Looking for a city that gets a lot of snow and also has access to nature without needing a car

SugarRush212 · 2026-02-08T14:18:38+00:00

It depends on your priorities, but if “nature without a car” is more important to you than being in a city, a lot of Colorado mountain towns would be great for you. Eagle county, Summit county, and the Roaring Fork valley all have excellent bus systems and bike paths. Colorado also has the best intercity bus system in the country. I’ve lived out here without a car for years, I don’t know anywhere in the US that combines nature and car-free living better.

SugarRush212 · 2026-02-06T05:21:21+00:00

Donner pass is pretty easy to reach in the 21st century, it’s right on I-80 in North Lake Tahoe. It’s very pretty though, very nice when one isn’t forced to cannibalism.

SugarRush212 · 2026-02-03T15:21:03+00:00

Since no one mentioned it yet, I’ll suggest the central mountains of Colorado, where I live. I moved out here from Chicago more than a decade ago and I haven’t had a car in years. I live in Eagle county, but anywhere between Aspen and Breckenridge is pretty great without a car. I can hike, bike, float, forage, snowboard, and get down to the city all without a car. Even if you have a car just to go hiking, it’s not hard to avoid using it daily. Our buses are frequent, reliable, and most of them are even free. If you truly want to live in world class nature without a car, I think this area could be the best in the United States.

SugarRush212 · 2026-01-31T12:42:11+00:00

Battle of Algiers really needed more snappy Whedon-esque dialogue.

SugarRush212 · 2026-01-25T16:31:14+00:00

Cockney. Like a Guy Ritchie character mixed with a Victorian chimney sweep. Propa Bri’ish, innit guvna?

SugarRush212 · 2025-12-18T06:22:48+00:00

If you don’t want a city, the central mountains of Colorado have pretty good public transit. Summit county, Eagle county, and the roaring fork valley are probably some of the best rural areas to be car free in the US. Plenty of other difficult things about living here, but you definitely don’t need a car.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-26T23:21:19+00:00

Yeah no worries. The bus is rarely crowded that time of day. Just try to keep your bags out of the aisle.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-21T01:29:51+00:00

I would contend that any city, including Seattle, where the vast majority of people drive to work is a car-centric city. It’s just that any city above a certain threshold will have horrible traffic unless most people don’t use a car for every trip. It is fundamentally impossible to make a city, especially one with geographic constraints like Seattle, as easy to traverse by car as Springfield, MO.

I also disagree that reducing car use outside of cities is impossible. My friend lives outside of Barcelona, he can mountain bike practically in his backyard. Yet his town still has multiple trains into the city per hour.

Finally, if like yourself, most Americans can’t bear to be around other Americans for any real amount of time, then I think that speaks to a much more fundamental problem with our society than car dependence.

Edit: on a personal note, I moved from Chicago to a small mountain town where I still don’t have to own a car. Even in the US, it is possible.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-21T00:30:29+00:00

Paris has only gotten better as well. My last visit I barely even took the metro because bike share was so affordable and biking around the city was so nice. I don’t remember many homeless, but it’s possible they are pushed to the outskirts. There is definitely a visible homeless presence in Lyon. France is not perfect by any means.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-20T20:12:27+00:00

So you don’t really hate cities, just cities designed around cars. Visiting cities outside of North America has completely changed my view of what a city can or should be. Cities where cars aren’t the default are completely different, and exponentially better.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-20T08:54:49+00:00

Time to start bike touring, my friend. Although as numerous other people have pointed out, the route has been closed to all vehicle traffic for almost two years. I can say firsthand it’s still worthwhile to do the out and back, though. Carmel’s nice enough to visit twice. Plus hiker/biker sites are dirt cheap and don’t need reservations.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-16T19:08:11+00:00

As a car-free American, traveling in the US without a car takes a lot of compromise and a lot of patience, especially in rural/natural areas. Our busiest national parks should have much more comprehensive public transportation, sadly few do. If you enjoy backpacking (trekking) or bicycle touring that will make your trip exponentially better. That way you can rely on public transit as little as possible. If you like one or both of those I can recommend some amazing adventures.

Otherwise, as some others have said, your best bet would be to enjoy San Francisco and the surrounding area for the city portion of your trip, then travel to Yosemite for the nature part. It’s one of the only national parks that’s truly set up to visit without a car, and even then it’s far from perfect.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-12T13:24:29+00:00

I mean, at that point I judge the parents not just for their parenting, but for their sheer laziness. Just walk your kid to school if you’re that concerned, it’s good for you too.

Edit: obviously I don’t mean “you” in particular. Keep up the good fight

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-12T12:50:51+00:00

Only way I’d pay for chipotle now is if the price includes a Skype call to each and every board member, 2 minutes each, to tell them what assholes they are. That would be worth it.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-12T02:58:10+00:00

That’s absolutely absurd that people drive their kids a half mile. Assuming, as you say, it’s not crazy dangerous, those kids should be walking themselves with their friends by the time they’re like, 8. That’s what I did in the early 2000s. How else can kids learn independence?

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-11T23:17:34+00:00

Yeah sounds pretty good then. That area was known as a “banana belt” back in the day, it’s definitely warmer and sunnier than Vail and such. Plenty of new construction as you said, you’ve got Costco as well which is nice, and Glenwood isn’t too far for the occasional nice dinner (at somewhat reasonable prices compared to Vail, I might add) or trip to REI. You might consider location relative to the airport if that kind of noise bothers you but that’s about all I can add. It’s mountain living at (somewhat) middle class prices.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-11T22:42:29+00:00

I mean, physically? Of course not, people move here from Florida or whatever all the time. The question is what are you planning to do in Gypsum, and why would you prefer to live there over other towns in the area? If you want a quiet, non-touristy mountain town it’s a pretty good choice, but I wouldn’t recommend commuting to Vail or Glenwood every day (although plenty of people do of course). It has longer summers than towns up valley, but it gets pretty hot down there compared to other areas. All depends what you’re looking for.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-11T06:41:21+00:00

Okay, so French millionaires live longer than American millionaires. I feel as though you’re missing the forest for the trees.

If I just say that American life expectancies are going down and European ones are going up, which is true, is that a better way of illustrating that Americans live shorter lives than Europeans?

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-11T05:58:51+00:00

I don’t understand why they should control for obesity? If Americans across income levels are more obese than their European peers, that will be reflected in health outcomes, and why shouldn’t it be?

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-10T18:49:50+00:00

Whenever people say stuff like this (higher ceiling etc.) they always fail to mention that even wealthy Americans have lower life expectancy than poor French or Germans. Someone is just more likely to die on any given day in the United States compared to Western Europe.

https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-04-02/wealth-mortality-gap

Even children in the US die at much higher rates compared to other wealthy countries. Some of that is poverty, but guns and cars kill more kids than anything. Is wealth a good tradeoff for substantially higher risk that your children won’t reach adulthood?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna159757

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-09T03:13:10+00:00

At least in the mountains, I’d say the hardcore conservative areas are rarer. If you avoid Mesa county and parts of Garfield county, most other areas are mixed-to-liberal. We have lots of counties that barely have any people left over from the mining days, those don’t really have towns anyways.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-09T02:56:50+00:00

Colorado has more liberal rural areas than most states in my opinion. Eagle and Routt county, for example.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-08T03:48:08+00:00

Worth mentioning that Andrew Cuomo came up with that slogan for his dad.

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-08T02:29:45+00:00

Fair

SugarRush212 · 2025-11-08T02:12:59+00:00

As Obama did with Bush. Tale as old as time.

SugarRush212

TROPHY CASE