The Idaho Lifestyle: Living the Outdoors Every Day

Learn how Idaho's outdoor lifestyle becomes part of everyday life—not just weekend adventures. Garrett and Shelby discuss parks, hiking, camping, the Boise Greenbelt, all four seasons, and how Idaho's recreation influences the way people live and even what they look for in a home.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And thanks for staying with us here on the Idaho Life Show, Real Estate and Community. And we're off on our segment two where we're talking today, not about real estate in general, but more about the lifestyle. And because that's what this show is all about, Shelby, is the lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Yeah. It's a big deal here.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

It is. And it's why people move, that's why people stay. So, Shelby, we'll get right into it. So you hear this term thrown around out there a lot, lifestyle, Idaho life. What does an active lifestyle actually look like, let's say week to week for a you know normal Idaho family here living in Southwest Idaho and not just like an extreme outdoor athlete type?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

You know, so evening walks, there are so many parks and they're actually utilized here. I think that was one of our things that took us back is coming from where we relocated from, the parks were always empty and dormant, um, unless there were maybe homeless people or, you know, not families that are utilizing the parks as they're meant to be used. And when we were traversing and getting the lay of land and understanding everything around here, what we saw were families in the parks, picnicking, playing, uh, dogs, just running, frolicking. It was so cool to see. Um, kind of reminded me and my husband of our childhood and how we had grown up, right? And it excited us for the opportunity to actually almost pass that along to our children who had missed so much of that from where we came from. So I would say, you know, just on a daily evening strolls with the family, lots of families walking around uh with their children and and their pets and doing all those things. And also just, you know, you don't have to be extremely outdoorsy to live here. Uh Idaho is known as an outdoorsy state, if you will. There's a lot of outdoor recreation, snowing, or excuse me, skiing and uh water sports and all the things, but there's also the Boise Greenbelt, and you can you just you can stroll and take nice walks and have the water rushing by you, or you can ride your bicycles.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Also call that active lifestyle for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, for sure, but not extreme.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

No, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Just uh enough to get outside, enjoy nature and and really just be a part of what this whole area offers. It's so, so inviting and pleasant.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I love it. A lot different than maybe a walk just where you can only walk around the neighborhood, but it it's typically it just can be a short drive to someplace like the Green Belt or in Cuna, you've got along the river there. Just wherever you may be, there's lots of short uh distances that you can either bike or or uh take a short car ride to to for those beautiful walks and just get outdoors. It's not you don't have to go up to McCall or up to Garden Valley to go get in the nature. You can be right in your backyard.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, you can hike up to Table Rock from Boise, right? Or go up to Bogus Basin and go skiing. I mean, literally both of those locations are 20 minutes away. Easy. Easy peasy. So um, you know, I really I just I enjoy the opportunity to actually get out and not actually have like an agenda and just enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

What's out of curiosity, it what's your kind of go-to low effort outdoor thing that you guys like to do?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

We really love to take our pups on the green belt. Um we'll grab it off of Eagle Road and just go stroll, and it's so wonderful. And you hear the rushing uh Boise River just floating by, and it's just it's so great, and everybody's out there active and saying hello and enjoying themselves as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

So I can never wait for until spring comes along.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Once the snow starts melting, that transition, it's what I think we all wait for. But then I think it's it's interesting because you know, you talk to a lot of different people. Some people are here for all four seasons. You have some people that are here for our spring and summers. And I've strangely enough, I just didn't realize this. But you have some that are here for they live for the winter. That's what they live for. Oh, absolutely for the winter sports, they're just here for that and and that only, which is which is neat.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

And that's one of the special and unique things about our state as well. You get all four seasons. Yeah. So it's a big deal. I mean, every season applies to somebody differently. And for me, I'm a spring girl.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

That's a good point. Or you get some people that are here for all four and take advantage of literally all four seasons. There's there's something to do.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Garrett, if you had to pick one activity that just feels like Idaho to you, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So I think one of the very first things, I mean, we we uh we moved to Idaho uh pre-pandemic a couple years prior. And one of the very first things that we did is we went to um give them a shadows, Happy Camper, I think it was the name of the uh the trailer, RV trailer sales place. And uh that day we bought our first uh camper because uh at the time we just had one boy. We have now, as you know, we have two boys now, two little guys, and um the one really at the time loved to be outdoors, and we came from a uh a spot where there just wasn't really a lot of outdoor activities. Yeah, and so, anyways, that's the first thing that we wanted to do is we didn't know anything about camping. I've done camping when I was younger. I said, okay, let's let's do it rather than pitching a 10, which I'd love to do that as well. We went ahead and bought just a small, probably one of the smallest trailers that you can buy. And just getting out and seeing what's out there. So we started off easy, started doing some of the uh the state campgrounds, and you know, we we we used to have to travel out of state quite a bit if we wanted to go anywhere, that we wanted to do something fun, just explore something new. But my wife and I have always said, you know what, there's so much to do here in the spring and summer that it'd probably take a couple decades before you see all of Idaho and really experience what Idaho has to offer. So gosh, we probably went to almost every you know state park.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Um can we can we talk about state parks and accessibility to those as well?

