“Why Cortez?” This was the puzzled response I got from friends back in 2019, after I explained what must have sounded like a harebrained scheme to liberate myself from a mortgage and a full-time university teaching job. I was going to cash out my overpriced home in Flagstaff, Arizona, and buy a much cheaper one 260 miles away in Cortez, Colorado. “But do you “No,” I replied. That seemed like a minor detail to be sorted out later. Besides its affordability, what drew me to Cortez was the millions of acres of public lands surrounding a town of just 8,700 people. Tucked into the state’s remote southwestern corner, Cortez is flanked to the east and the north by the sprawling San Juan National Forest, to the west by the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, and to the south by Mesa Verde National Park.