These are my top reasons for living in Park City year round. If you already live here, what are yours? If you don’t live here, what are you waiting for?
1. Natural Beauty & Open Space
Park City is beautiful. Really beautiful. From almost any location, you can see mountains, trees and open space. This is intentional as local planners have worked carefully to ensure our views are not obstructed. At night, you can see 1,000 stars.
2. Recreational Opportunities
Our elementary students get out of school early so they can learn to ski. We have 3 ski mountains each with distinct culture and terrain. Our trails are groomed year round for snow shoeing, cross country skiing, hiking and mountain biking. We have many public and private golf courses. We raise more winter Olympians than most countries and we even sent a summer Olympian to Rio in 2016. We have world famous yoga and CrossFit instructors who make Park City their home. We are an active and healthy community.
3. Arts, Culture & Food
For a town of about 20,000 full time residents, we have a lot of great choices for places to eat & drink. I’ve written extensively about Park City’s best dining experiences and things to do in past blogs. For a full calendar of art and cultural events, I like the Park City Summit County Arts Council’s website. And the best part is that you don’t have to plan a half-day around traffic and parking to access these events. In our small town, nothing is more than 15 minutes away
4. Salt Lake City International Airport
We are just 35 minutes away from an international airport that is also a Delta hub. You can fly non-stop from Salt Lake City to London, Paris and Amsterdam. You can fly non-stop to New York City, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Denver…you name it. And Interstate 80, the highway that links Park City to Salt Lake City, is rarely closed due to weather or accidents. You are not going to get stuck in Park City. And if you crave a big city experience, it’s an easy flight away.
5. The Park City School District
If you have school age kids, the Park City School District is a huge benefit to living here. Our schools are top ranked in the state and Park City High School is one of the top 100 public high schools in the United States. The Park City Education Foundation raises over $1,000,000 a year. These funds touch every student in the district through innovative teacher grants, art programs, STEM, college readiness and early childhood education. Did you know that every middle and high school student receives an Apple laptop to use for their schoolwork? Our high school graduates attend top universities in the nation. Many people find that the money they save on private school alone makes their move to Park City an economically smart decision.
6. Bonus Reason – Easy Access to Utah’s National & State Parks
Utah has 5 National Parks and almost 50 State Parks. Our famous National Parks are Canyonlands, Arches (in Moab), Zion (in Springdale), Bryce Canyon (Panquitch), Capital Reef (Torrey) and all are 3.5-5 hours away from Park City. The State Parks are too numerous to name, but can be found at stateparks.utah.gov. East Canyon, Rockport, and Deer Creek are within 30 minutes of Park City. Just an hour outside of Park City is the Uinta National Forest. The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is only about 6 hours away. Park City is an excellent “ground zero” for world famous hiking, mountain biking, climbing and canyoneering.
Please leave your top reasons to live in Park City year round in the comments.