What are your thoughts on Vail as a place to live as opposed to a place to vacation?

Also, (for those of you who really are familiar with Colorado) do you have a suggestion for a great place other than Vail to live (in Colorado).

Thanks!

I should have specified: I'm asking this for my sister who is 30ish and single. She is in the medical field.

My son lived in Vail for 3 years. Living in Vail proper is very expensive for housing and many locals live in neighboring towns. Overall, he enjoyed his time there but has since moved to Steamboat Springs and this fall to Boulder to finish up at CU.
His most telling comment is that he left Vail because he wanted to live in a "real town" again. In the winter, it's all tourists and in the summer, well it's pretty much the same then too.
Aside from the tourists, there are a lot of "trustafarians", very rich kids living off daddy's trust fund who let their personal appearance slip a little!

My impression of Vail (I've never lived there; merely visited) is that it's artificial. All style, no substance. Most of the people who work in Vail live in Minturn.
To live, I'd chose Boulder or Crested Butte. Or, if I had gobs of money and a private plane, Telluride.

I have lived in Durango, CO, for a few years now. Like Vail, it's another tourist town, but it has a college and a hospital, which are two other major sources of income for the comminity. There is a lot here that may remind you of the TV show Northern Exposure. Durango may be fairly typical of Colorado tourist towns.

Wages/salaries here tend to be about 30% less than the going rate in other areas of the country. There are a dispropotionate number of jobs in lower paying service fields. Medical care here is good, but anyone associated with the hospital burns out fast. Housing is twice as expensive as in the Houston suburbs (where I came from), but less costly than in almost all large cities. Vail would be more expensive than Durango. Aspen and Telluride are the most famous for ridiculous housing prices.

I've often thought that Durango isn't the greatest place to find a mate. Being a smaller place, there are fewer choices, and not as many opportunities to meet the people who are here.

In terms of entertainment, Durango does quite well. There is always some live music and a play showing somewhere. We also (finally) have an alternative movie theater, with a real film festival. (I have to brag that the high school drama program is consistently rated in the top 5 for the nation; they're doing Les Miserables this fall. This means that the high school puts on the best plays in town, and they are usually sellouts. Where else are season ticket to high school plays competed over?) The difference with entertainment here versus a big city is that you have fewer overall choices, although the quality of those choices is usually high.

I've beeen surprised at the level of recreational drug use here, especially in the high school and college.

Shopping here is a major weak point. Restaurants tend to be very good. (One look at me would show you that I prefer restaurants over shopping.) The outdoor activities here are fantastic. I like the four definite seasons, but that's not everyone's cup of tea.

There are plenty of intelligent people here. (There's a joke that to be a waiter, you have to have a master's degree, but I'm not convinced of that.) One problem is that although people are usually quite nice, it's hard to make friends. Longer term residents are usually so content overall that they just aren't looking for more friends. That, as well as the cost of living versus employment opportunities, makes it hard to be a newcomer to Durango, and I'd suspect, a lot of western towns.

I've never lived in Colorado, but visit often and would love to move there when we retire. I agree with previous posters about Vail, it's just not a "real" town. I much prefer Crested Butte. We were there a couple of summers ago and noticed all the regular community activities, softball games, soccer games, etc. It just seems like a great place to live with a family. I don't know what it would be like being single. Gunnison is close and has a college.

Vail is actually probabaly a great place to live for a single woman. Girl/guy ratio is very good. However it is also very good in Denver. Not sure why anyone would want to actually live in Vail, though -- are you just throwing darts at a map of colorado, or does your sister ski, hike, bike, etc. Because your sib is in the medical field, it would seem to make much more sense to live in Denver [that's where i live] because the metro area has a good deal more job opportunities than vail. if money is not an issue, or if sister is looking merely to hook up, so to speak, then vail presents a rather attractive option. No offense to Travellyn but Durango is, like many colorado "tourist" towns, a very nice place to visit. briefly.

