If you love the outdoors, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. Rock Climbing. Cycling. Trail Running (those people are insane). Skiing. Ultimate Frisbee. Hiking. When you meet someone new, you quickly discover that they love those things even more than you do.
If you have ambition and drive, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. Not only does Boulder have the most educated population, there are more startups per capita in Boulder than anywhere else in the country (especially in the tech scene). Take that Silicon Valley!
If you care about the environment, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. You aren’t weird for caring about the environment, recycling, or going out of your way to avoid driving. These are the default ideals. Curbside composting? America’s first smart grid city? Enough said.
If you care about what you eat, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. Boulder is literally the epicenter for natural and organic food products (I keep a list, let me know if I’m missing any). I met the owner of a company who actually said that they chose Boulder, ” for (the status of) the address”. Vegetarians, locavores, foodies, and vegans aren’t the oddballs on the fringe, and unlike most places in the country, they have plenty of options for eating out (even organic fast food?!?). People here don’t ask why you care about food, they excitedly tell you how much they also care about food.
If you want big city benefits in a small town, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. Boulder has big city smarts and entrepreneurial spirit, but with a more relaxed pace of life, and a small town feel. You’ll run into people you know all the time. What other 100,000 person towns have nationwide name recognition?
If you love going to events and meeting people, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. Boulder has 91 meetup groups within a 5 mile radius. Per capita, that’s roughly 20 to 50 times more than Boston (also known as an educated, social, and entrepreneurial place to live). What have I done in the last 9 days?
- Went to a rock climbing film festival with a friend (missing the Startup and Founders Meetup)
- Saw presentations from up and coming tech companies at the New Tech Meetup (meeting several new people who started companies in Boulder)
- Signed up to play board games with the Boulder Raw Foods Meetup
- Watched G. Love and Special Sauce perform at the Fox Theater
- Missed my writing group (because of skiing, again)
- Convinced my wife to accompany me to the Green Tech Meetup (which takes place tonight)
- Interviewed the owner of a new organic restaurant (will be posted Friday morning)
- Met with a fellow entrepreneur about his ideas for starting a company
- Coded at a coffee shop with some fellow startup software engineers
- Was asked “what can I do to help you out?” by someone I’d spoken with for only 20 minutes!
- Signed up with Slow Food Boulder
If you want to live where people LOVE where their city, Boulder is a fantastic place to be. (And I’ve barely been here for six months!)
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