International Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I've been fantasizing about Denver...
I've never even been, but there's something about it that appeals to me, if we can avoid the suburban sprawl.
I've been looking at houses online and I love the architecture, the prices seem reasonable, and OMG, you can ski on the weekends! I want to be able to ski and hike and visit microbreweries.
In my head, I've created this life where we take the dog and kids hiking, visit farmers markets and celebrate seasons (I grew up in the land of no seasons, so this is a quaint idea for me).
Seriously, I'm off in lala land over a place I've never even been to.
Do we have any nesties familiar with Denver? Pros, cons? Do people really ski every weekend? Is it cultural?
Are there any cities you fantasize about living in?
Re: I've been fantasizing about Denver...
I don't know a soul in Denver. Nor do we have jobs in Denver. Maybe we should make a plan to move as many INs as possible to Denver. Actually, there is one nestie who I'm friends with on FB who moved to Denver last year. This could be the start of a trend...
Your Denver was my H's FNQ. He had this whole life envisioned for us, not unlike your "life" in Denver (except replace skiing with diving on the reef).
Some things are best left to fantasy.
Oh no! Had you visited before you moved there? I told H I'd at least need to visit Denver first, but the seed has been planted.
I've only been to Boulder and Colorado Springs. I can say they're BEAUTIFUL places. I mean really, truly amazing. My parents lived there when they first got married becuase my dad was at Colorado College, then my sister went to UC Boulder for a while and I applied to both schools when it was my turn so we went out to visit. We were at a wedding last weekend and some of my parents friends were talking about their daughter and her husband who had just moved to Denver. I think they said that the sprawl was pretty bad and the job market wasn't great but that's pretty typical of every US city right now. I think overall its still one of the better smaller cities for standard of living here. And the scenery in that part of the country cannot be beat, really.
My dream location in the US right now is San Fransisco. I've never been. I totally understand the draw of "the perfect life" even when its just on paper!
We lived in San Francisco before moving out here. I'd move back there in a heartbeat if it was less than a 6 hour flight from our families and more affordable. A lot of the outdoor activities I'd want to do I originally picked up in SF, and we did take weekend ski trips. I've never been so healthy as when I lived there! With Denver I feel like I'd get a taste of that, but at a fraction of the cost. If it's affordable to you, I highly, highly recommend SF.
It's so funny you should say that, I sometimes fantasize about Denver as well though I have never been there. DH's Dad just moved out there (CO Springs) in the beginning of this year and just loves it! I also remember hearing about CO from my childhood friend who loved living there before she moved to my neighborhood.
I bet it is really beautiful! Our company has an office in Aurora, CO - so it could be an option for us someday, but I am not anxious to live where it is so cold. I hear they already have snow! I bet people do go skiing and hiking every weekend.
It definitely is an active and outdoorsy kinda person's paradise!
IN's October Siggy Challenge: Halloween Costumes
I would love to live in Denver, sadly that will never be an option for us because we need to be a financial captial. However, I totally hear you on the surburan 'perfect life'. I am totally over working right now! I am ready for my 2 kids, 2 dogs and minivan to go apple and pumpkin picking and hiking!
I would love to live somewhere outdoorsy near a big city. I need Denver to relocate close to NYC!
Sounds like you should move to NJ or CT suburbs--beautiful in these parts with plenty of hiking, apple and pumpkin picking!
That is the plan! Right now, hopefully within two years time! I'll be asking you for recommendations. At the moment, we've been told that Middetown is nice and an easy commute into NYC for DH. I have no idea how accurate that is.
I've been sorta hiding away from the board lately... some personal stuff, but I couldn't resist responding here.
I'm leaving for Denver in a few weeks to visit my parents! My stepmom has lived there since pretty much before I was born - my 'American roots' are in Colorado.
Regarding the snow, yes, it starts snowing early, which is great for skiing, but besides in the resorts, snow really doesn't last, up 'til mid-december there'll be a blizzard one day and the next day everything will have melted.
Most of my friends don't ski, but the few that do, indeed go skiing on weekends.
It's so, so beautiful in Colorado (at least most of the year). The season I'm least fond of is summer actually, because it doesn't rain and everything looks brown, but besides that, yeah, Denver is pretty awesome!
<going back in hiding now>
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DHi, I live in Denver (actually one of the NW suburbs, between Denver and Boulder- guilty of contributing to suburban sprawl, but it reduced my commute from an hour+ to 15 minutes!). Everything you've said about Denver, I could easily say about England...
Denver is a great city. I've been here almost 12 years and lived in various areas of the city proper before moving out to suburbia. Denver is a pretty MCOL city, except, IMO, "central Denver" real estate. We never had a huge bubble, but depending on the neighborhood you want to live in (Washington Park, Congress Park especially) you could pay $400-$500k for a tiny bungalow or handyman special. Other cons: our public transportation is decades behind, but we're trying to catch up. Denver salaries have gone down, on average, over the past decade. And we don't *really* have seasons, at least not like the midwest/east coast. It was 86 degrees October 1 and 37 this past weekend. Generally, it's cold and sunny during the day November-May, and warm and sunny during the day June-October. We can have 70 degree days in February and snow in July!
There are a lot of farmer's markets and it is a very outdoors-oriented, "active" city (and state in general). There are a lot of parks, national and otherwise, so there is always biking, hiking, camping, rafting etc. in the summer. And people do ski every weekend, though beware the dreaded traffic jam if you head to Summit/Eagle County (where the most accessible to Denver/known ski destinations are - Keystone, Breckenridge, Vail). Traffic can be miserably horrid to and from the mountains - ski season and otherwise (the resorts have a ton of summer activities as well)- think what should be a 1.5-2.5 hour drive each way takes 4-6 hours each way instead.
Is it cultural? Depends on what you mean... There are arts and music, but it doesn't have the sort of vibrant ethnic neighborhoods I associate with cities like Chicago, San Francisco, NY, Miami, etc. Hispanic culture is probably the most visible. Boulder has its own unique culture - very very very liberal - but Denver seems to be more of a big melting pot. There are people from everywhere here - I lived here for 9 years before I had a friend who was native to Colorado!
All in, though, I really like living here and can't imagine any possible reason to move (except to the UK with my BF).
I fantasize about Denver too! My company in Amsterdam had their headquarters in Amsterdam and I was told if I wanted a job back in the US, they would find me something in Denver and it put a bug in my brain. It looks SO cute and the outdoorsy living looks amazing.
One of the very first HGTV Dream Home contests was in Colorado and the house was amazing. It wasn't in Denver but it made want to move to the area!
Thanks for the information! The good thing about living in London is that $400-$500K for a small bungalow begins to sound reasonable. =/