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I live in Texas with my wife and we are looking for an ideal retirement place (as of right now) with plenty of outdoors activities as well as cultural life. We have thought retiring in Boise or Pocatello (housing in Pocatello is less expensive)in Idaho but we have heard a couple of people complaining about racial discrimination. Although we are highly educated, lived for many years in the US and are fully assimilated into the US culture, we still have a foreign accent (not necessarily readily identifiable) and our skin color is a little dark. We would not like to move to any of these cities with dreams of living a happy retirement and find out that we are not accepted. This would be uncomfortable not only for us but for our neighbohrs as well. I wonder If any one of you reading this posting could help me out solve my doubts.
I suggest that you take a couple of weeks and do a vacation in those areas. Get out and about to all the stores, the parks, out on the hiking trails, to any and all festivals that might be going on. Only you can judge how comfortable you feel.
I've never had any problems and I've never seen any discrimination happening, but I don't care where you go, you are going to run into a few nutcases.
If I'm looking for culture, Pocatello wouldn't be the first place to cross my mind.
many thanks for your suggestion. I am planning on doing so: spend a couple of weeks visiting those two cities.
When you do, a bit of advice. explore the things you'll be needing using on a living basis; stores, neighborhood distances to things of need, highways, airports etc.
Since Pocatello has been a college town forever; it's the home of Idaho State University, and there are quite a few cultural events, clubs, etc. there. Pocatello is also the southernmost town of 3 that all have a lot of cultural activities and events; Idaho Falls lies less than an hour north of Pocatello, and it's the home of the Museum of Idaho, one of the state's largest and best-funded. There are several others as well in I.F.
38 mile further north lies Rexburg, the home of BYU Idaho, a larger college than ISU. BYUI also has a bunch of cultural activities and events. Blackfoot, a smaller town that lies in between Poky and I.F., also has a new cultural events auditorium.
Between the 4, the events all differ, so there's quite a wide range of performances and artists who come to the area. All are within about a 90 minute drive, easily accessed by I-15 and US 20, which is 4-lane between I.F. and Rexburg.
Of them all, Poky is consistently the warmest, as it lies at the lowest elevation. For decades, it was also the largest city, but I.F. surpassed it recently.
While the entire corridor is growing, it's not growing as fast as the Boise metro, which is a true metropolitan area now, the area with the highest population in the state. The Boise metro is a singular community in this; it's a lot like Salt Lake City is to Utah; the biggest area by far in comparison to all the others in the state.
Poky would be considered to be a small to mid-sized town, as would all the others in the corridor, in another state. So the differences in lifestyle between Poky and Boise are very different.
You probably can make either work. The more time you spend on selecting the neighborhood (possibly aided by a truly thoughtful / good realtor), the more likely you will be satisfied with it.
I lived in both Poky and IF in my time in EID from 2006-2014. I firmly believe Poky is warmer than IF generally, but perhaps not majorly. It sits somewhat in a basin with low mountains surrounding making it somewhat more picturesque. That said, IF is a more economic leader with more development overall. If I could live in one of the two, I would choose Poky. If I needed a better economic climate, I would choose IF.
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