Best small town places to relocate to in Colorado (Denver: best towns, for sale)

[family first]

Folks, may be looking for that quaint small town to get away from the west coast. Thinking of moving the family to a better place. If you had to pick the 5 best towns in Colorado, where would you move to. The important factors for us would be:

A town of 7500 or less
Trees and scenery
Best weather in the state (4 seasons)
Good high schools nearby
Good medical care close to or in town
Affordable
Nice downtown area.

Thanks and looking forward to hearing your list.

[NW Crow]

Affordable means different things to different people.

New Castle / Basalt / Carbondale / Eagle (find price range / what it buys)

Bayfield meets most of criteria. Downtown? Opinions vary.

Salida.

Monument. Woodland Park.

Berthoud.

Hayden. Meeker.

[bluescreen73]

Biggest question is what is your budget? If you can afford $750,000 and above then your options open up, but if you're looking more along the lines of $400,000 or less you're searching for a unicorn.

The places that most match your list of wants are in the foothills just west of Denver, Colorado Springs, or Fort Collins, and all those locations tend to be very pricey.

Because of how our taxation is laid out, school districts in the state tend to be chronically underfunded, and the problem is much worse with the rural districts. If you can afford to live in a resort town like Vail, Aspen, or Steamboat Springs, you'll find a better schools, but the houses there are ridiculously expensive.

[COcheesehead]

Palisade

[otowi]

Florence, Elbert, Larkspur, Westcliffe, La Veta, La Junta, Buena Vista, Salida, Delta, etc.

Some of your wishes are at odds, however. Generally speaking, towns that small are less likely to have amazing high schools or great medical care.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Decent houses for sale in Buena Vista for $450,000 to $550,000. New houses in our neighborhood get sold as soon as they are built. Good enough schools; small medical center in town. Larger regional hospital in Salida (25 minues away). Cute downtown area, but both grocery and other shopping is limited. Hugely crowded in the summer when all the tourists come to play in the mountains and on the river.

How close do you need to be to an airport?

[COcheesehead]

Palisade is super cute, has good schools. 15 minutes from a good regional jet service airport and a great hospital in St Mary’s. Plenty of retail in Grand Junction.
Palisade to its credit has been able to retain its small town, wine country charm, even improving with great farm to table restaurants.
Very mild winters and house prices that are still a relative deal in Colorado.
Bonus is some of the best produce and fruit from the local fields and orchards.
Plenty to do within an hour: Grand Mesa, BLM lands, Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Colorado Monument. 31 wineries.
The western slope is still a secret to many, but it won’t stay that way for long.

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by COcheesehead

Palisade is super cute, has good schools. 15 minutes from a good regional jet service airport and a great hospital in St Mary’s. Plenty of retail in Grand Junction.
Palisade to its credit has been able to retain its small town, wine country charm, even improving with great farm to table restaurants.
Very mild winters and house prices that are still a relative deal in Colorado.
Bonus is some of the best produce and fruit from the local fields and orchards.
Plenty to do within an hour: Grand Mesa, BLM lands, Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Colorado Monument. 31 wineries.
The western slope is still a secret to many, but it won’t stay that way for long.

FWIW, if trees are very important to the OP, the Grand Valley is a bad fit. The area from New Castle all the way to the Utah border and south to Delta is really barren.

[vunderbar]

What does affordable mean to you? Colorado is a low tax state and schools in "affordable" areas are underfunded and understaffed. The highest-ranked schools are in the well-to-do suburbs of Denver and in Boulder.

What does "a good high school" mean to you? My kids went to urban high schools in Denver, got great educations, got into very good universities. I gauged the quality of the high school by the amount of AP classes they offered and the amount of graduates who went to above-average colleges (in my book, CU Boulder and above in selectivity.)

About trees: most of Colorado is a semi desert. Outside of the mountains, you're not going to find a lot of trees, especially in newer areas. (The older sections of Denver do have beautiful mature trees, but these are pricey areas.)

Not knowing your budget or what you consider to be a good school, it's hard to advise. You were given lots of ideas, some of which seem to be better fits than others. Add Louisville to your list. It's a small town with good schools, not far away from Boulder & Denver. Whether it's affordable is another matter, but then these things can be relative.

[family first]

Airports are not that important. Less than $400.000. Trying to downsize. Schools that offer a good opportunity and environment to learn.