When you think of a ski town, chances are you probably aren’t imagining places like Middletown, Connecticut, or Burton, Michigan. But according to a recent report from Rent.com, those are among the most affordable U.S. ski towns for renters. To compile the list, Rent.com staffers looked at every community in America within 25 miles of a resort, then identified the towns (with no more than one per state) that had the cheapest average two-bedroom rental prices, according to the site’s current rental property inventory.
The result is a collection of places you might not expect: a Pittsburgh suburb, a remote southwestern outpost that was the site of the first atomic bomb testing, and a former oil boomtown in Wyoming. The one thing they all have in common: a nearby ski hill.
If the definition of a ski town is a community in proximity to slopes, then perhaps these unlikely spots can be considered as such, even though nobody who lives there would call them that. “I would not call Painseville, Ohio, a ski town at all. I mean, there are no Breckenridges in Ohio,” says Ben Armbruster, a high school English teacher and snowboarder from Painesville who serves as the ski club director at Harvey High School, where he works.
Maybe that’s the point. Living in a well-known outpost like Breckenridge, in Colorado, is proving near impossible these days. The cost of living is astronomical, and housing is not only expensive, it’s obsolete. A shortage of rental housing is causing major staffing issues in popular destinations like Vail, Jackson Hole, and Tahoe, leading to congested resorts and disgruntled skiers.
So, if you can’t realistically live in a place like that, maybe it’s time we started expanding our definition of what counts as a ski town. Here are ten towns with nearby hills or resorts where you can actually afford to live.