Hey, flopmeister! Have you lived in Durango? If not, don't talk it down. If so, fine. My husband and I have travelled a lot, and we put a lot of thought into our move here. I like Durango, and it's a great place to raise kids. Unlike some tourist destinations, it is a real town. It's also safe, has no smog, and the commute can't be beat.

I lived in Vail for many years. Living there is very different from visiting. Most of the locals have a life quite apart from the tourists, and after a while it becomes like living everywhere else, you go to work, have your friends, etc., except it's a very very expensive place to live, but also very beautiful.

If I were young now, I'd definitely want to do the skitown experience. It's like nothing else.

By the way, there's quite a large and busy hospital in Vail (Vail Valley Medical Center).

Another point about living in Vail, or any other mountain town, is that there's a great deal of winter! Unlike Denver (and probably Durango), which are quite temperate (you can golf in the middle of the winter if you want), in the mountains it's cool at night even in the middle of the summer, which is great on vacation, but think about snow on the ground from November through April, quite cool temperatures year-round, and make sure your sister is ready for that.

We had friends who moved from Houston to Santa Fe, and they described it as having 7 months of winter. In Durango (6500 feet), we have about 100 days per year that stay above freezing. Our average yearly low is below zero F. (My house is at 7450 feet, so it's even worse.) The months from November to March are downright cold. I don't like going for months without feeling warm. When I retire, I want to go somewhere warmer for the winter. I don't know what Vail's elevation is, but it's certainly higher, in addition to being farther north than Durango.

What I will say about cold weather in the mountains is that it's not nearly as hard to deal with as cold near the ocean. Here, it usually sunny, and the air is thin, dry, and usually less windy, so people retain body heat better. We always feel colder visiting relatives in Texas each December than we do in Durango. (By January or February, it's a different story.)

Vail is not a place to live unless you are a developer or builder. It is fine if you are a ski bum. As mentioned above, I would choose Boulder in a heartbeat. It is an upscale town offering cultural events because of the university. It has many more restaurents and bars. A nice pedestrian mall and real businesses and opportunities. it is also next to the mountains and not that far from Denver or even vail. For 1 30 year old interested in meeting people it would be ideal. Aspen would be great too for her if she could make a living and afford the inflated prices

Ok - those that have never lived in Vail shouldn't knock it. The Vail/Eagle Valley encompasses about 30 miles and includes the towns of Vail, Minturn, Edwards, Avon, Eagle and Gypsum. Because the Vail Village is geared toward tourism - shops, restaurants, skiing, mtn biking,etc. and is the most expensive, most locals live in the surrounding towns and commute into Vail. Because of the seasonality of the area, there are a lot of transient workers (lift ops, instructors, etc.) however, in professional jobs, there is a "real" sense of community. There are schools, soccer games, homecoming, family activities.

The Vilar Center offers performing arts from classical music to free family movies, to Stomp! The Ford Amphitheatre is host to the NY Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Bolshoi Ballet to Norah Jones and BB king.

Vail is home to world class athletes - US Ski Team/Olypians Sarah Schleper, Chad Fleisher (just retired), Multiple Eco Challenge winner Mike Kloser, world mtn running champ Anita Ortiz, several locals won their divisions in the Nat'l Exterra Games in Tahoe, Retired Mtn bike champ Mia Stockdale, national 8 man whitewater rafting champs, etc.

Vail has the Vail Valley Medical center (hospital), Steadman Hawkins clinic and Howard Head Sports Medicine clinics - the premier doctors in sports med (John Elway, Greg Norman, Monica Seles, and of course, Kobe Bryant)The Shaw Cancer Center is in Edwards. There are numerous natural health providers (chiro, acupunture, pt, homeopathy) through out the valley.

As a 15 year resident, I can vouch that there are school teachers, and soccer moms, architects and artists, shop owners and waiters...Not all are ski bums and developers as some have suggested.

Yes.

Been living in Vail for almost 25 years. We have an average of 300 days of sunshine a year. The gal to guy ratio here is something like 8 guys to every gal! and we DO have Ryan & Trista!!