The larger city aspect of does play into our favor with our professions but I
From some of the research I did it seems as though Denver was like the 2 cities you mentioned. I understand it’s a larger scale but At one point everyone started moving there and now a few million people live in the greater Denver area. It’s not that I dislike Denver, I just hope the 2 cities you mentioned don’t experience similar. I could imagine it making an uncrowded town feel a little packed after a while.
Bozeman =111k
Boise = 710k
Denver 3,572
Multiple Boise by 4 then add 5 Bozemans and you still aren't the size of Denver. The scales here are just wildly different, medium size town, small city, major metro area.
The cost of living is a huge factor as well, you really can't find a house in the Denver metro for under 400k (from the outskirts of the metro to downtown can easily be 45min to 1hr drive). At the 400k mark you are looking at a 2 bed 2 bath no garage and tiny yard, and it's going to need a ton of TLC. For a reasonable house 3 bed 2 bath, yard, garage, 1800-2000 square feet, that is in good condition you are easily looking at 650k min.
So in order to do an apples to apples comparison to Bozeman you should be looking at home prices all the way from Whitehall to big timber.
I think you really have to be honest about what you want, if your focus is 100% on outdoor activities WY is great, if you are a 90% outdoor actives but want a couple of okay restaurants to choose from and an occasional town event ID and MT have a few tons that would be great. If you want access to the outdoors but want lots of cultural events, good restaurants, etc. you should be looking at OR, WA, and CO.
The last factor to consider is the social one, everyone wants to find their tribe, you should think about conservative v. liberal leaning of various areas, but also the fact that a lot of western towns will be dominated by agg and outdoors. This is definitely something to consider when raising kids. Everyone is either from a ranching family and are going to be taking over the family farm or wants to be a pro mountain athlete. I'm sure if you didn't grow up with it's fun and novel but the outdoor side can get pretty obnoxious after a while. I've watched a number of people move out west dig in like a tick and stay forever, but I've watched 4x the number move out here for a 5 year stretch and then move back home.
This article is 13 years old, it's tongue in check but also has some truths and definitely applies to a ton of western resort towns, Bozeman, Crested Butte, Telluride, Aspen, Vail, Sandpoint, Whitefish, etc. etc.
https://www.outsideonline.com/1886676/gore-tex-vortex
My wife and I grew up in Eagle right outside of Vail, we got out of there as fast as we could after highschool, she went to Chicago, I went to VT, we came back to CO for a while then did 3.5 years in Bozeman, now are back in Denver. Will likely be moving in the next year or so for her work... right now Michigan is at the top of the list followed by Minnesota.
Who knows where we will be but a house on a lake with a ski boat for the price of our 1 bedroom with an hour commute is pretty appealing.
