Best parts of Colorado to live

[Carlos Danger]

If one were relocating to Colorado and could live in any part of the state, what would be the best part of the state to move to, and why?

Taking into account proximity to hospitals (for employment opportunities), weather, access to the outdoors, traffic, being reasonably close to one of the cities (though not necessarily commuting distance, just close enough to go to a game or something on the weekends)......just general lifestyle?

What other parts of the west offer an environment and lifestyle similar to Colorado, and how do those places compare to most of Colorado in terms of cost of living, employment, etc?

@chaz90
@Summit
@Tigger
@COmedic17

 

[chaz90]

I absolutely loved living in Fort Collins. It's a college town with a well educated and outdoorsy population, but it's not as liberal as Boulder. Colorado State University is a great school and really adds a lot to the character of the town (though I may be biased as an alumni).
There are more local breweries than I can name, and the whole town really embraces the outdoor, beer, and bicycles kind of atmosphere.

I always found it big enough to find something to do locally (~140k people) but Denver was only about an hour away if I wanted to go watch the Avs or Broncos play or go to a bigger concert at Red Rocks or something. While mentioning that, Fort Collins does have a pretty cool local music scene and get a fair number of mid size and local acts.

There's a lot of outdoor activities as you go farther north on Highway 287 into the Poudre Canyon and Red Feather Lakes region. There's beautiful hiking, fishing, and a lot to do on the Poudre River itself. Ski areas are mostly ~2 hours away, which is pretty comparable to most of the front range if you don't actually live in the mountains. Estes Park (the town) and Rocky Mountain National Park are about an hour drive away and one of my absolute favorite places in the world to go hiking or camping. Locally, Horsetooth Reservoir and Lory State Park have great hiking and mountain biking trails.

As far as hospitals go, there are two major hospital systems in the area. Poudre Valley Hospital is in Fort Collins itself, which was originally part of Poudre Valley Health system and also ran Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland CO (about 15 minutes south on I-25). Both hospitals are now part of the University of Colorado Health System, which I really like. PVH is a level III trauma center and didn't have full time PCI capabilities when I lived there. They're pretty much your average community hospital of ~200ish beds and do a pretty decent job. Medical Center of the Rockies is smaller bed wise (~110 beds I think) but was built in 2007 or so. It's a Level II regional-ish trauma center handling a lot of the aeromedical trauma cases from Northern Colorado and Wyoming. Banner Health system just opened a new, smaller hospital in southern Fort Collins too to start competing with Poudre. Banner also has McKee Medical Center in Loveland (another general community hospital) and Northern Colorado Medical Center in Greeley.

Feel free to message me if you have more questions. I absolutely loved living In Fort Collins and couldn't recommend it enough. Really, most of this would apply to living in Loveland too though it is much smaller if you're into that kind of thing.

 

[Tigger]

I live in Colorado Springs and enjoy but would not stay here if it wasn't for my job. The Springs is very socially conservative, sprawled, and kind of lacking in hipness. Most of the concerts I go see are in Denver. My neighborhood is the only place I would consider living (west of I25), and I rarely venture east unless I am working downtown. On the plus side, living at the base of Pikes Peak is rad. I can go for a run on a 14er easily. I work right next it too. It's also a traffic free 2.5 hour to most ski areas, with much of that area in between being national forest. Both University of Colorado and Centura healthcare networks have significant presences here and there is a fair amount of jobs. Cost of living is very, very low.

My goal is to eventually move to a ski town but it'll take years for me to be a viable candidate for a fulltime position there.

I think Denver is too expensive for what it is, but it's not horrifically unreasonable. Expect almost double the housing prices from Colorado Springs though. Boulder is also outrageous, but you get what you pay for.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Great info, guys, exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

 

[Summit]

There is so much that is relative...

What is a hospital to you?
A level IV/V ER?
A level III trauma critical access hospital with a helibase?
A level II regional trauma center?
An urban level II or level I trauma + academic hospital?
Trauma Center Map: http://batchgeo.com/map/fa61cd6f2af19bde02c742b6d6484a68

What is a "City"?
Breckenridge with 5K?
Durango with 20K?
Grand Junction with 65K?
Co Springs with 450K?
Or do you mean Denver?

