Moving to Boulder, Colorado: Why It’s Worth Considering

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A Snapshot of Boulder City

Built on the rugged edge of the frontier, Boulder embodies a pioneering and forward-looking spirit in both style and substance. Situated on this unique geographic point, where the Great Plains meet the towering Rockies, this is a city ideally positioned to offer the best of laid-back urban life and wilderness escape.  

Boulder is a capital of industry and champion of the mountain lifestyle, and these elements converge downtown, where coffee houses, bookstores, shops and bars mingle with titans of tech, like Google and entrepreneurial newcomers. The $35 billion economy of America’s Startup Capital is supported by diverse industries from aerospace to clean tech to tourism, and everywhere you turn, it seems you are face-to-face with a new idea.  

Boulder is also a quintessential college town. CU Boulder’s student enrollment comprises roughly a third of the city’s population, which helps keep the 105,898 residents of the city on a youthful, optimistic footing. Boulder County encompasses a broad and varied swath of land from windy, mountainous regions like Nederland to the eastern suburbs like Longmont. Estes Park is only an hour from the city, so if you want to be a frequent visitor to Rocky Mountain National Park, this can be an easy weekend getaway. 

Within this friendly, bikeable city, there’s something for everyone in the family to love. There will be plenty of sunshine and plenty of snow here, so hiking, skiing, biking and climbing can all be on your regular outdoor activity list. And when the weather turns frightful—which it can do rapidly in this region—just head indoors to a climbing gym, the Planetarium or the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. 

If you are looking for a city with a hip, urban vibe and immediate access to the great outdoors, Boulder should be on your list. Learn more about this college town below in our moving guide to Boulder, where we’ll discuss the pros and cons of living in this Colorado city, from our favorite places to hang out to Boulder’s job market and cost of living. 

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Living in Boulder: What You’ll Get and Want to Prepare

Outdoor Paradise

Most people only get to visit this special region of the country once or twice in their lives, but if you’re moving to Boulder, you’ll experience the wonders of the Rocky Mountains all year round. While the weather here can sometimes be unpredictable, there’s plenty to do in the great outdoors in any season in this city. Skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, horseback riding, kayaking—whatever kind of adventure you’re seeking, you’ll find it in Boulder.  

Boulder is best known for its iconic Flatirons—those shear, sandstone outcroppings that just beg to be climbed. Rock climbers and hikers will be equally at home in the Chautauqua Region surrounding these unusual foothills. The primary Chautauqua Trail is wide and very nearly flat—perfect for gazing up at the awe-inspiring stone. From there, you can pick up more difficult trails that will take you up the face of the slabs and beyond. Because this area is so popular, it can be as crowded as an amusement park on the weekends. Skip the stress of hunting for a parking spot and take the free, park-to-park shuttle, which picks up regularly from several locations in town. You can even bring your mountain bikes if you plan to ride.  

Boulder is, of course, a bike-friendly town, whether you want to commute to work or go off-road on the weekends. If you’re new to mountain biking but eager to test your wheels, try your luck at Mud Lake or North Sky and work your way up to the “hardest eight miles of biking in Boulder,” the gnarly trails of Walker Ranch. Off-roaders looking for a great terrain experience should head to Valmont Bike Park. Forty-two acres of natural surface trails await you here, along with pump tracks, slopestyle and dual-slalom paths and lots of technical and fabricated features for jumps.  

When you just want to relax, Boulder residents have access to numerous urban greenspaces. Take the family to Scott Carpenter Park for a picnic. The rocket-themed playground is a hit with the smaller set, and the older kids can show off their tricks at the skate park or practice their new favorite hobby—slacklining.  

When winter comes around, everyone will want to make the most of the snow. Sign the kids up for ski school at Eldora (and yourself, too!) or learn to master freeskiing and slopestyle at Woodward Park. The cozy lodge and taphouse rewards worn-out athletes and spectators alike.  

Active and Sustainable Lifestyle

Running wild is a part of life in Colorado, and there’s no place to embrace this more than in Boulder. More than 40,000 athletes participate in the annual 10K, making it one of the largest in the world. And with a crowd of 100,000+, it’s also one of the most fun — Runner’s World Magazine has dubbed it America’s All-Time Best 10K.  

