Denver / Boulder Residents?
 

Thinking of relocating out that way how is it? Schools? Things to do? Etc etc.

I am in Littleton, which is a suburb on the south side of Denver.

The entire metro area from Boulder down to Littleton is a bit more "outdoorsie" than many other places I've been, lived, traveled. What I mean is that the area -- and many, many of the people -- are more about outdoor fun. Hiking the mountains, skiing / snowboarding, mountain biking, and things along those lines. Golf is huge in spring and summer -- lots of beautiful courses all along the front range. In Colorado I don't meet many "gamers" or others that stick more to inside activities. Boulder in particular is a very "Healthy" area -- with healthy activities and health food stores and along those lines.

Conversely, I also have a place in Clearwater, Florida. Its more rare to find people (meaning in the range of 18-26) that are into outdoor activities that call for using muscles -- like the bikes and hiking -- in my part of Florida. I'm 50 and people that work for me think I am weird as fuck for riding my bike just 6 miles daily, but back in Colorado I get passed on the bike trails by people older than me and I have a guy working in the office that bikes 16 miles to work and 16 back 4 days a week this time of year. The main outdoor activity I find in that part of Florida is fishing -- which is killer popular, but not as athletic as hiking / skiing / boarding / biking.

Colorado -- darn health food stores and medical marijuna stores all over. Tampa bay area, only one health food store within miles of me and no medical marijuna yet.

As for business, I have found two major differences...

In Colorado we have more tech related stores -- like Computers and such. If I want a new fancy video card TODAY, I don't have to order online. I can hit Micro Center or a few other such places and get it 7 days a week. No so in Clearwater / ST Pete / Tampa area.

Next would be photo and video related. Photography and pro video production is real popular in Colorado. If I want some sort of new pro-level lighting or camera or other studio gear, I can just go buy it at any of 4-5 places in the metro-Denver area. But, in the metro-Tampa Bay area, not so... not one store "stocking" the latest and great from Canon or Nikon, etc.

For pro-level production, Denver has it all -- from great rental places ( http://www.lsidenver.com/studiocomplex.html , http://camren.com/facility/studioc.html and more) and pro-level camera stores ( http://www.denverprophoto.com/products.html , http://www.englewoodcamera.com/products.html , and more).

If you are into healthy, scenic, and outdoorsie stuff -- Boulder, right at the foot of the rockies is a winner.

Follow-up...

I don't have kids, so hard to directly review the schools. I know they have a pretty good reputation in the papers, and decent scores when those nationwide comparisons are done.

Also, more strict on insuring kids stay in school than either Florida or Nevada -- where I have live at one point in time.

As for things to do... Decent teams in all the four major sports (NFL, Baseball, NBA and NHL) and all the venues are newer and modern -- 10 years old or less. No big car race track that would draw NASCAR), but a nice drag raceway, and a couple of smaller oval tracks. Airport is newer, modern, easy to use -- but a ways in the country. Fishing for rainbow trout in streams and lakes is popular. Gambling in low stakes casinos in a few mountain towns, no horse tracks or dog tracks worth visiting. Good concert venues and the promoters are skilled at getting great acts for summer months -- in fact the whole area is a good place for music lovers. Decent hunting at certain times of year.

If you are an "eater", the Denver area is just plain stocked with quality places to eat! Not the big chains -- I mean locally owned places for everything from Italian to Buffalo Steaks.