Santa Fe Is Overrun with Tourists – These Five New Mexico Towns Are Better and Cheaper.

These days, the adobe and the way the Sangre de Cristos is illuminated by the late afternoon light are not the first things you notice about Santa Fe. The traffic is the problem. Fur-collared customers pouring out of galleries that somehow sell the same turquoise-and-silver pieces at marginally different markups, while idling Escalades creep down streets that are hardly big enough for a horse cart. There has been no change in the town’s genuine beauty over the past four centuries. Who is paying to be there has changed.

A portion of the story is revealed by the numbers. With a median high-end listing close to $2.7 million, Santa Fe recently rose to the top of the Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com luxury index. Approximately 9% of homes now remain vacant for the majority of the year. That exceeds the national average by more than three times. Californians flee wildfires, Texans drive in for the cool summers, and Los Angeles film retirees continue to purchase casitas, driving up prices in a manner that residents have been grumbling about for 20 years. The city may have finally crossed the line from charm to caricature.

The good news is that the majority of New Mexico is still owned by its residents, despite its size and stubborn peculiarity. The air changes after an hour of driving in practically any direction.

Almost no one advises you to start in Albuquerque. For years, snobs have dismissed it as Santa Fe’s boisterous, sprawling cousin. It is located approximately sixty-four miles south, an hour down I-25. It’s still reasonably priced because of that dismissal. Honestly, the food is better—Sadie’s, Mary & Tito’s, the Frontier’s green chile cheeseburger—and no gallery wall can compare to the softness of the Sandia Mountains in the evening light. For a small portion of what you would pay up north, you can still find a respectable home here.

Then there’s Taos, which is located roughly 70 miles north of Santa Fe and has managed to maintain its poverty and spirituality in comparison to its wealthier neighbor. Taos Pueblo has been inhabited continuously for about a millennium, and you get a feeling that Santa Fe’s plaza no longer provides when you stand in front of those adobe walls in the chilly morning and listen to ravens. It’s a really good ski mountain. Painters, not buyers, continue to shape the art scene.

Abiquiú is even smaller. Georgia O’Keeffe was unable to stop painting along US 84, which winds through red rock country fifty miles northwest. She seems to have made the right decision. The whole point is that there isn’t much to stay in, so lodging is inexpensive. You head out to the cliffs by yourself.

The opposite direction is Madrid, which is located less than 45 minutes south along the Turquoise Trail. It was once a coal town that almost completely disappeared before artists in the 1970s bought up the company houses for nearly nothing. It’s still affordable, funky, and full of the independent galleries that Santa Fe lost as rents increased. On Sundays, the music emanates from the Mine Shaft Tavern as the bikers pass by.

Then Silver City, a former mining town that has been dubbed the next Santa Fe by locals, is located four hours down toward the Gila. which serves as both a warning and a compliment. As of right now, it’s still affordable, bohemian, and suitable for a budding painter looking to rent a storefront. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether it remains that way.

Walking through these towns gives me the impression that the true New Mexico is patiently awaiting the boom. It has consistently done so.