Living in Vacation Land
We're moving & reflections on the last years living in Winter Park, Colorado
It’s a romantic idea. Maybe you’ve felt this way on a trip to a beautiful place. After a few days of dazzling views and fun activities, the question creeps in: What if we just stayed? What would our life look like if we made this vacation place our home?
Honestly, it sorta sucks. I’ve been in therapy for the past year unpacking my unhappiness living here in Winter Park, Colorado. Only recently have I made peace with it all.
I’m not trying to be ungrateful. We’re immensely privileged to live in this beautiful place. But the plan was always for it to be temporary. We’d stay a year or two at most. It’s a splurge. A little treat. A time we’ll look back at fondly. There are many massive upsides - snowboarding on my lunch break, biking out our front door, the views of the continental divide along the river in our backyard.
The reality of this place looks different than the dream. I’m snowboarding alone. We’re staying in and watching TV again tonight. The weight of being unhappy is magnified by the pressures of expectation; I should be happy here, right?
In November and May, the shoulder seasons, this town actually feels like a town of a few hundred people. Most of the restaurants close because they won’t have enough business. The exhausting whirlwind of tourists and traffic and temporary residents rests for a few weeks. People notice your face if you’re still around.
The rest of the year, we have a new set of renters upstairs each week. Sometimes they have toddlers stomping around at 5am. Sure, we can go knock on their door and ask them to be more considerate, but the next week the cycle starts anew. It’s tiring.
When I’m walking the dog in the morning, there’s usually someone each week that can’t figure out how to access the garage, because their AirBnb host didn’t give them clear directions. “I’m happy to help,” I always say with a smile, like it’s the first time. Our building has 40 units and maybe three of them have full time residents living here. That’s tiring too.
There is a facade to this town. The locals all smile and say hello, but we’ve struggled to break deeper into any sense of community. We’re skating over the top of the town like every tourist. We know some bartenders. We know some names and some faces. We give the ritualistic hey-how-are-yas. But things haven’t gone any deeper.
I get it. My eyes glaze over the faces in our building hallways. Only when people recognize our dog do I realize we’ve met before. Heck, we really only started to meet people when we got our pup.
We work remotely, so we don’t have any connections rooting us here. That’s a big lesson. By planning to stay here for just a few years, I see now that we’ve set ourselves up to fail.
Don’t get me wrong - we do have friends. Our guest room has been full every weekend for the past two months. Our weekends are full of outdoor adventures. All these friends are from Denver though, from the last vibrant chapter of our life. We now live two hours away from all of them and our social life has stagnated. We are neither here nor there.
We have made friends up here, but they inevitably end up moving on. This town is expensive at every turn. Gas, crappy groceries and eating out are all priced for the tourist dollar. Most rental units are an Airbnb or only rented for 6 months. Every house is almost a million dollars. It’s hard to stay here. After three winters, right as things feel like they’re blooming in some ways, it’s time for us to go.
That’s right, we are officially moving to New Hampshire in May! More on that soon.
My therapist has helped me see that these years in Winter Park are highlighting things that are important to me. These things are not being fulfilled right now, but they are becoming focused themes of the next chapter of life. That includes:
Deep community connections
Living close to family and friends
Home ownership
Gardening projects (a growing season longer than 6 weeks!)
Fresh, local food
Most of all, I think our next spot will be one we plan to live in for at least a decade.
At the end of this three winter window, I’m grateful for our time here but now it’s our turn to leave. Besides, we can always come back here on vacation for a week and everything would feel exactly the same.
Beautifully written! Wishing you all a better sense of community and grounding in New Hampshire. Welcome back to the east coast :)
Well said, my son. I am immensely proud of you and so excited for you, Sarah and Dahlia to find your home and community.