Move to Colorado or Arizona?

[BeachWagon]

So, talking with my girlfriend, and the thought of moving to Colorado or Arizona came up. I live in Florida, she lives in Germany. We need a place to live together. I am country fried, she is city living. But, we both do the outdoors, camping, bikes, all that jazz. I have always noticed a lot of folks on here from that neck of the woods, and would just like to hear some thoughts on living out there. If we can get close enough for her to commute, that would be cool, I work offshore, and want to be away from all the city lights and noise, build a bonfire and shoot guns in my back yard. We have been to the North Rim of Grand Canyon camping before and loved it, so I am thinking Northern Arizona, I like the desert for fun, but the dry air kills my sinuses and skin. I have no clue what I am getting into with snow and weather, like I said, I'm from Florida. She'll be fine, it's always dog-$(*% weather in Germany.

Thoughts? Small towns to check out? Cheap land areas? Good job regions? She has a Masters in Marketing. I like fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, but whats up with fishing the rivers and lakes? Food costs? I'm a foodie, she's a human garbage disposal! LOL! Historical places to live? Visit? Music scene? Jazz? Blues?

Anything to start compiling a starting point for a road trip in the spring to check out.

Thanks in advance to all ya'll
Cheers

 

[HOJeepster]

Check out Flagstaff, AZ - I lived there and loved it. Finding a decent job will be the challenge. 2 hours from PHX aka city living.

 

[Djrashonal]

in the past 5 years I've lived in AZ for 4 and CO for 1 and I would go with CO. While not as liberal with their "shooting guns in your backyard" CO has it all. Fishing, Hiking, Climbing - The mountains are right there too! I like seasons, so I enjoyed CO tremendously. We lived in Boulder, CO which has both, country and city feel. I would head there, or Fort Collins.

 

[04rnr]

So, talking with my girlfriend, and the thought of moving to Colorado or Arizona came up. I live in Florida, she lives in Germany. We need a place to live together. I am country fried, she is city living. But, we both do the outdoors, camping, bikes, all that jazz. I have always noticed a lot of folks on here from that neck of the woods, and would just like to hear some thoughts on living out there. If we can get close enough for her to commute, that would be cool, I work offshore, and want to be away from all the city lights and noise, build a bonfire and shoot guns in my back yard. We have been to the North Rim of Grand Canyon camping before and loved it, so I am thinking Northern Arizona, I like the desert for fun, but the dry air kills my sinuses and skin. I have no clue what I am getting into with snow and weather, like I said, I'm from Florida. She'll be fine, it's always dog-$(*% weather in Germany.

Thoughts? Small towns to check out? Cheap land areas? Good job regions? She has a Masters in Marketing. I like fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, but whats up with fishing the rivers and lakes? Food costs? I'm a foodie, she's a human garbage disposal! LOL! Historical places to live? Visit? Music scene? Jazz? Blues?

Anything to start compiling a starting point for a road trip in the spring to check out.

Thanks in advance to all ya'll
Cheers

Colorado is FULL, try Az. :cheers:

 

[BeachWagon]

Colorado is FULL, try Az. :cheers:

Guessing someone doesn't wanna share their secret corner of the planet? LOL!

 

[BeachWagon]

in the past 5 years I've lived in AZ for 4 and CO for 1 and I would go with CO. While not as liberal with their \\"shooting guns in your backyard\\" CO has it all. Fishing, Hiking, Climbing - The mountains are right there too! I like seasons, so I enjoyed CO tremendously. We lived in Boulder, CO which has both, country and city feel. I would head there, or Fort Collins.

I've heard a few things about Boulder before, I'll have to look into that. Thanks

 

[BeachWagon]

Check out Flagstaff, AZ - I lived there and loved it. Finding a decent job will be the challenge. 2 hours from PHX aka city living.

Flagstaff might be cool, near the Grand Canyon and not too far from a few other parks.

 

[Bay33saw]

Flagstaff is a cool place has almost 4 seasons and is close to a lot of stuff,Lake Havasu, Laughlin, Las Vegas....plus they have great taxes. and better gun laws than CO.....although CO has better weed laws

 

[BeachWagon]

Flagstaff is a cool place has almost 4 seasons and is close to a lot of stuff,Lake Havasu, Laughlin, Las Vegas....plus they have great taxes. and better gun laws than CO.....although CO has better weed laws

Didn't even think about the taxes. No state tax here in Florida either. In Arizona, can you open carry? Colorado does have some good weed laws these days, though I don't smoke, nor can't because of work, I totally get what their throwing in their pipe and smoking! Lol!

 

[downpour11]

Arizona you can legally carry open, or concealed. Also, you don't need a bill of sale or any info from someone you're buying/selling a gun from.

 

[Desert Fox]

I grew up in Phoenix. We moved to Colorado in 2006. I wont move back to Arizona.
Weather wise, both states have plus and minus. In Colorado wind= damn cold. In Arizona the heat can get unbearable.

I left Arizona because it was too crowded and the crime was out of control.

If I was to live there I would look at Strawberry area, small and very remote, unless it has changed in the recent past from all the millions of people moving there.

Good luck with you decision.
One word of wisdom- Happy wife, happy life.

 

[T4RSportGrl]

I live in CO, and travel a good bit to AZ (part of my sales territory) - and agree with everyone here in terms of what each has to offer. Although I'm not sure about all the taxes and gun laws. (good to know though!) Colorado has a LOAD to offer...and unless you live around the edges and Denver and need to commute, it doesn't feel too crowded. But if your commuting, 25 is a drag. Boulder is gorgeous, a mix of hippie, college, artists, and incredibly active business folks. There are some great companies to work for here - for Marketing purposes, and being an outdoor enthusiast, Colorado has it all (loads of outdoor companies to look in to for work for her).

