Boise Residents Are Abandoning the Treasure Valley for These 15 Appealing Cities

How many times have you heard someone use the adage “If you don’t like it here, leave?” Some people are fed up with the Boise area and are doing exactly that. 

We believe in transparency, so this author will admit that she’s not originally from Idaho. She grew up in a depressed steel town in Northeast Ohio and spent her entire life there until she graduated from college. Right after graduation, her first full-time job opportunity came from a radio station in Boise. She fell in love with the city immediately because it was everything her hometown wasn’t. That was over 13 years ago. So for us, it’s hard to picture packing up all your belongings and waving goodbye to the City of Trees forever. 

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But we’re not naive. We see folks posting about moving out of Boise and sometimes out of the state on social media every day. Some feel that they’ve reached the end of the line when it comes to career advancement and are searching for higher-paying jobs elsewhere. Others dream of homeownership and are tired of waiting for the Boise housing market to soften. Some moved to Boise without researching its climate and realized that maybe they weren't built for the high desert, after all. Others are underwhelmed by more restrictive healthcare decisions the state legislature decided to make for everyone. The reasons are all over the board and vary from person to person. 

So where are people moving to when they leave Boise? Last year, Stacker dug through US Census Bureau data to piece the puzzle together. Since they published their list, more recent data became available. We’ve updated the list and included some factors that may influence someone’s decision to move: earning opportunities, housing prices, weather and crime rates. 

Here’s a glimpse at what we learned by combing through the new data. At least two of these cities were not Top 15 destinations when Stacker did their first go around.