Best Family Cities In Colorado

When people move to the Centennial State, some strive to find the best family cities in Colorado. The following locales are desirable places for families to live because they offer affordable housing, prosperous economies and top-notch schools:

Erie, Colorado

1. The town of Erie offers a historic business district with new sidewalks and numerous popular shops. Many residents earn substantial incomes. They can enjoy a local balloon festival and fair every year.

Fruita, Colorado

2. Fruita is a city that features lower housing expenses than most other urban areas in Colorado. It plans to create additional parks in the near future. Numerous people visit it for outdoor recreation.

Superior, Colorado

3. A town called Superior is located in Boulder Valley. It has a sunny climate and some of the best primary schools in the state. The local government intends to add a spacious new park soon.

Lone Tree, Colorado

4. Lone Tree is known for its great schools, thriving economy and medical facilities. The health care industry provides plenty of high-paying jobs, and many locals appreciate the ability to reach nearby Denver via train.

Lafayette, Colorado

5. Lafayette has a relatively walkable downtown district, interesting local shops and an excellent school system. It is also comparatively inexpensive to buy a home in this family-friendly city near the state capital.

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

6. Steamboat Springs is a popular skiing destination with a top-notch school system. Many advanced courses are available to students. Locals also benefit from tourism-related employment and tax revenue.

Parker, Colorado

7. Parker features a recently constructed library, comparatively low real estate prices and convenient access to hiking areas. This town occasionally hosts major sporting events. Students receive above-average scores on tests and local family incomes are high.

Louisville, Colorado

8. The city of Louisville also reports higher test scores than the average district in Colorado. It is known for high-tech firms, including a spacecraft manufacturer. Locals benefit from easy access to major highways and the state’s largest city.

Most of these locales are near Denver. They have become the best family cities in Colorado by prioritizing their public infrastructure, recreational facilities and education services. To keep learning more about life in this region, please follow American Southwest Magazine.

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Vacationing In Blackhawk, Colorado

(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia)

If you are looking for a combination of the great outdoors and the bright lights and action of the casino, vacationing in Blackhawk Colorado may be the ideal answer. This historic mining town, about an hour’s drive from Denver, offers a choice of 17 casinos of varying size and access to some of the state’s most spectacular scenery.

The first casinos were opened in Blackhawk during the early 1990s in an effort to halt the town’s decline since its boom days as a mining town in the late 19th century. Gold was discovered in nearby Gregory Gulch, which led to thousands of prospectors arriving in the area, all bent on making their fortune. Today, the town’s casinos vary in size from those offering over 1,000 slot machines, to smaller establishments offering a less frenzied and quieter atmosphere and just 100 slots.

There is a wide choice of accommodation if you are vacationing in Blackhawk Colorado, although the town is also a popular day trip from Denver. Several of the larger casinos also offer accommodation, including the Ameristar Casino Resort Spa. Gamblers can choose from 40 table games, and 1,500 video and slot machines, as well as a choice of over 500 rooms and suites. The other three large casino hotels in town include the lady Luck casino Blackhawk, with 10 poker tables and almost 600 slot machines.

If you prefer to gamble somewhere smaller, Blackhawk has over a dozen smaller gambling venues, ranging in size from Golden Gates Casino with almost 300 slot machines, to the Bull Pen Casino, with just over 100 slots. Most of the smaller gambling establishments in town offer slots only and are somewhat unpretentious. As well as gambling, the town of Blackhawk offers a great selection of restaurants to suit any budget, and the town makes a convenient base for excursions into the Rockies.

We can highly recommend Blackhawk, one of the area’s most popular destinations, and it appeals to families, couples, those who want an outdoor adventure and those who don’t want to leave the air conditioned casino.

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Vacationing in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains

San Juan Mountains

You could be forgiven for half-expecting a dolphin to playfully jump out of the water and do a flip. The intense, electric blue of Ice Lake would seem out of place against the patches of snow and the alpine meadows if it weren’t so starkly beautiful. Tucked away in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains near the town of Silverton, Ice Lake is one of four incandescently-colored lakes in the Upper Ice Lake Basin — the other three being Island, Clear, and fuller lakes finishing out the list.

Perfect for a day trip, Ice Lake and its nearby sister lake, Island Lake, are just outside of Silverton and can be reached from the gravel parking area across from South Mineral Campground and is where you can park and begin your trek. The lakes are accessed via a remarkably scenic four-mile hike with an elevation climb of around three-thousand feet. The trails are well defined and easily done by most hikers. Winding through alpine meadows, conifer forests, waterfalls and creeks, the hike itself is a lot of fun, so make sure to bring a camera as you’ll want to capture the scenery on the way up to the lake!

If you’re not the type of person for whom a landscape can hold endless captivation, bring along a fishing pole and some bait and tackle; the lakes are full of cutthroat trout. During the warmer months, you can travel light and leave the ice auger at home for a carefree day of fishing in a serene location.

Since you’ve undoubtedly brought your hiking boots, you might as well climb up one of the surrounding 14,000+ foot peaks that surround the lakes. Fuller, Vermillion, V2 – all can be had from Ice Lake, and the surrounding lakes. Trails do go up to the summits of many of the surrounding mountains, and since you’re above the timberline, the views are unimpeded.