alamogordo, Silver City, Truth or Consequences, Madrid, Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Belen...
All are less populated than Albuquerque if that is your benchmark.
Alamogordo, Ruidoso, Tularosa or even Las Cruces(pop.99,000) would fit your bill. I live in Alamogordo and although Holloman AFB perks up the speeds on the city streets a tad Alamo is a decent place ta live. The beautiful Sacramento Mountains are right up against us and provide a haven of rest from the searing summer heat of the Tularosa Basin.
Beautiful place ta live, though, we've been here since Jan. of 2013 and are enjoying our stay so far. You're welcome ta come out west and give Alamogordo a try, Tuh. Again, for laid back, Tularosa, Silver City or Carlsbad would be your best bets. TigerLily24's picks above would work for you. My wife and I recently traveled the 175-odd miles SE to Carlsbad and toured Carlsbad Caverns. Wow! What a beautiful underground National Park. Truly a gem of New Mexico's that I will always remember visiting and more than likely will return to see. New Mexico is full of cool places ta visit. Just remember, we are what is considered the desert SW. It gets really, really hot in southern New Mexico. As long as you hydrate, stay in good A/C in your car, workplace (if you'll need one), house and stores (we're covered nicely by great A/C in southern NM stores, restaurants and theaters, of course, we have ta be) you'll get along just fine.
New Mexico is the home of Smokey the Bear, Billy the Kid, the Trinity site (site of the blowing up of the world's first atomic bomb...approximately 130 miles NW of Alamogordo...)out in the middle of nowhere and available for visiting just two weekends a year, in April and October.
In Alamo we also have the New Mexico Space Museum and IMAX theater, a new 10-screen theater, the desert SW's oldest continuously running Zoo (opened in 1898 and great fun ta visit!), the Alameda Park Zoo, Cloudcroft, NM is only 16 miles east up the Sacramento Mountains, and it provides cooling off...it's 15-20° cooler than Alamogordo's temperatures.
Keep in mind that a lot of new Mexico's under population has to do with lack of water, scarcity of rural area employment, and vast scrublands sometimes are used for ranching/
If you have an income source, there are many places to consider: Do you like the dry or desert areas?? Do you like the mountain areas? Do you need a town with large medical facilities or lots of stores?? Do you have extra cash or do you want to live cheap?? There are many options. Hobbs is much more like Texas than New Mexico, totally flat, and a booming oil and gas center...Lived there once, it is mainly a very busy all business type of atmosphere and not a relaxing place to live. Carlsbad is interesting, mostly tourism due to the Caverns and a little mining and energy industry. Deming is interesting, lots of retired there, but a orderly county seat town with services and chain stores. Carrizozo is worth a look, cheaper living right by the mountains, but not much else. Melrose is near Portales, another small but not bad place close to a larger city...The list goes on and on..
Best to come down here and roam around a little, stay for a week here and there at a motel, see what you like, check out the different cultures and the way things are done in various places, you might just come across that "perfect place"...
I have been doing a lot of research on various states as I plan to leave Indiana soon. I am disabled and have been advised to consider relocating somewhere sunny. I also want to move somewhere less crowded. Indiana is OK, but it's overcrowding. You cant go anywhere without being surrounded by people. I notice NM is roughly 3 times the size of Indiana, yet has under 2 million people. Indiana has over 6 million. Nerve racking here for a guy who likes his space.
So are the numbers I am reading correct? Is NM a place where I could actually be able to go for a drive and not be shoved down the road? Go for a walk and not have dozens of people with noise all around?
I have been through Albuquerque a few times, and drive around a little, but I'd like a decent little town that just laid back and not crowded. Does this exist? Any help is appreciated.
"decent" is a relative notion, but for wide open spaces and laid-back attitudes, it is hard to beat eastern NM. Little Clayton, Tucumcari, and Santa Rosa have a certain kind of slow, scenic aura. Clovis, I hear, has no aura. Raton is both sleepy and scenic. I found Las Vegas traffic a bit frantic.
Thank you all for the extremely helpful and kind replies
I have been to through Grants, Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, ABQ, all on the several times I've driven the I-40. Of all the states I go through from California to Indiana it is always New mexico where I find myself feeling at some sort of peace. So when I stay in NM I usually stay a day longer just to drive around in the desert and stop at little shops etc.
