Did Airbnb Kill The Mountain Town?
Outside Magazine|July 2017

Living the dream has never been easy in the West’s most beloved adventure hamlets, where homes are a fortune and good jobs are few. But the rise of online short-term rentals may be the tipping point that causes idyllic outposts like Crested Butte, Colorado, to lose their middle class altogether—and, with it, their soul.

Tom Vanderbilt
Did Airbnb Kill The Mountain Town?

A FEW YEARS AGO, Brian Barker was living in Portland, Oregon, with a well-paying union job as a spokesperson for the fire department. But despite having “a job you don’t leave”—he had an itch. “I wanted to go live in the mountains,” he says. “I didn’t want to sit in traffic all the time. I was tired of living in the city.”

So he began searching. Missoula, Boise, Truckee—“anywhere within 30 minutes of a ski area.” In 2014, he relocated to Crested Butte, a 1,500-person-strong former coal mining town nestled in Colorado’s Upper Gunnison River Valley. It’s often referred to as the last great American ski town, a distinction that locals, despite acknowledging it with a hint of self-deprecating smirk, do not really go out of their way to dispute. Phenomenal skiing aside, it is the sort of place where doors go unlocked (except, occasionally, to keep bears out); where locals on the Crested Butte Bitch and Moan Facebook page gripe about tourists (typically Texans) exceeding the 15-mile-per-hour speed limit downtown; where powder days mean closed stores and canceled meetings; where even the gas pumps at the local Shell station seem to take things just a bit more slowly.

“This is a great place to raise kids,” Barker, a divorced father of two young children, tells me one evening, wearing a baseball cap, a vest, and a hint of stubble. We’re seated at the Brick Oven, a locals’ hangout on Elk Avenue, the town’s main spine, where tidy wood-frame buildings in a rainbow palette glow beneath the snow-capped mass of the eponymous mountain.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 2017 من Outside Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة July 2017 من Outside Magazine.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من OUTSIDE MAGAZINE مشاهدة الكل
#she hunts
Outside Magazine

#she hunts

A new school of social-media influencers are giving hunting a fresh and decidedly female face. Food writer RACHEL LEVIN joins two rising stars of“Instagram” in the Arizona backcountry to chase mule deer for her first photographs by Jen Judgetime. Can she stomach what it takes to be an omnivore?

time-read
10+ mins  |
September/October 2020
Breaking the Waves
Outside Magazine

Breaking the Waves

What has life under lockdown taught the greatest surfer on earth? That switching it up was exactly what he needed.

time-read
3 mins  |
September/October 2020
Wellness That Endures
Outside Magazine

Wellness That Endures

Strategies and tips to help you get through anything

time-read
10 mins  |
September/October 2020
The New Reality
Outside Magazine

The New Reality

AFTER A NEARLY TWO-DECADE HIATUS, ECO-CHALLENGE MAKES A COMEBACK ON AMAZON PRIME AT JUST THE RIGHT MOMENT

time-read
2 mins  |
September/October 2020
Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream
Outside Magazine

Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream

Two years ago, LATRIA GRAHAM wrote about the challenges of being Black in the outdoors, and countless readers asked her for advice. She didn’t write back, because she had no idea what to say. In the aftermath of a revolutionary summer, she responds.

time-read
10+ mins  |
September/October 2020
Mr.Freeze
Outside Magazine

Mr.Freeze

Wim Hof became famous for submerging himself in frigid water with the calm of a Zen master, and his teachings about breathwork and the health benefits of cold plunges have attracted millions of followers. Our writer traveled to Iceland to chill with the man who made cold extremely hot.

time-read
10+ mins  |
September/October 2020
Life Is a Highway
Outside Magazine

Life Is a Highway

TOOLS TO HELP YOU SAVOR THE JOURNEY

time-read
2 mins  |
September/October 2020
Enter Sandman
Outside Magazine

Enter Sandman

SLUMBER WELL IN CAMP, NO MATTER HOW FAR OFF THE BEATEN PATH YOU PARK

time-read
1 min  |
September/October 2020
All Together Now
Outside Magazine

All Together Now

MARINE BIOLOGIST AYANA ELIZABETH JOHNSON BECAME A STAR IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT BY DEFTLY COMMUNICATING WHAT FEW PEOPLE UNDERSTAND: THAT CLEANING UP THE PLANET REQUIRES A COMMITMENT TO SOCIAL JUSTICE

time-read
6 mins  |
September/October 2020
In It for the Long Haul
Outside Magazine

In It for the Long Haul

GEAR THAT STANDS THE TEST OF TIME

time-read
1 min  |
September/October 2020