What is good weather?
Snow is awesome because you love skiing and 6 months of winter is sweet, hate the heat, and don't want to have an airconditioner, and will drive a few hours if you crave warm weather in April or October?
Or you need 4x3 month seasons?

What is lifestyle and outdoors?
Mountaineering, kayaking, skiing, snowmobiling, biking, hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, 4wheeling, ice climbing?
Concerts, breweries, musicals, major league sports?

Is lifestyle/outdoors activities something you casually do when you aren't at work? Or is lifestyle a LIFEstyle and you obsessively get after it and work to support it? (This is a very important distinction)

You can see the complexities above have to be narrowed down a bit before suggesting parts of CO much less other areas of the West...

 

[Carlos Danger]

You can see the complexities above have to be narrowed down a bit before suggesting parts of CO much less other areas of the West...

Im just looking for exactly the kind of broad overview that Chaz and Tigger provided.

For instance, what part of the state do you live in? What do you like and dislike about it? If you were gonna relocate inside CO, where would you go and why would it be better than where you are?

 

[TransportJockey]

It's been years, bit I loved living in the Lakewood area off US6. Close to the city, close to some hospitals, closish to the mountains.

 

[Summit]

If you were gonna relocate inside CO, where would you go and why would it be better than where you are?

I'd install a teleporter between Telluride and Denver... then I get to work with sick patients, good money, but live in Telluride, I don't have to commute, and also I magically inherent a house in Telluride because it is insanely expensive.

Pretty much anything West of Denver/Ft Collins/CO Springs is awesome, empty (by comparison to the front range), and beautiful. The farther West you go, the better (but stop before you hit the desert)... but farther West harder to make a living. But the metros are where the most interesting cases and highest pay are...

Oh and if you don't mind LDSers and insane liquor laws, UT is cheaper. If you really want to be away from people, WY, MT, ID,

 

[COmedic17]

I live in Douglas county, but (if you can afford it) Boulder county is the nicest. There's a TON to do ( rock climbing, base jumping, rafting, boating, kayaking, biking, fishing, skiing, camping, etc). There's a few smaller towns (Louisville/Lafayette) that are good for families. It's also right up to the flat irons so it's extremely pretty. Several hospitals are very close, and 2 of the hospitals have flight teams (MedEvac and LifeNet). Several are also trauma centers. It's within an hour to Denver ( 30ish mins), Golden (15ish mins) and Fort Collins (30-45 mins). There is also less crime in boulder county. And it extends into the mountains, so there's a lot of very pretty mountain neighborhoods. It's very outdoorsy but it's not to liberal is you stay out of boulder city and live in one of the neighboring towns.


Douglas county, where I live, is nice. It's more affordable then Boulder county and still has most of the same things to do, it's just not quite as scenic. It's 30 mins from Denver, and 30 mins from Colorado Springs, so it's centrally located.

 

[Tigger]

It's been years, bit I loved living in the Lakewood area off US6. Close to the city, close to some hospitals, closish to the mountains.

Lakewood is nice. Golden is also reasonably close to Denver and not exorbitant.

 

[COmedic17]

It's been years, bit I loved living in the Lakewood area off US6. Close to the city, close to some hospitals, closish to the mountains.

Lakewood also has Casa Bonita.

It's a little bit too close to Denver though ( it's pretty much a Denver suburban-ish neighborhood)

 

[khaysley]

I don't know about the hospitals and stuff as I was only a kid about 8 or 9 when I lived there but Parker, Colorado in Douglas county It was a really good area when I lived there. It's about 45 mins to Denver and you are still pretty close to the mountains. My family did a lot of hiking and biking when we lived there.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Thanks for the input, guys. Keep it coming if you think of something else.

My wife and I are thinking about possibly moving out west in a couple of years. We visited CO briefly a couple times when we were younger and we loved what we saw.

