I've traveled to boulder a fair amount and find it a nice place:


1) It is very pretty
2) There is a lot to do "outside"
3) Lots of young people.
4) LOTS of commercial construction.
5) From what the locals have told me - housing prices are going up (a lot)
6) The smell of pot is frequent
7) On #6 - you can grow your own and it smells up your neighbors property depending in the wind (locals have told me this - one can't use his backyard depending on the wind because of the smell)
8) Very good restaurants
9) Lots of "trendy" bars

I do enjoy visiting, not sure I'd want to live there.

No idea on Carson City.

I went to college at the University of Colorado and still live in nearby Broomfield. The previous poster is 100% right. I want to mention that it is extremely expensive to live in Boulder and it's only getting worse. However, the are several good sized towns just outside of Boulder that are super nice and don't have many of the downsides that they mentioned (like the ever present smell of pot and cheaper, although not cheap, housing)

I lived just outside of Boulder in the late 90s and had to check if this was a zombie thread. Your post would have been equally accurate then.

At that time I *was* a young person, working in commercial construction, doing a lot outside (#2/#6), but too young to capitalize on #8/9.

I'd visit both if you're considering a move. Sure there's some pot smell depending on where you go, but it's nowhere near the problem other posters say, at least from my perspective.

We decided to retire here for several reasons, you need to figure out what your needs are.

We wanted walkability, we have a car but hardly drive.
Great medical care as we age.
Open minded community. Sure, Boulder is a bubble but I'm in a mixed race marriage and that matters, coming from living in Georgia the past 20 years.
Close major city and airport.
I can ride from my house to train, mtb, hike, again no need for a car unless I really want to.
It's expensive to purchase a home, but after that I don't feel the costs are that out of line with most desirable places to live.
It's very bike friendly, bike lanes and paths everywhere.

I know nothing about Carson City.

I do know Bentonville Arkansas is supposed to be coming up, sort like the next Austin.

i wouldn't live in carson city per se. but there are some really good places to live for training on the lee side of the mountains, in nevada. for example, if you leave south lake tahoe down kingsbury grade, you get to what's called carson valley, which is not carson city. carson valley is minden and gardnerville. when you get to the bottom of kingsbury, if you turn left you go thru genoa on your way to carson city. if you turn right - and this is where i propose you look - you're on foothill (aka fredricksburg) road heading toward woodfords. on that road, on the west (mountain) side of that road, you're right up against the sierras, the backside of heavenly valley.

i think i could live there pretty easily. you're in nevada barely. you would swim in the carson valley swim center, which would be a 10 to 15 minute drive each way depending on where you ended up living. the road riding is out fredricksburg road to woodfords and then diamond valley road, or hwy 89 to markleeville and up monitor grade or ebbetts pass and as you may know these are all the markleeville death ride ascents. there's also kingsbury, and there may be an "old" kingsbury available for cycling (as there is an "old" spooner summit for cycling). there's a trail system out your back door, but i've spent zero time on this trail system so i don't know if it's horse-only, if it's good for running, or MTB.

when you get to the top of kingsbury, there tahoe rim trail is there for you for running and offroad riding.

you're at about 4,800', which means it gets a winter but it doesn't get a tahoe winter. your local ski resort is heavenly north, and you're a 30min drive one way to kirkwood. there's a lot of nordic in hope valley and in kirkwood, which are 20min and 30min away respectively.

there are other good spots. between carson city and reno is that valley where washoe lake sits, and on the west side, that's where greg lemond grew up, on franktown road. i used to ride my bike out there from reno and pick up his dad, bob, and bob and i would ride together. but you'd have to have all this sorted out, where you'd ride, the variety of riding, and i don't know that this is as good as it used to be for road riding. of course we used to ride all the roads, everywhere, but things are different now, or at least we perceive them as different. one good thing is that hwy 395, since it's complete from reno to carson city, means that whole stretch thru washoe valley has now been relieved of all but local car traffic, so, franktown road might be a great place.

but not carson city proper. you'd want to either be in washoe valley, on franktown road, or you'd want to be in fredricksburg. in my opinion.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I live in Boulder now. I lived in Reno for 7 years and worked in an office basically in Carson City for at least 3 of those years.

It easily boils down to this: the only reason to choose Carson City over Boulder is cost. Carson will be much much cheaper.

