So, I’ve been in Boulder, Colorado for two weeks now and been loving it.
Boulder matches my personality very well with the city often ranking consistently as one of the most healthy, happiest, most liberal, and smartest cities in the United States.
The city can be divided between Colorado University to the south with its 40,000 students and the downtown/tourist area to the north along Pearl Street. To the West lies the Flat Iron mountain ranges. All of this just miles from each other.
Boulder is an eccentric city with a predominately affluent, white population. Apart from the Mexican area in the north east, there’s a real lack of racial diversity. Despite the population of 100k though, there’s a lot of diverse, healthy food particularly Asian cuisine. I found my sushi, thai, and pho restaurants pretty quickly. I’ve never seen so many restaurants carry gluten free and vegetarian fare. It almost seems like hippies founded the city. However, all of this comes at the cost of real estate prices matching or exceeding what you could get in an East Coast city.
The small size makes walking and biking a breeze. The dry heat makes high temperatures bearable and sweat non-existent. Most, if not all, days here are exceeding sunny apart from the days when the sky is hazy from western wild fires.
Of particular attraction to me is the amount of spirituality in the area exemplified in Naropa University, the forerunner of contemplative education and a hub for cutting edge psychotherapy. Yesterday, I attended a admissions session to learn more about the contemplative psychology and divinity programs. If/When I step out of technology, this would definitely be my ideal career combining my passion for spiritual discipline/contemplation, psychology, and helping others. The financial cost would be high though and would be a rather abrupt shift.
It also helps that two of my old college friends live here, and I’ve meet a number of very interesting people. While my heart isn’t entirely settled on Boulder, this amazing city is definitely on the short list. But I’ll likely be shipping out soon north west to Oregon or south west towards Vegas.
I’ve also found plenty of free, unrestricted parking in the north east and south east parts of town along with gyms and showers so I could conceivably just live in the RV indefinitely too.
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The picture was after five hours of hiking pike’s peak, 6 miles going some 7,000 feet up. The second most visited mountain after Mt. Fuji. It was grueling but worth it. My friend did a half-marathon up it, and the other two hiked back down while I took the van. Some really stellar views while hiking, absolutely amazing.