Climbers have plenty of opportunities to compete in this Rocky Mountain city, too. CU’s Boulder Battle gives amateurs of all levels a chance to show off their skills, while the annual G1 Moon Rock competition puts some serious cash on the line, drawing elite climbers from far and wide.  

When you’re not running, climbing, biking, hiking or spectating, there are still plenty of ways to embrace a healthy, eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyle in Boulder. As part of the city’s commitment to becoming a zero-waste city, Boulder provides organic composting services in addition to trash and recycling, so those chicken bones and cheese rinds you’ve been keeping out of your own bin can now be put to good use.   

And you can pick up all the organic produce, meat and dairy you need at the Boulder Farmer’s Market. Every Saturday from April through November, you can purchase locally produced beef, kombucha, tempeh, veggies, honey—even booze! During the winter, you can sign up for a subscription box to get you through the coldest months of the year.  

Family-Friendly Community

Downtown Boulder is a people-centric business district full of laid-back fun. One of the areas that makes Boulder so appealing is the Pearl Street Mall, a pedestrian area that draws crowds of shoppers and diners by keeping cars at bay. (Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of parking around the area if you need to drive.) Start the day with a flight of pancakes from Snooze, pop into Trident Booksellers for your literary fix, get your caffeine infusion at the Laughing Goat, or get a bird’s-eye view of the city from the rooftop bar at Avanti F&B. In the springtime, kids will love participating in the Tulip Fairy and Elf Festival, but the winter holidays are even more festive during the Lights of December Parade. Play spaces throughout the mall ensure little ones have plenty of outlets to direct their energy and imagination while you relax.  

If your kids are constantly climbing the walls, though, Boulder has just the place for them—ABC Kids Climbing. Operated by the Raboutou family—which is now two generations deep in climbing royalty following Brooke Raboutou’s Olympic silver medal—ABC offers open climbing, private lessons and camps. Indoor climbing can be a great way to introduce children to the sport before tackling more unpredictable environments outdoors. 

The nearby Museum of Boulder offers a hands-on look at this multidimensional city. Starting in prehistoric times, you and your family can walk through Boulder’s fascinating history, learning about innovations from the earliest inhabitants to those residing in the city today.   

Budding archaeologists will want to visit the University of Colorado’s Museum of Natural History. Located on the CU Boulder campus, kids can learn about everything from genomics to dinosaurs to the history of apple trees (there were once 1,000 varieties!).  

Pint-sized climatologists will find their heads—or at least their hands—in the clouds at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. NCAR dares kids to ask big questions about our planet, the atmosphere and outer space and answers them with a big W-O-W.  

Healthy Economy 

In addition to the unsurpassed beauty of this mountainous terrain, one of the reasons Boulder continues to grow in popularity is the diverse —and cutting-edge—industry base in the city. CU Boulder is a key research partner for many industry sectors here, and it also supplies a ready workforce for commercial enterprises.   

Boulder taps into its natural wonders with strong job opportunities in outdoor recreation, organic products, bioscience and cleantech, and companies from La Sportiva to Namaste Solar to Justin’s call this mountain town home.  

The city has also been a longtime leader in aerospace, and stalwarts like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) have now been joined by enterprising newcomers like ThinkOrbital, which designed and built the first autonomous in-space welding system.  

The IT scene in Boulder has been giving Silicon Valley a run for its money for more than a decade, even earning it the moniker of America’s Startup Capital, as industry giants from Microsoft to Google began acquiring Boulder’s homegrown tech innovations. 

Looking at the city by the numbers, Boulder’s nonfarm, civilian labor force supports 214,800 jobs, an increase of 1.4% over October of 2023. The two largest sectors are the government and professional and business services, which each employed just over 43,000 individuals as of October 2024. Four other industries vie for third place in this well-rounded job market: education and health services (28,400 workers), trade, transportation and utilities (26,500 workers), leisure and hospitality (22,600 workers) and manufacturing (20,400 workers). The unemployment rate stood at 4.1% in October, just above the national average.  