As for AZ, Flagstaff/Havasu...that's the ticket - avoid Phoenix for all the reasons noted above. What about Sonoma? (spell?) I've heard awesome things about that area...but not sure about 'work' for the gal.

 

[04rnr]

Flagstaff might be cool, near the Grand Canyon and not too far from a few other parks.

Flagstaff is a cool place has almost 4 seasons and is close to a lot of stuff,Lake Havasu, Laughlin, Las Vegas....plus they have great taxes. and better gun laws than CO.....although CO has better weed laws

Didn't even think about the taxes. No state tax here in Florida either. In Arizona, can you open carry? Colorado does have some good weed laws these days, though I don't smoke, nor can't because of work, I totally get what their throwing in their pipe and smoking! Lol!

Arizona you can legally carry open, or concealed. Also, you don't need a bill of sale or any info from someone you're buying/selling a gun from.

looks like you have your answer :cheers:

 

[04rnr]

Guessing someone doesn't wanna share their secret corner of the planet? LOL!

we get these \\"I want to move to Co\\" threads all the time, on many of the forums Im on, most of the time its from people that live in Ca., Tx., of Fl. people that have no idea how to drive in snow, causing so many problems, and yes, Colorado if full lol, Denver area is soo damn full its a joke.

In all honesty, I really dont give a rats ___ if you or anyone moves here or not, just remember, when it snows, and you slide into a ditch, or cause an accident, that it was your choice to move her. Remember, when on Illegal crashes into you, you wanted to move here.
Yea, I know that Fl has LOTS of illegals, Ive visited Fl many many times, have family that lives there (Daytona beach and Tampa) they tell me all the time.

Colorado DOES, need more \\"good people\\" we can always use more good people, if infact you do decide to move here, I wish you the best. :thumb:

 

[Synister]

I lived in Northern AZ for many years and have to say its awesome. Check out Prescott and Prescott Valley, its a little bigger than Flagstaff and probably a little easier to find work though any smallish town is going to be tough. Its about 75 min from North Phoenix but not much of Phoenix is worth seeing.

 

[stevec5000]

AZ is nice and cheap.

I don't know about CO but most of AZ is nice to live in. The cost of living is low but wages are low too. There isn't much crime unless you are in S. Phoenix. I moved out here years ago from the East Coast because I like the sunny weather rather than having it rain all the time like back East. I first moved to Phoenix but had to leave after a few years when it got too expensive and went 40 miles East to Apache Junction where I could buy property for $30K and auto insurance dropped by 50%. There are a lot of auto accidents in Phoenix but not out in the open country so coverage is much lower. Speaking of auto insurance, if you have been in the military and can qualify to join, USAA has coverage for only about 1/3 the price of the other high priced companies like Geico. If you will be looking for a job there are hardly any jobs and the companies that are hiring don't provide any benefits and are so cheap they wouldn't even pay minimum wage if they didn't have to! AZ is a "right to work" state which means there are no unions and employees don't have any rights so the company can do anything they want. Don't plan on earning much money unless you are an executive or own the company. Even if you are self supporting and want to live out in the boonies I wouldn't live more than easy driving distance from at least a medium sized city like Flagstaff or Globe or else you won't be able to get food and supplies since there's nothing for hundreds of miles outside of town in the desert. You can't get high speed internet or cell phone service in most remote areas either. I think Verizon has the best coverage of small towns out in the sticks but none of them have very good coverage along the freeways between major cities. If you are looking for property there is a lot of cheap land out in the desert that you can buy with no money down and easy payments, especially north of Flagstaff towards the Grand Canyon, but not much of it has any utilities like electricity and none of it has the possibility of ever getting any water unless it's trucked in so watch out for that. The best bet for buying property these days is probably a HUD repossessed home. You can find a list of them on the HUD website.

 

[RonMAIDEN]

Colorado 4 wheeling is really hard to beat plus our economy has withstood the housing collapse and our job market is above the national average and our weather on the front range is quite mild and one of the few states you can golf in the morning and ski in the afternoon. Also are one of the healthiest and active states and our school are in quite good shape also and in part to our Medical pot laws which funnels the first $40 million to schools.

We get a blizzards from time to time but still quite rare to get this much snow on the front range but when it happens it's kinda cool and we embrace our large storms where the east coast fears it.

 

[lilreds21]

ex-nay on the desert-a

Okay here is my 2 cents... being a 3rd generation desert rat.. Tucson doesn't have much to offer. Just like everyone says there is perks to the desert but, in my opinion the perks don't make the cons worth while.

My husband and I are actually trying to move to CO, its a 5ish year plan. We have kids that vary from 13-6, so that makes it hard to uproot them just because we want out of here. There is other parts of AZ that i would consider if we didn't have kids. The smaller Northern AZ city's have high drug issues within the school (rural kids are bored) not to mention the jobs/pay are not the best here.

 

[KidVermicious]

Hard to go wrong with either, but don't count out Utah or New Mexico. Flagstaff is freaking awesome, but the sunbirds know it and land values are through the roof. Durango CO is also awesome. Check out Santa Fe NM for small town feel within striking distance of city life - I like Santa Fe a lot. St George UT is another great little town with good food, good outdoors stuff with Bryce and Zions right there, and Las Vegas close enough for when the girl needs her smog fix.

If I could live anywhere right now, it'd probably be Grand Junction CO, but that might be too far from civilization for your GF.

 

[downpour11]

I lived in Northern AZ for many years and have to say its awesome. Check out Prescott and Prescott Valley, its a little bigger than Flagstaff and probably a little easier to find work though any smallish town is going to be tough. Its about 75 min from North Phoenix but not much of Phoenix is worth seeing.

Ruger firearms is also in prescott... get a job there! FYI Phoenix sucks!!!!