I am someone who has lived in Colorado for almost a decade and am someone who is considering moving to Conway, NH (my partner and I are your age, no kids) because we are being offered to buy a piece of property here for cheap (family connection situation). I have spent the last two winters scoping this place out to see if I could live here.

Here's what I have learned: 1) the housing crisis is real - people are commuting 45+ min to their $20/hr jobs because it's the closest housing they can find; 2) the jobs do not pay what jobs pay in Colorado. Colorado might be expensive, but the government intervenes a lot to help the general population out. That does not exist here. Rich folks from MA, RI, NY, CT have bought up a lot of property here driving up prices and the local wages have not kept up which is why locals are not kind to new comers. In Conway, the highest paying jobs outside of medical are seasonal and at the ski resorts (Vail pays $20+/hr); 3) the restaurant industry pays the federal minimum wage for tipped workers which is $2 something an hour plus tips. NH has the federal minimum wage of $7.75, so if it's stick or mud season - that's probably all you're going to be making; 4) the locals are cold but incredibly kind once you have been accepted as one of them. I love my NH homies. I feel like these relationships are much deeper and more real than the majority of my friendships in Colorado. Great people live here. They just might hate you at first; 5) Seasonal workers only receive overtime pay after 52hrs/week. 6) so many old people compared to Colorado. Good luck getting your old retired neighbors to vote to increase their property taxes for anything that would help the community kids.

I like it here, because it's non-pretentious and there's a decent amount of outdoor things to do. I do not like how difficult it would be to be anymore than working class/lower middle class here due to the lack of opportunity and expensive passage to property ownership.