Relocate to New Mexico?

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kbunning

Confused about dryer sheets
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Apr 20, 2015
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Anyone out there living in New Mexico? Thinking about leaving CO mountain town for more moderate climate, COL, etc.

Hoping to keep those 300+ days of sunshine. Hiking, biking, golf year round. Don't mind chilly/cold nights or even a bit of occasional snow. Been ski bums for 20 years, but ready to make the shift to more golf and less skiing/snow rearranging during winter months.

Access to healthcare is important, but we are not city mice. Front Range of CO is too nutty and expensive. Just looking for other suggestions. Planning a road trip to explore in January.

Thanks in advance!
 
Look into Grand Junction, Palisade, Fruita Colorado.
Mild winters, cute downtowns, good dining, spectacular golf courses - especially Redlands Mesa, less traffic, wine region, world class hiking, biking close to a ton of stuff in Ouray, Moab, Telluride, Aspen, Grand Mesa, Colorado National Monument, ski Powderhorn.
Two hospitals, two airports with major carrier service.
Kiplinger chose it as the #2 best place to retire.
We moved here four years ago from Denver and love it.
https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/wes...cle_03c51dea-f654-11ec-a629-b310ef127e02.html
 
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I just got back from a mountain biking road trip in AZ and NM and thought Ruidoso was the best of it all. I'd go back and explore more. Has the outdoor stuff, but I drove up from Alamogordo and didn't check out the town. Having stayed in Alamogordo, once was more than enough of that place.
 
We have thought about moving to New Mexico, have visited for a few days several times, and took two weeks during a road trip last winter to check things out. We stayed in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Silver City.

Santa Fe and Silver City are still on the list for a more in-depth look. Las Cruces gets too hot during the summer, and the university wasn't well-integrated with the city. Albuquerque wasn't our vibe. We love the sunshine and the hiking in the state. We found the food somewhat one-dimensional. The issues we didn't like were water, property crime, and taxes. We aren't counting it out yet.

Silver City is very isolated and not very large. The outdoor opportunities there are very attractive to us. And the small college there was well-integrated with the town. One good brewpub.

Santa Fe is expensive, and we would probably have to downsize into a condo. We like the downtown area. Lots of brewpubs and restaurants.
 
We’ve considered New Mexico, but most of the areas we like are a little too isolated or too expensive (Santa Fe). And when I say isolated, it’s primarily in terms of healthcare and airports.

Durango checks all of the boxes you mentioned, but may get more snow than you’d like. It’s also relatively pricey, especially with the increases of the past 2-3 years. Purgatory Ski Resort has year-round activity with good skiing and mountain biking. Lots of hiking in the area. Glacier Golf Club is an incredible golf course, where the fairways were naturally carved by glaciers, so it feels like you’re playing in canyons on many holes. Telluride is less than 2 hours away. Drive to Silverton and Ouray is one of the most scenic drives in the U.S. Great downtown area with the Animas river running through it and lots of local restaurants.

For me, Durango is just the right size - population of around 50k, a four year college, and highly rated healthcare. Regional airport gets you to Denver, Phoenix and Dallas. Too bad I can’t convince my wife. ;-)
 
Trailwalker said:
We found the food somewhat one-dimensional. The issues we didn't like were water, property crime, and taxes. We aren't counting it out yet.
Click to expand...

Crime is an issue in New Mexico. So is the ongoing drought in the SouthWest.

Food? After a few weeks there one realizes that even the best NewMexican food can get tiring.

You also get to do the "One of our fifty is missing" dance when dealing with many out of staters and foreign countries. :D



Drivin’ Me Crazy
Click to expand...
Edgewood resident Ed Gerber had been waiting—and waiting—five months for the delivery of a new car. After the delivery date had changed several times, he contacted Subaru’s corporate customer service to check on the problem. The representative took his name, address, and order number, then asked him to hold. When she came back on the line, she asked him if he resided full time in Mexico. He replied that he lived in New Mexico. “Oh,” she said. “I’m not sure we can help. This is Subaru of America.” When he explained that New Mexico was indeed part of the United States, he could hear her in the background, consulting with a coworker. “He says New Mexico is a state ... ” she trailed off, before putting him on hold again. She finished her geography lesson, and the car arrived a few days later.