Boulder has a better tri community, better restaurants, culture, education. The town is prettier. The only advantage Carson has is proximity to skiing is better than Boulder if you're going to Heavenly or Kirkwood and of course Tahoe is amazing. But Carson City itself kinda sucks. I would recommend Reno over Carson by a lot. Reno has a better tri community than Carson too.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Sounds like Carson City/Reno is where to go. Boulder is stupid expensive.

Is the OP tied to being in a city? I'd look a bit east in Nevada from Carson City a small place like Fallon. If you're not tethered to being in a city, slowman's recs are good too.

On Colorado areas near Boulder, check out Erie or Niwot. As stated the Cost of Living in Boulder is...yeah. There are other place in Colorado that can give you that experience for far less, just not near Denver unless you're specifically wanting the city lifestyle. I personally like Greeley, good running infrastructure and also far less people than the Denver Metro area.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I went to college in Boulder and live in the "other college" town (The Fort). When I was in school all the moneyed out-of-state students referred to Boulder as "Berkley by the Hills" and I would say it has a similar flavor to the Bay Area. Home prices are nuts by most standards, but not a big deal if you are coming from California.

The other small city I would consider is Golden. It is roughly 15 miles south of Boulder and it provides better access to skiing and downtown Denver, but it is has a much more laid back vibe and I would say it is less pretentious. The vibe is a bizarre mix of academic oddness (it is where one of the better US engineering schools is located and the National Renewable Energy lab), local goof balls, and an odd collection of tourists all packed in a little valley separated from Denver by a little ridge of plateaus. Total population of 10-15,000 and you can walk about anywhere you would want to go.

Shhhh!! Stop telling people about Golden! ;)

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Colorado Triathlon Company, CO2UT 2021, Crooked Gravel 2022, Steamboat Gravel 2022

Indeed! Don’t “Boulder My Golden” as they say!

^^^^This.

Coming from Silicon Valley pretty much anywhere else seems affordable. A McMansion near Boulder is barely a down payment on an Eichler in Palo Alto.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Thanks everyone for the very thoughtful replies. Definitely gives me some ideas to follow up on. Keep it coming!

re: areas around either Boulder or CC - I'm certainly open to / looking at those spots like Fort Collins or Genoa. I'm not tied to city life and tend to be a home body, so a very short list of decent restaurants can keep me happy a long time as long as I can get to a farmer's market.

re: cost - indeed, my perspective is quite skewed. In my 'hood you can get a 3 BR/2 BA starting at around $1.2M. Such is life when the Netflix HQ is a mile away and Apple HQ is ~ 7miles.

re: the smell of pot - certainly accustomed to that. Even here in the 'burbs of Los Gatos it's common. In San Francisco even more so.

damnlucky - Bentonville is on my long list. I visited last year for business with Walmart related to their health clinic and was really impressed. The Walmart heirs are cyclists and working on making it more bike friendly. Looked to me like they were succeeding.

Dan thanks for the detailed input on CC. You mentioned a few places I've stumbled across in Zillow searching (eg Genoa) so it was great to hear your perspective. I'm sure you don't recall but I attended the FIST class over a decade ago and your setup at Xantusia helped plant the idea of a training compound in the foothills - not too high, not too low, just right. Access to the eastern Sierras via 395 is another reason I like that general area - I spend a fair bit of time playing in the backcountry so getting to JMT access points is highly valuable.

Ed I appreciate your Reno vs. CC perspective. Been to Reno a few times but it's been a while.

FWIW - my specific goal is a few acres on which I'll have a tiny home to live in plus a couple more to rent out on Airbnb. Then a small gym decked out with Rogue & Eleiko, a service course / cardio room for the bikes, and a garden. Trail access in the mountains for MTB/running is important. Basically a place my sons & my friends want to come hang out with me...

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Cyclist turned multisport enthusiast. Human performance technologist and digital health expert in my day job.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karletzel/
https://www.strava.com/athletes/karletzel

Boulder’s mtb kind of sucks. If that’s your motivation I would definitely look elsewhere. Unless you like crowds and riding the same thing over and over. Especially if you plan to ride there from home.

I keep seeing people move to Boulder thinking it’s a vacation area- but if you have money and like mountains you should budget for two places. Most people with money in Boulder have a place west of the divide too.