Living there would be different than visiting, though, so i am planning this spring to go out and spend a few weeks just traveling around NM, talking to residents etc.
As far as what I am looking for; really I'm not too picky as long as the area is not too overpopulated, look to have some space. So ABQ would not be attractive to me unless I want shopping every now and then. I am also into stargazing and never have I experienced the open sky void of light polution as I have in NM (and parts of AZ). I plan to do this several nights a year.
I will now do some research on the towns some of you have recommended. Thanks again for all your help.
I have been doing a lot of research on various states as I plan to leave Indiana soon. I am disabled and have been advised to consider relocating somewhere sunny. I also want to move somewhere less crowded. Indiana is OK, but it's overcrowding. You cant go anywhere without being surrounded by people. I notice NM is roughly 3 times the size of Indiana, yet has under 2 million people. Indiana has over 6 million. Nerve racking here for a guy who likes his space.
So are the numbers I am reading correct? Is NM a place where I could actually be able to go for a drive and not be shoved down the road? Go for a walk and not have dozens of people with noise all around?
I have been through Albuquerque a few times, and drive around a little, but I'd like a decent little town that just laid back and not crowded. Does this exist? Any help is appreciated.
As has already been mentioned, Alamogordo is a very convenient size, although it's a little rough around the edges (some poverty there). Large enough to have most of the services you'd ever need, but small enough to avoid congestion. It's in a great location, too. Backed up against the mountains with the Tularosa basin spread out in front. A 30 minute drive to Cloudcroft, with pine forests and 70 degree summer afternoons. Only an hour from Las Cruces (100,00 pop) and 1-1/2 hours from El Paso (600,000 pop) if you need something not available there in Alamo.
Other decent size NM cities in nice locations: Silver City, Las Vegas, Farmington, Santa Fe, Ruidoso.
I think Roswell is a nice town, too. But it's out on the plains, which wouldn't appeal to some.
......So when I stay in NM I usually stay a day longer just to drive around in the desert and stop at little shops etc. Living there would be different than visiting, though, so i am planning this spring to go out and spend a few weeks just traveling around NM, talking to residents etc....
I will now do some research on the towns some of you have recommended. Thanks again for all your help.
It always is, and no matter how carefully you plan, you will not know whether or not a place suits you until you have actually lived there for awhile.
I lived in Alamogordo for 4 years (needed to be close to aging parents at the time), and had I known how things were going to turn out with them, I would have come to Farmington in the first place, as I originally planned. But hindsight is always 20/20.
Alamo is gorgeous with the mountains everywhere you look in town, and it's nice to be close to the higher elevations (Cloudcroft/Ruidoso) to escape the summer heat.
Services often leave a LOT to be desired--electricians, plumbers and the like--you're lucky if you don't get stood up. Work is often sloppy and not done correctly the first time--and there appears to be very little pride in doing a good job on top of that.
Restaurants are mostly crappy--I have never seen a town of that size that has almost uniformly bad mom-and-pop places (I mean non-chains) with lousy service and lousier food. Unless things have changed since I left in 2011, that's about the norm. Pepper's on the north end of White Sands is pretty good at times, but that's about it.
Margo's and La Hacienda can be not too bad at times, but it varies so much that I just quit going to either place for the most part.
The shopping/grocery options are adequate, and there is always something going on, some local event. One can always find something to do, so that's not a problem for Alamo. Its proximity to both Las Cruces and El Paso is nice if you need a larger place for shopping/medical and such.
I never had to use the medical center there (thank goodness), but it's there if you need it, as well as a branch (2-year) of NMSU if you want to take some classes, etc.
I much prefer Farmington (as well as the northern part of the state) over Alamo, but having said that, I'm very, very homesick, so I'm going home. If I were staying in NM, it would be right where I am now.
The weather is better (IMHO) in the north, with colder winters and a tad cooler (relatively speaking) summers. Its proximity to Durango and Southwestern CO is the biggest plus. Services have been far better (I haven't been stood up yet, and nobody has had to come back to redo a job that wasn't done right to begin with)....and the restaurants/grocery/shopping options are a lot better.
