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Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

My wife is from Colombia and I love it there. We definitely plan on living part of the year there and part of the year in the US when we retire. I will mention outside of the Mountainous cities, it is very warm and humid. The cities at say 1828m (6,000ft) and above are absolutely perfect climates year round. Bonus: You can get in shape very, very quickly in the mountains.

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Is altitude a problem? Like, do you find yourself out of breath very easily?

My experience says that 6000 feet will be noticeable, but you'll be able to, say, climb a flight of stairs and be a bit more winded than usual. As another example, the Paradise visitor's center at Mount Rainier sits at (IIRC) 7K feet. Plenty of fat people waddle out of their cars and make it across the parking lot just fine. They don't generally go very far up the mountain, but they make it. And the residents of Denver, CO seem to survive at 5200 feet.

To me, "noticing altitude" starts at about 10K feet. For reference, life-long endurance athlete who still stays in pretty good shape in his middle-age.

I tried to sprint to make a connecting flight in Denver (after waiting on the tarmac for 30 minutes to get a gate, grumble). What a mistake. I never had a chance.

Sad part was it took me a few minutes to remember why I was suddenly an invalid.

As always, YMMV. I can run a marathon in under 3:00, and making an airport connection in Denver probably wouldn't phase me much (I've run in Denver, but not to make a flight). OTOH, I distinctly remember going up Pike's Peak at >14K feet, and found the walk across the parking lot to be challenging. I can't imagine what climbing a >20K foot peak must be like given that humbling experience.

I get my ass kicked in Bogota every summer @ 9k feet. I live at 2.5k and run 24 to 30 miles a week almost 40yo, and it hits me HARD there...

I live in Colorado. You get used to the altitude in a few weeks.

Altitude, yes. Lack of humidity, nope. My body shrivels up in Denver.

That was really hard for me at Estes Park, higher in the mountains near Denver. Growing up in Indiana, humidity tolerance is practically baked into my genome.

Colorado Springs is about the same altitude (~6000ft), Denver is only a little lower. By and large you don't notice unless you do something that makes you breathe hard, in which case it'll take you a while to catch your breath for the first few weeks.

Honestly the biggest annoyance about living at altitude is baking recipes require adjustment pretty much all the time, you can't just use a bread recipe designed for sea level and expect it to work right.

A British friend of mine lives in Colorado. He loves everything about the place, except for one thing: he can't get a decent cup of tea there for love nor money. (Because water boils at too low a temperature.)

Now I'm wondering about pressure-cooking tea...

I think the problem you'd have is that good tea is a function of both time and temperature - you'd end up ruining the tea because of the time it takes to get the vessel to pressure.

Unless you had some way of keeping the tea isolated until the vessel got to pressure...

I just drink green or white tea mostly, which you steep at a lower temperature anyway.

But yeah, water boils at 201F where I live, so I know this pain.

I was in Bogota earlier this month. We flew in from sea level, and felt some degree of crappy for a few days (and a bit scared that we were suffering mosquito-borne ailments from our previous adventure before we realized the altitude).

We eventually settled in, but 8000 ft up is for real.

Yep, I get sick almost every summer. It is 9K+ where we stay. I absolutely love the weather there, however the traffic is insane. Also, where my sister in law lives there is a really cool park where people work out, walk, and show off their dogs. I have never seen so many exoitc breeds of dogs. Also, Also, Andres carne de res!

Andres was crazy fun and delicious, and the tasting menu at Leo was one of the best five meals of my life.

What are your favorite towns or cities to live long-term there?

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