Case Closed

Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney Alicia Luncheon shared a whopper of a story on her popular TikTok account (@theluncheonlawyer). It seems that she had a client who was arrested for driving without a valid license. The case ended up in court. There, Luncheon triumphantly presented her client’s up-to-date New Mexico driver’s license to the court. The prosecutor took the license, carefully examined it, and then told Luncheon that it was, indeed, not valid for use in the United States. The defense lawyer said that she had many thoughts on how to respond but kept the most profane ones to herself. Instead, Luncheon recounted, “I looked at her dead in her face and said, ‘I suggest you dismiss this case, or I’m about to embarrass you.’ ” The proceedings were quickly brought to an end.
Click to expand...
 
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We're 30 miles north of NM. As soon as you cross the state border its obvious something changed. Road suddenly goes to h*ll and there's signs telling me how to turn in drunk drivers. I'll pass.
 
After reading about droughts and gigantic forest fires in western states, I'd be reluctant to move to New Mexico. But that's just me. It might not be all that bad. I have no desire to find out first hand, though. :)
 
I am probably biased as I *used to* live in NM. Lived in the east mountains of ABQ. I was just there for work, spent almost 8 years there. At first I really liked it. Then over time the negatives start to build up and I was more than happy to leave when I retired. I never had any serious roots there, no family and not there long enough to be significant portion of my life. Crime is very high, mostly property type crime and not necessarily violent crime, although overall crime is bad. Except for ABQ area, the rest of the state is pretty sparse population, approx 2/3 of the entire state population is ABQ metro area. Lot of poverty outside the major cities of ABQ, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces. Santa Fe is actually pretty small and is like Berkeley NM politically, if that fits your preference than you might like it. Las Cruces is the second most populous city and is more agricultural once you get out of the immediate city. El Paso is fairly close for bigger city. NM has a lot of really beautiful mountains, scenery, desert, and history. Also has lot of crime, racial tension, immigration issues being border state, water issues, and IMHO relatively ineffective state govt. Lot of Native American Indian reservation land, that is a whole different discussion I will leave out.

I think NM is great to visit, but I don't miss living there. I second the recommendation to look at Grand Junction and western slope side of CO as a better option. I was seriously considering Grand Junction when I retired and left NM, but ultimately DW family ties in Ohio won out and we moved here.
 
I lived in NM from 1987-91. My ex liked it so much she stayed when the Air Force moved me to Japan. My son grew up there, but moved away as soon as he had the opportunity. I visited a lot as he grew up, but haven’t gone back since he left six years ago. He now lives near me in PA. NM is too dry and brown. I liked the people a lot and avoiding the higher crime areas was pretty easy when I lived there. Can’t speak for today. NM food is excellent and lots of cultural activities n the area. College basketball was the big sport, but at the time they had good minor league baseball and hockey teams too. Lots of hospitals there, but I can’t speak to the quality of healthcare since we used military healthcare at the time. My daughter-in-law was raised in Santa Fe and just brought her mom to live here in PA with them. She likes the doctors here much better.
 
Santa Fe early in my dreamer years was high on the list until I spent some time there. Over loved is an expression that comes to mind. Taos is kind of nice, but cold in winter and feels too remote.
If western Colorado doesn’t appeal to the OP, I would throw Flagstaff into the mix. That area still holds some intrigue. College town, up the road from the Grand Canyon, Sedona (another over loved place), lots to do - snowy though in winter.
 
A friend of mine left Reno when she retired because she could only afford a condo. She was able to buy a house in las cruces. She likes it so far.
 
Well we live 3 miles from NM in AZ on the east slope of a Sky Island. So we see from a short distance, low taxes, and NM spends money on their small rural communities.

We drive 100 one way to Silver City to our dentist. Shopping is OK, the Gila is close by for recreation, and the university has a counter culture vibe to it. Dining is OK but comes and goes.

We had SC as a retirement destination but Ms G nixed it for the colder winter.

The boothill of NM is cattle, cotton, and chilis.
 
