Fort Collins offers a great climate for skiers, but boaters, paddle boarders, and other water aficionados will love the Poudre River, the Horsetooth Reservoir, and the many lakes sprinkled around town. Sure, there will be snow -- and plenty of it -- but that’s the case everywhere in Colorado. Fort Collins has snow and water.

As the home of Colorado State University, Fort Collins can get kind of loud. The school has a reputation as a party school, and that coupled with an increase in the city’s permanent population, gives it a more bustling, big city feel that represents a change for some residents. Still, CSU brings diversity, culture, and energy to the city, and adds to its unique charm.


Water, water everywhere

LookyLOO Review of Fort Collins 

Fort Collins is a great place to live. Many people work at the university or tech companies, who are just starting to put their stakes in the ground in Fort Collins. There’s plenty of green space, great city parks, and fun places to shop like the boutique-filled Old Town. The cost of living is decent, and the politics tend toward the independent. Families will enjoy Huntington Hills and City Park, while younger people will like the area around the university.

Check out the [calendar of events](https://www.visitftcollins.com/events/) to get a better sense of everything happening in Fort Collins.

We highly recommend visiting Fort Collins and staying in the community in a [VRBO](https://vrbo.com/affiliate/p4JS4ZC) rather than a hotel to get a feel for what it's like to live among the locals. You can receive discounted fares on travel via our [partnership with Expedia](expedia.com/affiliate/9NZ8LBQ) as well.

Lifestyle

Fort Collins is growing faster than the state of Colorado itself, at a rate of about 2% per year, partially due to an influx of tech companies. That means more jobs and more cash, and more money directed into the city coffers to go toward growth and improvements. It’s an exciting time.


Fort Collins is booming

Why You Should Move Here Now?

_FinalPantasy_
2y ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉

My sister lives there. She absolutely loves it. She has a young daughter with her. She hasn’t said anything bad about the school system and it seems like a rich suburb so I can’t imagine its bad. When I visited I really liked it but was only there a couple days. The rough thing for me was the lack of humidity dried me out so fast but I’m sure you get used to that.

Reviews of Fort Collins from Locals

**The Best Thing About Fort Collins?**  Water, water everywhere

Fort Collins offers a great climate for skiers, but boaters, paddle boarders and other water aficionados will love the Poudre River, the Horsetooth Reservoir and the many lakes sprinkled around town. Sure, there will be snow -- and plenty of it -- but that’s the case everywhere in Colorado. Fort Collins has the snow and water.

**The Worst Thing About Fort Collins?**  Can get too hectic

As the home of Colorado State University, Fort Collins can get kind of loud. The school has a reputation as a party school, and that coupled with an increase in the city’s permanent population, gives it a more bustling, big city feel that represents a change for some residents. Still, CSU brings diversity, culture and energy to the city, and adds to its unique charm..

**How You Living?**  A lively life

Fort Collins is a great place to live. Many people work at the university or tech companies, who are just starting to put their stakes in the ground in Fort Collins. There’s plenty of green space, great city parks and fun places to shop like the boutique-filled Old Town. The cost of living is decent, and the politics tend toward the independent. Families will enjoy Huntington Hills and City Park, while younger people will like the area around the university. 

**Why You Should Move Here Now?**  Fort Collins is booming

Fort Collins is growing faster than the state of Colorado itself, at a rate of about 2% per year, partially due to an influx of tech companies. That means more jobs and more cash, and more money directed into the city coffers to go toward growth and improvements. It’s an exciting time.


Downtown is where all the youngsters start their search if moving to Fort Collins. The neighborhoods in this area include Old Town, which is filled with breweries, pubs, restaurants and walking access to the professional business district and the Colorado State University campus. 
- Old Town Fort Collins


Young Professionals

Old Town

Old Prospect is another interesting choice for those ready to get away from the business of downtown/Old Town but still look for some commercial options. It pulls in a lot of families but is growing in popularity with singles and couples looking for the intersection of city and more rural outdoor spaces. 
- Old Prospect
- Old Town


DINKs/SINKs

Old Prospect

There are so many options for families in Fort Collins it is hard to narrow it down to a few. Old Prospect was just mentioned as a growing in-demand option due to its combination of outdoor spaces and restaurants, and boutique shopping. Fossil Creek is another interesting option with very cool eclectic homes at a range of different prices. The neighborhood has great schools and a passion for getting outdoors so families love raising children there. 
- Fossil Creek
- Old Prospect
- North Fort Collins


Families

Fossil Creek

Fort Collins

**ifflejink**
2y ago
🦉🦉🦉

I grew up in Fort Collins and moved away over a decade ago, but I go back to visit pretty frequently. It was a really good place to grow up overall because there’s so much green space, it’s safe, it’s bikeable, there’s a decent amount of stuff to do and it’s pretty friendly. It can be its own little bubble, though, and it’s extremely white- there isn’t a whole lot of diversity. It’s also surprisingly expensive if you want to live somewhere that isn’t car-dependent because a huge portion of the city is very, very sprawling. Traffic has apparently gotten relatively bad for a small city over the years, too.

For schools, they’re mostly good-quality and fairly well-funded. Poudre High School, on the northwest side of town, did have its own issues because it catches a mix of rural areas, low-income areas, middle-class spots and IB students from around the area. Those issues were mostly around that specific school being very, very overcrowded. I’m not sure how noticeable it is now, but LaPorte (small town just northwest of Fort Collins) has historically had a pretty significant white supremacist presence. Poudre pulled a lot of kids from that area and it meant that, while you didn’t necessarily see anything super overt, there was a lot of overtly white supremacist/Nazi graffiti in the school.

**SummitSloth**
3mo ago
🦉🦉🦉

Do it. I live here in the old town area and love it. Denver is a hour+ haul from foco but pretty much everything you need is here. Has everything you want listed out.

Mountain access is the catch, especially if you ski the resorts. You gotta drive an hour south then fight traffic on I70. There is the Poudre canyon/Cameron pass just west of us that has some great hikes. If you're moving here, you gotta accept the extra driving time but the trade off to live in foco compared to Denver metro is greatly worth it.

**skinsnam**
2y ago
🦉🦉

Honestly, I haven’t really enjoyed my time here nearly as much as I though I would, but it’s also very much not my scene. I like small towns with very close access to nature and Fort Collins is large (at least to me) with a lot of breweries and bars (I don’t drink) and the close nature is often very crowded or very close to busy streets. It’s also the least friendly place I’ve ever lived, but take that with a grain of salt. Many of my transplant friends often talk about how it’s the nicest place they’ve lived, but it ranks in the bottom for me. Really just depends on where you’ve lived before.

Its “pedestrian friendly”, but I’ve nearly been hit about 7 times walking/riding my bike in the three years I’ve been here- an issue I haven’t had in other cities or towns I’ve lived in. Just today someone turned left on a green while I was in the middle of the crosswalk and would have hit me had I not ran out of the way. Today was the third time I’ve almost been hit by someone turning left and not looking.

I do enjoy the amount of accessible bouldering and the closeness to RMNP and poudre canyon. For me, those are the stars of Fort Collins. I also enjoy heading to Cheyenne for fun. I love rodeos so being close to frontier days is a treat for me. I’m a big live music person and Washington’s and The Aggie often have good shows. Denver isn’t too far either if I want to head to a show down there.

Fort Collins, Colorado

The Skiing Suburb

Looklyloo Score: 90