LoganMntMan

ok Firestone is in the middle of no where SE Colorado from Denver but it is getting better! There are some seriously affordable properties/homes around Firestone. Another great part about Firestone is that there are alot of great people there.

Louisville is a great little town just about 20 minutes drive from Boulder. There are nice little neighborhoods and the old town/downtown of Louisville is a great place. There is a great little downtown to shop, eat and walk--the restaurants are unique and the beer is great. I especially love Waterloo, they have great food, drinks, prices and live music right on Main Street.

I have grown to dearly love Salida, the river and her people. The Arkansas flows through giving the town its character. There are amazing shops and small businesses in Salida--you can pretty much get anything you need there and do not really need to venture out to the "big city" for much. The cost of land can be steeper than surrounding southern CO towns and counties but you get what you pay for and Salida is a great lifestyle. Winters are sunny and chilly like most of Colorado, but this is a great little valley and I would advise anyone looking to live in the Colorado mountain lands to scope this place out. It is a great mix of old/new--conservative and new age.

I really enjoy getting up to the area around Dolores and Mancos, McPhee Res is a beautiful spot. If anyone is moving to Colorado's sw region I highly recommend checking out the Dolores area for homes and land, great spot and not far from Durango for shopping and restaurants, Mancos has a lot to offer for such a small town too. There is a great health food and cafe in Mancos I also highly recommend and who could complain living next to Mesa Verde, great location!

Pueblo is not one of my favorite Colorado cities/towns. The place is pretty ran down energetically, people are kinda funny. Ok so downtown is ok and has some character but when you compare CU Pueblo to CU BOulder for example there is no comparison (not to say that Boulder doesnt have its own downfalls) but Pueblo is not exactly an uplifting place and i would advise any newcomer moving into Colorado to avoid it. Its just not worth it. There are many other places, cleaner, more beautiful open places in Colorado to settle. As far as cities go...Colorado Springs is better, Denver is better still and Fort Collins is better yet as far as The Front Range. If you go further south into New Mexico, Santa Fe is a fine city as far as southern cities in this corridor go. Just avoid Pueblo, it has some fine food and good people, its good for a quick shop at Wal MArt and passing by on I-25. Sorry:(

Sorry Julesberg but not a bog fan, anyone looking to live in "Colorado" might as well skip this area of NE Colorado its super hot and windy in the summer, no mountain views and nippy without a wind break in the winter, yeah I agree with other reviews mostly just Nebraska or Kansas at this point.

La Veta is a great little southern Colorado town, interesting history part of the indian and hispanic history that makes Colorado and the west so great to live in. If you have not been to La Veta check it out, it is not that far away from Pueblo and onyl 3 hours from the Denve metro area. There is some amazing hunting and properties in the Cuchara Valley.

Sorry Romeo but you are the town for me nor anyone else looking to settle in a nice Colorado town. Dry dusty winters and summers and a rough crowd from what I've noticed. There is not much work here and I do hope that things look up for dear Romeo in the near future.

This little dusty highway town is a hub for local farmers and people who live in the surrounding San Luis Valley and even down into New Mex. This is not really an ideal place to live, I say that because it is surrounded by distant mountains but is flat and dry-hot at a frying pan in the summer and cold and windy in the winter. It is more a center of commerce than a sweet spot to call home. Though some that live there may beg to differ--sorry...

Locally known as "Eldo" this is a great little quirky town. I mostly remember the cold, freezing cold, swimming pool and showcase diving board at the Eldo Pool. This is a great getaway from the Front Range heat in the thick of summer. The hiking trails are amazing and world class climbers come from around the world to climb and boulder around on the rocks and canyon sides. There are some homes and there is a serious community here that also takes itself pretty serious for good and ill. Its a great hippy town just a schmid from Boulder.

Dillon is a cool town even though it is along I-70 and pretty touristy is manages to pull off a good vibe. The lake is huge and you will see sailboats on it in the warmer months. On the far side of Dillon Reservoir there are some nice homes right at water front that are worth checking out. Keystone and Breck are just a skip away and for a ski bum young or old this could be a great investment town.

Aurora would be the last place in the Denver area that I would want to rest my head. There is something annoying about the city, I know it has gotten a bad rep lately but I didnt like it a decade ago either. A time or two a year there is a reason why I have to venture into Aurora and the traffic along I-225 can be really bad, I know people complain about traffic out of habit but it is serious along i-225.

I think it is cheaper to live in Aurora then many Denver suburbs but as they say, you get what you pay for. I hope the town gets better in the future and not worse. People seem pretty unhappy there to me.

There is something really sweet about the town of Lyons. Just 20 minutes from Boulder and Longmont and about 20 more to Estes Park. Lyons is tucked up against red rocks (the Lyons Sandstone formation for example) that the University of Colorado in Boulder is largely made of.

There is Oscar Blues, a restaurant in the center of town where there is great food, live music several times a week and a video arcade. There is a food market and in the warmer months a great farmers market selection that is worth checking out on a Saturday afternoon. The people that inhabit Lyons are unique, there are a lot of musicians that have lived or live in Lyons. There is the July event called Rocky Grass, a bluegrass fiesta by the St. Vrain River that flows through town. Speaking of the river, don;t miss tubing in Lyons, it is better and safer than tubing in Boulder along the Boulder Creek. Lyons rocks;)

Steamboat is top notch as far as mountain Colorado towns go. There is a great vibe here and I love visiting in the winter and summer months. Canoeing on Steamboat Lake and even better nearby Pearl Lake is a great little getaway especially if you have little ones with you that love to fish and take shore hikes.

The is the Ore House a steakhouse near the foot of the ski resort that me and my family frequent when we visit. Then there is of course Strawberry hotsprings, my favorite commercial hotsprings I have ever found. The water is really clear and clean and does not make me too tired like some other hotspring waters do.

I would love to live in the Yampa Valley and there are expensive neighborhoods but also reasonable and amazing land for sale in the surrounding area. It is worth personally checking our for anyone looking to move to the mountains of Colorado.

My nephew went to school in Sterling for equestrian studies. He is from Westcliffe so when he came to the "big city" he fit in just fine. Sterling is a windy, cold place in the winter and hot windy spot in the summer. Not a dream spot, no mountains and sorry but not that great of company either. Dusty interstate living, struggling to feed the animals before dawn and dusty prideful men. I'd much rather rope in Westcliffe and that's what he did after he graduated. There is something so significantly better about Colorado west of the front range versus east out into the plains, once you get east of I-25 area and lose sight of the mountains you might as well be in Nebraska or Kansas.

Stonegate is a residential upper to middle class neighborhood south of Denver southern part of the I-470 beltloop, only about 5 miles east of where I-470 meets I-25 at Centennial. This little community in Douglas County. There are about 6,000 residents politely packed into modern, well planned but cookie cutter streets.

The average household income is about $100,000 a year and the schools and cleanliness of the neighborhoods reflect this wealth. This is not rustic Colorado living but more of a mimic of suburbs around midwestern cities back east. Clean, safe and rather boring really, the kind of neighborhoods where kids act out because they are bored and where they yearn for a place they can interact with society rather than being sheltered away from life. I know this sounds harsh but for those reading this wanting to move to Colorado to experience Colorado Stonegate is not what you are looking for. If you are looking for a safe couple of square miles where you can have a nice home, good schools and an easy commute to Denver or the tech center than this may not be a bad choice. However, there are much more interesting communities to explore in Colorado and the Denver area and up into the Boulder area to the north. If you want real Colorado you will have to venture out of the safe but busy and dirty Denver area, keep heading west!