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Like everything else it’s really what best suits you. I’ve lived here 4 times. 1st when young to early teens, second for a year after high school, third in mid 30s for 3-1/2 years, retired and moved back here last year. My family has lived in the Southern part of the state since the early 1960s. I’ve always lived in the southern, but we retired to the North.
Medical: Fairly good near the cities, we live on west side of Rio Grande from Albuquerque. My ACA policy is limited, but have found Doctors. Wife is on Medicare and hasn’t had issues finding Doctors.
Politics: if you are concerned the south is more conservative except maybe Las Cruces and the North more liberal, always exceptions. It’s a poor blue state. About 40% of the budget comes from oil and gas so it puts the democrats in a tough position with their party.
I would suggest you take several trips, Winters can be cold in the mountains and moderate elsewhere. That’s relative. Spring will be windy, Summer hot and dry yes it is the desert. Fall nice although we’ve already had some cooler nights and snow at the higher elevations.
I think if you want more outdoors and more golf and decent medical you’ll have to live some what close to a city.
Crime, yeah Albuquerque has bad areas and a high crime rate. So do some of the smaller less effluent cities. Pretty much like the rest of the country.
Food, you like it or you don’t, Chilies are big part of the cuisine.
Go to New Mexico.org and you can get a lot of information.
 
It looked like Santa Fe would have cold winters given the altitude. Snow too. Great climate the rest of the year I expect. Lots of homes have no AC.

We were there at the beginning of October, just in time for a major cold snap which was supposedly 2 weeks early.
 
audreyh1 said:
It looked like Santa Fe would have cold winters given the altitude. Snow too. Great climate the rest of the year I expect. Lots of homes have no AC.

We were there at the beginning of October, just in time for a major cold snap which was supposedly 2 weeks early.
Click to expand...

Yes Santa Fe is cold in winter, being 7200 ft elevation. But it also has a lot of nice sun so even cooler temps can feel nice. Typical Jan day is low around 12F and then high up into low 40s, once the sun comes out it warms up quick. I lived south of there at 7100 ft. Many times I would have 2-4 inches of snow at my house and then no snow once I dropped 1800 ft down into ABQ. Even times of a snow storm where I would get 8-12 inches, the roads would usually clear up in a day due to sun heating and plowing the major snow off. Yes, an Oct snow was not unusual, although no big amounts of accumulation since ground temps still too warm at that time.

Fun fact: Santa Fe is highest elevation state capitol city in USA.
 
Thanks!

Normally ABQ winters looks pretty easy. But we got caught in a bad one over Xmas/New Year 2006-7. Big deep snow and then took it forever to melt because the snow created it’s own weather - fog during the day then refreezing at night. Lots of houses had roof leaks because they weren’t designed to have such a large snow pack. I-40 shut down with lots of stuck vehicles. Supposedly a 50 year event.
 
I've seen I-40 east closed on east side of the state during big storms. Being so flat out there, the wind driven snow is just no way to keep roads clear until the storm subsides.

I've also experienced very slow going trying to get home just going east out of ABQ on I-40. Mainly Santa Rosa and Tucumcari and to the TX border. I will say that I think NM Road Dept did a pretty good job trying to keep I-40 open, but there were times it just was too much storm and needed a break until storm was done and passed through. I-25 up north didn't seem to get the bad winds like I-40 to the east. So I do not recall I-25 being closed except for maybe Raton Pass right at the CO border.
 
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Thanks everyone! Taking a road trip in January to NM and AZ. We've traveled extensively through the western states (I'm a WY native). But never really explored points further south. Durango is nice, but expensive and still seems to be nutty with growth, like most places in CO. Western slope is a possibility. We've spent a lot of time there, but winter is still fairly wintery there (although nothing like where we live now with avg over 300" snow per year). Suggestions for January road trip would be appreciated!
 
kbunning said:
Thanks everyone! Taking a road trip in January to NM and AZ. We've traveled extensively through the western states (I'm a WY native). But never really explored points further south. Durango is nice, but expensive and still seems to be nutty with growth, like most places in CO. Western slope is a possibility. We've spent a lot of time there, but winter is still fairly wintery there (although nothing like where we live now with avg over 300" snow per year). Suggestions for January road trip would be appreciated!
Click to expand...


Our favorite town during last February's road trip to New Mexico and AZ was Bisbee, Arizona. We spent two weeks in an airbnb on the edge of town and loved it.
 
