I moved to Austin on January 13, 2025 and haven’t looked back. I had never been before, just had a vague sense it was another tech hub for computer hardware and it was becoming the place that all the cool people (cough podcasters cough) were moving to during the pandemic. Now in August, 7 months later, I think moving to Austin might’ve been one of the best decisions of my life.
I grew up in Chicago and went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for college. My first full-time job after graduating was in Fort Collins, CO. Safe to say, Colorado was a radical change from what I grew up with. Even though Fort Collins was home to Colorado State University (CSU), it didn’t feel like a college town in the same way that Champaign-Urbana was.
The Food
The first striking thing about Fort Collins was the food. I didn’t realize that I had been so spoiled by my time in Illinois. I went to this place called Yung’s Chinese. It was the blandest Chinese food I’ve ever had in my life. The only thing that gave those potstickers flavor was dipping it in soy sauce. I had the same experience going to a sushi place near my office, same blandness, no flavor. I’d eventually found places that were decent, but I couldn’t believe that restaurants with food worse than the frozen brands or other home cooked options could even survive.
I’m not even comparing Fort Collins to Chicago; that would be completely unfair. I’m contrasting with Urbana-Champaign. Fort Collins has a population of 170k and Urbana and Champaign have a combined population of 130k. The difference? Demographics.
Fort Collins is ~77% white with the predominant minority being Hispanics at ~12% whereas Urbana and Champaign are ~50% white with Asian and Black minorities being predominant at about ~16-18% each. Totally changes the food dynamic. When I was a student at UIUC, there was an abundance of Asian, Hispanic, and standard American food options, even fusion places could be trendy. Fort Collins? The most reliable food option was the fast food (thank god for Raising Canes). I had to be more active in my search for local food options because I couldn’t trust it’d just be “good enough.” Denver had some good places, but that was an hour (assuming no traffic) south. To give a sense of what I felt, this was probably the most I ever ate at McDonald’s in my life.
Restaurants in Fort Collins close early with lots of places only being open until late afternoon (closing 3pm oftentimes). Most places were open until 10 at the latest. Talking with the locals, a lot of coffee and tea shops weren’t open later because of COVID and staffing issues (Fort Collins housing prices skyrocketed, so when the pandemic happened, many people chose to move out.)
The Nature
There is nothing that has made me more certain that I’m an Urban, city boy than moving to Colorado. I’ve gone hiking, camping, backpacking, climbing, skiing and yet I’m still pretty indifferent to nature. There are people in Colorado who yearn for the mountains and any opportunity to get outside and have the fresh air and see the beauty that is Mother Earth. Me? None of that. If anything, it reminds me how awesome modern civilization is. The greatest thing about going on a backpacking trip is coming back and realizing how good toilets are.
I had a trip to Iceland back in May, further solidifying this point for me. The difference between seeing a Google photo of the thing and actually being there, honestly very small for me. Again I don’t hate nature, I’m just indifferent to it and wouldn’t seek it out unless for a social occasion. And nature and the Rocky Mountains are a huge reason to be in Colorado. I think if you live there and don’t experience that part you’re wasting a lot of the benefit. There are states that don’t have amazing nature but have cities that I think are miles better than Denver (cough Chicago cough.)
The People
I honestly think I could’ve lived with a little less quality food and going on more hikes and camping trips than I'd prefer. But ultimately the thing that made moving a must was that I needed to find my people. I don’t know how to phrase it other than "Coloradans are too chill.” They want a balanced life where almost every weekend they go on a hike or go skiing with a relevantly small group of friends (like 4-5 people). Seems like a great place to raise a family, but that's just not where I am in my life.
I was in Fort Collins from ages 21 to 23, about 2.5 years total. In that time, it became clear that I wanted more from my life than to “just chill.” I felt so out-of-place there, constantly trying new things (parkour, pole dancing, swing dancing, yoga, climbing) and looking for my tribe. My coworkers were great but didn’t have the same level of passion for tech that I did. The level of intellectualism felt lacking outside of theological debates (the Christians in Fort Collins were great to chat with.)
My city-brained, college-educated self had gotten used to constantly being around people who were working on or engaging in unique and interesting things. People you could talk to for hours debating over what would make society better/worse or stupid stuff like “is a hotdog a sandwich?” In Colorado, I felt like I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It just wasn’t gonna work.
I had to Leave
It really dawned on me that I couldn’t stay in Colorado long term when every time I traveled, I dreaded returning. I’d feel great meeting strangers in Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, back at UIUC for career fair recruiting, but Fort Collins? I just couldn’t find people I fit in with very well, despite my best efforts. That’s not to say that I didn’t find any joy in Fort Collins though. I had a core group of coworker friends, and we’d do stuff all the time together (badminton, hiking, basketball, renn faire, movie nights, etc). I'm even going to one of their weddings later this year.
The issue, those small wins in friendship weren’t gonna be enough. I needed more. I wasn’t a chill Coloradan, I was and still am an ambitious young Chicagoan looking to make his mark on the world. In order to do that, I have to be in a place that can feed my ambitions. I need a wide network of ambitious, brilliant people also going after it as proof that I’m not the only crazy guy.
So, last September I tried to see if I could become a remote worker at my Fort Collins job (I did like my job there). When that didn’t work out I applied to new jobs hoping to move either to the Bay Area in California or Austin, TX. In November, I visited friends in Santa Clara to assess whether I’d like living in South Bay (I would not). I found a promising opportunity in Austin at a start-up. Now I’ve moved my life to Austin, and I’ve never felt better.