My parents have lived on the West Mesa side for 10 years....love to visit! Town is about 700,000 so good sized city. It's high altitude, city is over 5,000 feet so similar to Denver...it takes a little while to adjust to this. Easy to fly into, especially on Southwest. Huge military population with Kirtland AFB & Sandia Labs. There's mountain views from all parts of city. New Mex is a very beautiful state. You'll be taking a lot of scenic road trips...Carlsbad, white sands, dozens of cool mountain ranges. If you're outdoorsy, you'll love it! Plenty of hiking, snow skiing options. Hell, you can take the Sandia tram & ski on the east side of the city!! Good skiing like Taos, Red River, etc is a few hours away. Less than an hour to Santa Fe. I snow ski at Ski Santa Fe which is pretty decent & 1.5 hours away. It will be a huge culture shock....lots of Hispanics & native Americans. Also, great southwestern not texmex) food, I love El Pinto down in the valley...if you're into craft beer, ABQ has over a dozen small . breweries & some damn cool wineries. Housing: The west side is nice but ok (more suburbia)but if it were me, I'd look closer to the Sandia Mountains on East side. It's more expensive but close to all the good stuff. I would most def stay away from anything on Southside & Nob Hill area which is where University of New Mex is. Climate there is pretty nice man...you'll def experience the seasons. Fall is incredible, you'll have some light snow fall in winter, gets really windy in spring...Summer's typically get in the upper 90's but not near as hot as Arizona. Plus no humidity so at night it actually cools off.

This post was edited on 6/24/16 at 3:07 pm