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I mean, I don't think a lot of people know unless they live here that you can register your vehicle at DMV and also purchase a state park pass.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah, was it 10 bucks a year?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

10 bucks. It's cool, yeah. So I think that's really cool because it opens up opportunities you didn't even know existed.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

No, it's fantastic. Yeah, the state parks here are fantastic. And then, you know, kind of once we started getting rolling into that, we started exploring a little bit. Okay, let's do some off-grid stuff. You know, stuff where there's no power, no water. And and uh to to us, I mean, if we could camp, if it didn't take all the preparation, and and uh, you know, we just came back actually from uh last week, we're up in McCall. Um, but if it didn't take so much preparation and so much unpacking, we'd probably do it almost every weekend. But that's that's our thing. Just get into nature, get in the outdoors, explore someplace new, maybe camp in a spot you never camped in, get off the grid a little bit, get out of cell phone reception, um, get the kids off the YouTube and the Nintendo and and um just just make it a a really great uh kind of a connect with nature type of a thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah. And I think too, um, you know, coming from a location and a state where hunting was not prevalent, if you will. I mean, there's even if you're not a hunter, you can take hunting classes. Uh fly fishing, they have different um events where you can go learn how to fly fish and you literally pay for the day, they feed you and they give you all the equipment that you need and you can learn how to cast your your line and and fly fish in a majestic river that's not even just the Boise River, but there's so many areas out here that are hidden and uh people are always willing to teach you and help you learn the way, yeah. It's so great. Always there to help. Yep. So when someone actually lives this lifestyle full time, how, Garrett, how does that show up in what they want?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

And a house do you think a little real estate into this too?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

A little tiny bit. I gotta bring it back a little.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Bring a little bring it back into real estate a little bit. Okay. Yeah, it's a it's a great question. So I think it depends on the lifestyle too that someone wants. I mean, some people are just homebodies, they want that uh that homestead, they want, you know, some acreage. And, you know, if you're that type of person, I and I realized real quickly, you know, we we bought on half an acre, and even a half an acre can be a lot to take care of, right? And if you want to get out and you're taking advantage of the spring and the summer and the fall, you don't have that much time to take care of your own yard. So, you know, you have some outdoor enthusiasts who they want to be on the river, they want to go rafting, they want to go hunting, uh, they want to get out of town, you know, get get away from the the from people, I guess you could say, not uh, you know, in a good way. Yeah. Um now those kind of folks, they're not looking for the half acre. They're looking for something that's minimal uh to take care of. Now it's it's it's funny because again, these people like to get away. They like to get away from you know the the neighborhood, yet they buy these homes that are on smaller lots specifically so that when they come back from a weekend of fun, they don't have to take care of much. So um it could look like that in a home uh with that active lifestyle, actually, is where you have some some folks that came to Idaho for that that land and they go, you know, we're just so busy, Shelby. And I've heard you tell me about this. We're so busy, we just don't have time to take care of this land.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

We'd rather be out and about.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

We want to be out and about, you know, we don't have to take care of things, so they actually end up downsizing lots. And then you have those that, you know, it's something that on our our wish list that it's one thing that we did not end up finding when we moved, but we got everything else was that RV bay. Man, the RV bays are so great. So if you do like camping or you just have toys me in camping, you have the Idaho toys. There's there's there's no limit to the amount of toys. Be careful side by side. Oh my gosh. You tell your spouse they might not be on on board of that snowmobiles, boats, everything. There's not, there's not a uh I mean you could probably have a six-car garage and still fill it up here when you're in Idaho.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

But thinking about that storage for the outdoor activities, uh, or you're gonna have to basically plan on getting storage. Uh, you know, one of the good things though about Idaho is they have done a really good job on keeping up on self-storage. So if you have the camper, the trailer, there's I mean, there's an abundance of outdoor parking. Uh, it's kind of getting a little bit more limited if you're kind of more in the meridian area, if you want some type of a covered outdoor parking to kind of protect the the roof of an RV. Um, but um, you know, it it can be something that you want to take in consideration, or if you're buying a property and you want to make sure that you have a spot to park your RV, making sure that if there is an HOA that they do allow that. Um so the other thing, I think just about every home is gonna have one now, but they're becoming more popular to be a little bit larger. Um they kind of connect into the house and actually even go now. A lot of these mud rooms connect even into the primary suite as well. So with the laundry room. With the laundry.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

You literally walk into the mud room to go to the laundry room so you can derope, throw it in, and then go into your closet and put your clean clothes on.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

That's right. So the mud rooms are getting, I think, better and better. It's not just a decoration anymore, it's actually built for actual gear. So boy, when when our boys come in from skiing and there's some mess and muddy and and having that to put the jackets and their snow gear, their uh all their ski gears is definitely important. So there's a little bit to think about. I don't think there's any spot you're gonna have too much storage, uh, whether it be in the garage. I think that's the number one thing that we hear from people, probably not as much the lot size. You don't have too many people saying, We wish we had a bigger lot. They go, We wish we had more garage space.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, it's so true. It's so true.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Well, this has been a great topic. So when we come back, if you stick with us, we're gonna talk about some community touch points, some things to do throughout the year, um, some kind of volunteer work that that there is to be had. More about Idaho, more about making Idaho a life for you when we come back.