Voted the #1 place to live in 2006, Fort Collins is located at the base of the Rocky Mountains foothills, and is 65 miles from Denver, CO. This mid-sized city is known for having a large number of parks, beautiful nature trails, and a low crime rate (for more info, see http://www.city-data.com/city/Fort-Collins-Colorado.html).

Fort Collins is home to roughly 130,000 residents, and a large percentage of residents are college students –the median age of residents is about 29.4 years old.

Colorado State University is the largest source of employment in Fort Collins.

Fort Collins is eco-friendly; for example, the city advocates for “green building”, which is an eco-friendly method of building new structures or making existing structures more energy efficient. For more information on the natural sources department, visit http://www.ci.fort-collins.co.us/naturalresources/.

If you like sunshine, you won’t be disappointed – it is said that there are 300 days of sunshine each year! For current Fort Collins weather, see http://fortcollins.com/weather.html

Fun things to do

Fort Collins is very bike friendly – bike trails are in abundance and visitors can check out a bicycle for up to seven days for free. Visit http://www.fcgov.com/bicycling/ for more information on bike trails, bike registration, and more.

For food, bars, or a game of pool head to Old Town, the restored historical district of Fort Collins. It is a popular shopping spot and also has art galleries and plenty of restaurants. The Old Town plaza often has live music events and festivals, and outdoor concerts are common from mid-spring to mid-fall seasons. Annual events such as New West Fest and Tour de Fat are very popular! More information on events and festivals can be found at http://eventful.com/fortcollins/events.

Old Town also has local  microbreweries – if interested in beer-sampling and informational tours, you can visit the New Belgium and Odell breweries. For more information on downtown Fort Collins, go to http://www.downtownfortcollins.com/

There are several outdoor activities – hiking and rock-climbing can be done at the Horsetooth reservoir, which is on the West end of Fort Collins.

The vast Rocky Mountain National Park offers  stunning views of wildlife as well as opportunities to camp, bird-watch, ski, and much more. For a closer look at Rocky Mountain National Park, located about 45 minutes away from Fort Collins, visit http://rockymountainnationalpark.com/

For those who enjoy mini-golfing, laser tag, ice-skating and more, Fort Fun is the place to go (http://www.fortfun.biz/gokarts.asp)!

Getting around

In addition to riding bikes, those who do not own or drive cars have the option of using the Transfort bus system. The bus schedule can be found at http://www.fcgov.com/transfort/. The bus is free to Colorado State University students, and runs 7 days a week.