I'm thinking the ideal place for us would probably be a small town with scenery and character that is far enough from the major urban areas to not be affected at all by city traffic and not have a suburban feel to it, but close enough to Denver to get there pretty easily (2 hours or so) for the airport and the occasional game or show or whatnot, and also close enough to skiing and hiking that it doesn't take a whole day to go hike a couple hour trail or do a handful of runs and then have a beer or two in the lodge. We don't mind snow at all, but I'm not necessarily wanting to have to shovel feet of it every day from Sep though May. Of course it's nice to have a couple pubs or bar & grilles with good food and a good beer selection nearby, but I'm thinking that's pretty much everywhere in CO. Being near a large urban hospital means nothing to me - that experience was important when I was a newer RN and paramedic and CRNA student, but now I hope I never have to work in a place like that again. I very much prefer the pace and atmosphere and schedule that you find in small, rural facilities.

 

[chaz90]

Hmm. That description of what you're looking for narrows it down a lot. The problem there is most of the small towns with scenery/character come hand in hand with large amounts of snow in the winter and increased traffic during ski season. There are some cool places on the western slope similar to what you're describing, but at that point you're a long hike from Denver. I'm really not familiar with the areas on the western slope either, so perhaps Summit can help you out there.

Estes Park, as mentioned before, certainly has scenery and character in spades. It has Estes Park Medical Center in town, and there are other hospitals within commuting distance of 45 minutes or so if you wanted to do that. It's right outside the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, which is really great, but comes with vastly increased traffic and crowds during the summer and much of the fall.

Grand County is great too. It's on the other side of the national park and has a scattering of very small communities that may be what you're looking for. Distance to Denver is manageable, but again snowfall is pretty significant. There are at least two small critical access hospitals in this area offering employment.

Check out the Salida area. There's some really nice skiing there at Monarch that is off the beaten path of the I-70 corridor. It's certainly more rural and you won't feel crowded out or surrounded by tourists. I forget the name of the hospital in that area, but I know one exists. The problem there is that the distance to Denver is ~2.5 hours, and much longer in bad weather.

 

[Summit]

Chaffee County would be my first thought for you (Buena Vista / Salida)... maybe Lake County
Higher cost options: outside Estes Park, western Eagle County, or west Boulder County

Depends on if you need to be in a small town or are cool with a rural setting.

These options could give you a less than 1 hour commute to a facility that might use CRNAs and less than 3 hours to DEN (in optimal conditions)

 

[Summit]

I forget the name of the hospital in that area, but I know one exists. The problem there is that the distance to Denver is ~2.5 hours, and much longer in bad weather.

Heart of the Rockies. They use CRNAs. SMH in Frisco does too. I decided he said 3 hours instead of about 2 hours because otherwise he cannot find the other things he is looking for. 2 hours or less distance to Denver means major traffic and "suburbanization" of the mountain communities within that distance because of tourism, day trippers, and huge numbers of second homeowners.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Excellent info guys. Thanks!

 

[COmedic17]

I'll name some smaller towns close to the mountains with awesome scenery that are reasonably close to Denver ( so on the front range). Then maybe you can research each town and see if any of those are what you are looking for .



Louisville ( Boulder county )
Lafayette ( Boulder county )
Golden ( Jefferson County )
Castle Rock ( Douglas County )
Elizabeth ( Douglas County )
Franktown ( Douglas County )


All of those have scenery, are all very close to outdoor activities, have minimal traffic, and are all with an hour and a half or so from Denver. They are all also smaller "family" towns.

 

[COmedic17]

And here's some pics of each ( just for an idea)

Louisville-

Lafayette-

Golden-

 

[Summit]

^That is a nice list of front range suburbs, COmedic. Little suburbs/exerbs on the plains... all part of the front range suburban sprawl. None of those offer the CO mountain life, and are 2-3 hours from any ski lift or 14er (except Pikes).

Except Golden, but that is Denver. It isn't downtown, but it is just where the metro area runs into the edge of the foothills. It is closer to the mountains (and the I-70 mountain traffic disaster). Also very expensive these days... but if I had to live in the front range, I'd live there.