Moving to Manitou Springs: Pros, Cons & What to Know
Moving to Manitou Springs means moving to a small, historic, walkable Victorian-era arts-and-tourism town that sits directly adjacent to Colorado Springs -- a real, sourced 6-mile, 10-15-minute drive to downtown -- not an isolated mountain town, and understanding both its real population decline and its distinctive, ongoing post-wildfire flood risk before relocating.
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Learn moreA real, direct commuter relationship to Colorado Springs -- not an isolated mountain town
Manitou Springs sits six miles west of downtown Colorado Springs via US-24, a real 10-15 minute drive, with Colorado Springs Airport about 17.6 miles away (base record). Many residents commute into Colorado Springs for work in other industries -- a defining, honestly-disclosed relationship that genuinely distinguishes Manitou Springs from Buena Vista's and Georgetown's more remote mountain-town settings elsewhere in this Colorado batch.
A small, genuinely declining population -- a real, disclosed contrast within this batch
World Population Review cites a 2026 population of 4,505, down 7.67% since the 2020 Census and down from a 2019 peak of 5,399 (base record). This is a real, honest contrast with Buena Vista's genuine growth elsewhere in this Colorado batch -- movers should not assume every small Colorado mountain town is in growth mode.
A real, distinctive historic arts-and-tourism identity
Manitou Springs was built from the 1870s onward around mineral springs the Ute people had long used, developed into a wellness-tourism resort town, and reinvented itself as an artist's colony beginning in the 1970s -- it now draws a real, sourced 750,000+ visitors per year as the gateway to Pikes Peak, home to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway and the historic Manitou Incline (base record).
A real, ongoing, structural flood risk specific to this town -- distinct from a typical wildfire disclosure
The 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire did not burn Manitou Springs directly, but its 18,000-acre burn scar created real, well-documented, ongoing post-fire flood and debris-flow risk, with multiple flood events affecting the town in 2013 and flood risk cited as increasing nearly four-fold in the burn-scar-affected area (base record). Manitou Springs is separately, structurally vulnerable to flash flooding given its location at the base of steep canyon terrain intersecting multiple drainage basins -- understand this as an ongoing, actively-managed risk rather than a one-time historical event, especially for property near local drainages.
Key takeaways
- Manitou Springs sits 6 miles / 10-15 minutes from downtown Colorado Springs -- a real, direct commuter relationship, not an isolated mountain town.
- The population is small (4,505-4,879 depending on source, 2026) and genuinely declining (-7.67% since the 2020 Census) -- a real, disclosed contrast with Buena Vista's growth elsewhere in this Colorado batch.
- Manitou Springs has a real, distinctive Victorian-era arts-and-tourism identity as the gateway to Pikes Peak (750,000+ annual visitors), not a generic small-mountain-town label.
- The town carries a real, ongoing, structural post-Waldo-Canyon-Fire flood and debris-flow risk from its steep-canyon terrain -- understand this before moving here, especially near local drainages, even though the 2012 fire did not burn the town directly.
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