Hourly wages in Boulder trend higher than elsewhere in the nation, but not all industries are created equal here. While the mean hourly wage in the greater Boulder area of $41.93 seems impressive compared to the U.S. average, which sits at only $31.48, those employed in, say, education instruction/library work will find less than a dollar’s difference in their hourly wages ($32.88 versus $31.92) while those in management earn more than $15/hour more than their national counterparts.  

It’s important to note there is a great disparity in living costs and wages between the city of Boulder and Boulder County. At $99,770, the annual median household income in the county is substantially higher than the city’s median of $80,243 and the U.S. average, which is just $75,149. So, depending on your position in the job market and where you live in the city, you may be able to stretch your wages further.   

Solid Education

If it weren’t for the University of Colorado Boulder, this city might not be on the map at all. The institution of higher learning has been a part of the city’s history from almost the very beginning, fueling not just educational and research goals but industrial and commercial ones. More than 37,000 students are currently enrolled at the university, which means that roughly a third of the city’s total population stems from this single segment alone.   

As one of the top research universities on the continent, CU Boulder now has local and global importance, creating a strong workforce in the region and pioneering innovations in everything from sustainable energy to the science of political misinformation. The school is just one of 11 universities in the area. 

At the K-12 level, the Boulder Valley Public School District serves 31,000 students across 56 schools over 500 square miles. See which school in the BVSD your children might attend. 

High Cost of Living and Real Estate

The cost of living in this cool mountain town seems to increase every year. Though the state of Colorado isn’t far above the national average when it comes to costs for groceries, transportation and healthcare, and it offers considerable savings on utilities, real estate prices are the spoiler, and Boulder’s are among the highest in the state. 

The median home value in Boulder is now $919,700—more expensive than even pricy New York and Los Angeles and nearly twice as expensive as Denver or Fort Collins. Colorado Springs homes average only $383,000, which is still $100,000 above the U.S. average but a bargain compared with Boulder.  

These extraordinary prices are at least partially to blame for the low rate of home ownership in the area, which is only 47.2%, almost 20 points below the U.S. average. A market this competitive leaves renters feeling squeezed as well. You can expect to shell out more than $2,800/mo on rent in Boulder—$1,000 more than your national counterparts do.  

Boulderites do tend to earn more than residents of any of these cities, though it’s not enough to easily defray the additional costs. The median household income in Boulder just crests the $80,000 mark, which is only $5,000 above the national average and $7,000 less than the average Coloradan brings home.  

The combination of moderate income and exorbitant home values is a recipe for a housing crisis, which Boulder’s poverty rate of 22.1% bears out. To combat this, the city has begun to implement certain measures, like lifting its longstanding annual cap on new housing developments, which have kept the housing stock artificially suppressed for years.  

Make Your Move to Boulder with America’s #1 Mover®

If you are ready to move to this Rocky Mountain town, leave the tough job to the professionals at United Van Lines. Our nationwide network of professional, long-distance movers can help make your move to Boulder seamless and stress-free. Get a moving quote now for Boulder.  

United Van Lines can make moving cross-country easy, no matter where you’re moving from in the United States. Our full-service moving packages and customized moving options can help alleviate the stress of moving. We can take care of packing and unpacking your belongings, removing debris from your home, shipping your car and providing you with storage services, too.  

If you’re moving within the city or from another location in Colorado, United Van Lines’ interstate Boulder agents/movers can provide local moving services independently under their own businesses and brands.  

If you’ll be handling your own move, you can still incorporate these packing tips from our moving checklist to move to Boulder like a pro.  

No matter how you’re moving to Boulder, using United Van Lines’ step-by-step guide to moving long-distance will help keep you on schedule and on budget. On our moving blog and in House Key magazine, you’ll find even more professional advice and guidance. Learn the best way to move with a pet, or see what you can do to help your child settle into your new house.   

When you’re preparing to relocate, you may receive different types of moving quotes and estimates. We know — it’s confusing. See how to make sense of these offers and understand the factors that affect your moving costs for Boulder. 

Learn even more about the Rocky Mountain State in our Moving Guide to Colorado. Our city guides and state guides help you discover what your top cities to move to should be. 

Get a quote today on moving to Boulder, Colorado. 

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