We bought a place on the NW side of ABQ a few years ago and love it! It's a small rural type village called Corrales. 10 minutes to major shopping area. The town has a few very nice restaurants. It does get chilly in the winter. But we kept our place in Las Vegas NV to escape the cold! Cost of living for us is really low. Property taxes are low. Gasoline is much cheaper than Las Vegas. So is car insurance and registration. Groceries are too. It's funny, I always hear people touting the advantages of the no state tax states and have spent most of my life in Nevada. But on a whole, our COL is much cheaper in NM. Another cost that is cheaper for us than Vegas are utilities. Our house which was built in 98 doesnt even have A/C. Just an evaporative cooler. Which works great most days in the summer. Until the monsoon comes then the humidity kicks up a bit. But our electric and gas bills are low. We are on a well and septic tank so just have to plan for occasional maintenance. Healthcare is not the greatest. But that's true of most places in the SW. It's a very nice place to live despite some of the negatives some have mentioned. Crime is pretty much non existent where we are at. But Albuquerque has some issues mostly with property crime and homelessness. But what large city doesnt? You can find crime anywhere in the US. The northern half of the state is typically liberal and the southern half conservative. The state also has the largest concentration of Native Americans in the country. Which I think adds to the culture. Beautiful Pueblos around us. As for snow skiing, Sandia has a couple of lifts for locals. Santa Fe is only an hour away with better skiing. Taos is a couple hours away for more hardcore stuff!
 
I lived in Las Vegas NM in the 90’s. As djsanders perhaps Freudian slip (or typo) said, it was definitely an ‘effluent” smaller city. Yup, a cesspool. High crime, poor roads, limited variety of restaurants. That said the weather was magnificent!
 
We lived in Boulder for the better part of 20 years, Cañon City for a couple of years, Silver City NM for a couple of years and have traveled extensively all over both states.

I agree that the entire Colorado Front Range is just nuts now. We still have friends there and my sister lives in Denver but between the traffic, prices and wildfire smoke we avoid the place except for flying in for a short visit occasionally. A very outdoor-oriented cousin lives near Cortez and loves it but it's very small and rural. Hard for me to see the appeal of Grand Junction but YMMV. Cañon City has the mildest climate in the state, great cycling (mountain and road) and nearby hiking and is only 45 minutes from Colorado Springs shopping but is ultra-conservative and culture less. Manitou Springs, while touristy, is the Boulder of Colorado Springs and quite livable but as cold in the winter as anyplace else in the Front Range and far from cheap.

Regarding NM, a lot of people don't know that Albuquerque has one of the widest ranges of altitude and microclimate within its city limits of any city. The NE heights for example are more like Santa Fe in terms of altitude and weather, with great access to hiking in the Sandias.

We spend a few months in the summer in Santa Fe quite often and while the hiking trails are great the restaurant scene is far inferior to ABQ unless you mostly like to eat at high-end places and don't mind paying silly prices. ABQ has great pizza, bread bakeries and coffee as well as good Asian cuisine, while Santa Fe has none of these things. With over half of Santa Fe's workforce commuting in from ABQ everyday it has become a "toy town" for tourists and Trustafarians - much like Boulder and Colorado's ski towns. ABQ's crime levels are off-the-charts awful but I'd still choose it over Santa Fe.

Las Cruces may be the second largest city in the state but there are more things of cultural, culinary and artistic interest happening in Santa Fe or ABQ in a week than there are in a year in Cruces. The summers are as scorching as Tucson where we live now, the hiking is mediocre at best, and as for food, hope you like green and red chile 'cause that's pretty much it. And having El Paso as your most sophisticated big city shopping option (and the nearest place with a Costco) isn't exactly thrilling. It's NM-meets-Texas.

Silver City is lovely but very, very small: less than 10K population. The hiking and biking is the best I've ever experienced - far superior to anyplace in Colorado IMHO - but more than half of those who move there for retirement end up leaving. 3.5 hours to Tucson for your nearest Costco or Trader Joe's (or good non NM cuisine restaurant - or an airport) gets old in a hurry. Good place to be a hermit though, or if access to pristine trails trumps every other priority.

In any case ABQ is the only city in NM with complete health care services. Santa Fe friends have to go there to see specialists and Silver City folks are often flown there in case of emergencies as there are few specialists at its hospital. Meanwhile Las Cruces friends who worked in medicine for decades go to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix for anything serious. NM is indeed beautiful and captivating but it's also extremely poor, exceptionally crime-ridden and has some of the lowest educational levels of any state, along with far and away the highest levels of alcoholism and drunk driving. It's also incredibly insular, culturally - something that many who move there from elsewhere only discover after several years of frustration.
 
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