Kevo
Active member
Late to the thread. I'm an old Newschooler- I was on these forums starting back in college...in 2005 or so.
In my experience, there are 3 types of people who live in desirable mountain towns-
-People who do the ski bum thing and work in the ski industry or tourism industry.
-People who have trust funds and don't need to work
-People who moved a bit later in life and moved in with money and a job.
I fully thought that I'd go down the path of the recent grad ski bums and find a way to make it work. I quickly found out that unless you have a trust fund, there is a very real expiration date on ski bum lifestyle and people who go down that path generally don't end up with desirable lives once they hit their 30s.
I'm so, so glad that I saw the writing on the wall and jumped onto the career ladder before it was too late. It took 10+ years of grinding in the corporate world, but I was able to have solid career growth and have fun traveling the world for work before pulling the plug on city living and moving to a ski town while making really good money.
After a couple years of shit jobs and shit pay at the bottom of the career ladder, I ended up in the tech industry, grinded hard for years and worked my way up to a VP position at a billion dollar company.
Don't get me wrong- it was a major grind with lots of 60-80 hour weeks and endless travel, but it was worth it- I travelled Europe, Asia and Australia for years on end opening new offices and signing new clients. When covid happened, I went perma remote and pulled the trigger on a house in a ski town.
I'm now in my mid-30s and my quality of life is through the roof. I completely control my work day and can cut out to ski or mtb or trail run or go flying whenever i want. My GF also pulled the trigger with me and brought her own six figure job to the mountains (she works in management consulting, I work in enterprise sales).
The housing crunch in mountain towns is only going to get worse and ski bums are going to get more squeezed going forward. IMHO, it's way better to young(ish) and highly compensated in a city and then transition to living in the mountains than it is to be young and poor in a mountain town and then try to transition to living in a city. The door for jumping into a good career starts to close around mid-late 20s. Don't get caught on the wrong side of that door.
In my experience, there are 3 types of people who live in desirable mountain towns-
-People who do the ski bum thing and work in the ski industry or tourism industry.
-People who have trust funds and don't need to work
-People who moved a bit later in life and moved in with money and a job.
I fully thought that I'd go down the path of the recent grad ski bums and find a way to make it work. I quickly found out that unless you have a trust fund, there is a very real expiration date on ski bum lifestyle and people who go down that path generally don't end up with desirable lives once they hit their 30s.
I'm so, so glad that I saw the writing on the wall and jumped onto the career ladder before it was too late. It took 10+ years of grinding in the corporate world, but I was able to have solid career growth and have fun traveling the world for work before pulling the plug on city living and moving to a ski town while making really good money.
After a couple years of shit jobs and shit pay at the bottom of the career ladder, I ended up in the tech industry, grinded hard for years and worked my way up to a VP position at a billion dollar company.
Don't get me wrong- it was a major grind with lots of 60-80 hour weeks and endless travel, but it was worth it- I travelled Europe, Asia and Australia for years on end opening new offices and signing new clients. When covid happened, I went perma remote and pulled the trigger on a house in a ski town.
I'm now in my mid-30s and my quality of life is through the roof. I completely control my work day and can cut out to ski or mtb or trail run or go flying whenever i want. My GF also pulled the trigger with me and brought her own six figure job to the mountains (she works in management consulting, I work in enterprise sales).
The housing crunch in mountain towns is only going to get worse and ski bums are going to get more squeezed going forward. IMHO, it's way better to young(ish) and highly compensated in a city and then transition to living in the mountains than it is to be young and poor in a mountain town and then try to transition to living in a city. The door for jumping into a good career starts to close around mid-late 20s. Don't get caught on the wrong side of that door.