Being a hub city that serves a large area has its advantages. But it might have more population and traffic than you want. I didn't even consider ABQ when I was looking in 2005/6 because of its size. Just too big!
Last edited by Cathy4017; 09-07-2013 at 11:24 AM..
Thank you all for the extremely helpful and kind replies
I have been to through Grants, Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, ABQ, all on the several times I've driven the I-40. Of all the states I go through from California to Indiana it is always New mexico where I find myself feeling at some sort of peace. So when I stay in NM I usually stay a day longer just to drive around in the desert and stop at little shops etc.
Living there would be different than visiting, though, so i am planning this spring to go out and spend a few weeks just traveling around NM, talking to residents etc.
As far as what I am looking for; really I'm not too picky as long as the area is not too overpopulated, look to have some space. So ABQ would not be attractive to me unless I want shopping every now and then. I am also into stargazing and never have I experienced the open sky void of light polution as I have in NM (and parts of AZ). I plan to do this several nights a year.
I will now do some research on the towns some of you have recommended. Thanks again for all your help.
I lived in Eastern New Mexico before moving to Santa Fe, and at least for me, Eastern New Mexico was a better fit. If you are looking for a place that is not crowded, Tucumcari and Santa Rosa would be good choices. If I could afford to move, I would move back to eastern NM. Santa Fe is just not the right fit for me, although it is very beautiful here.
Tucumcari and Santa Rosa are very isolated, but my advice would be to get involved. That is what helped me. Go to the football games, go to the community events, support the local businesses. Here in Santa Fe, it is very hard (although not impossible) to get involved, as Santa Fe can be "cliquish", and it is hard to get into them, unless you already have connections. It took me 2 months to adjust to Eastern NM, but I've been in Santa Fe for 3 years, and still have not "fit in" yet with the people here.
Plus, you could go to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Clovis, or Amarillo, TX to go shopping, and each is not more than a 2-3 hour drive, depending on where you live.
If you don't mind living outside Alb, Bernalillo might be a place you could try. I will say the traffic there is horrible, but it still has their small town roots, and the residents are very friendly.
Last edited by lorelai4605217; 09-08-2013 at 08:11 AM..
"Not many people" is such a relative term, meaning different things to different people.
I just returned to Alamogordo from a weekend in Santa Fe. The route home I took was Highway 14 from SF to Interstate 25 north to State Highway 3 to Highway 54, and for much of the time had the road to myself. (This isn't the most direct route, but I wanted to see more of SR 3 than I had previously.)
I don't know the nature of your disability, but in the event you are wheelchair-bound, I can tell you that Alamogordo is a very good place to be. Many roads in town are wide, with generous bike (or wheelchair lanes), and sidewalks on both sides of the streets. And people avail themselves of these features here.
There is congestion at times on White Sands Boulevard (aka Highways 54 and 70), but Scenic Drive parallels that main strip and it is smooth sailing most of the time, albeit with 4-way stop intersections. There's also a "relief route" that parallels White Sands Boulevard which is much faster moving than WS.
I've been to Farmington twice, and I think it's got charm. However, I think it's got a lot of traffic congestion. I do like nearby Aztec an awful lot, but darn, that traffic that zips by in the morning and evening - brutal. As long as you can stay off the main artery that skirts Aztec, it might fit your criteria.
Advantages of Santa Rosa and Tucumcari are that they are: 1) close to major interstates; and 2) relatively close to mountain areas for a change of scenery. Tucumcari is what I'd call a transitional town - an old Route 66 town - it might be moving up or moving down the desirability scale. Hard to tell. I'd say Alamogordo is more isolated than either of these towns.
I like Carrizozo, which someone mentioned. But in addition to being quite small, it's pretty far from any mid-size city. Alamogordo's a little over an hour away. Socorro is about an hour and a half away. Ruidoso is probably an hour-plus away. Highway 380 is one of my favorite NM roads, though.
And, yes, Bernalillo is *very* congested.
Some other towns you might throw into the mix: Truth or Consequences, Columbus (with an incredibly quiet highway direct to El Paso - Columbus residents call it their "private highway"), or Deming.
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