It's easy to find Boise homes for sale and Boise condos for sale in the Boise real estate market. Boise ID real estate is a fantastic investment, and you will enjoy the area and the climate of Boise Idaho.

In recent years, Idaho's capital (pronounced BOY-see) has become a youthful, outdoorsy, somewhat hip small city (pop. 183,787). It has attracted hordes of newcomers who work for its many high-tech companies. Start your tour of this easily navigable city at the state capitol, a particularly fine example of Classic Revival architecture. (The building is heated from underground hot springs.) The Old Idaho Penitentiary Museum will introduce you to life in the Big House as it was in the 1870s. The adjacent transportation museum has a collection of vintage buggies and other horse-drawn vehicles. Tour Down town Boise.

The Idaho Historical Museum at Julia Davis Park has a re-created saloon and exhibits on the Chinese miners who came to the territory in great numbers in the 1860s. At the Idaho Basque Museum and Cultural Center, you can learn about the culture of the Basques who immigrated to the U.S. from the Pyrenees Mountains of Europe. There are several Basque restaurants on Grove Street, an area known as the "Basque Block."

Though it can be seen by appointment only, the National Interagency Fire Center focuses on the ways firefighters and smoke jumpers use the latest technology to battle forest fires. It's open year-round, but only a limited number of tours take place during the summer fire season.

You can see eagles and falcons at the World Center for the Birds of Prey, a preserve devoted to protecting the birds. The Morrison Knudsen Nature Center is a wildlife park that re-creates each of the ecosystems present in Idaho.

If you want to meet some of the outdoor-minded people who live in Boise, you can find plenty of them walking, jogging or riding their bikes along the Boise Greenbelt, a 25-mi/40-km trail that follows the Boise River through town. Two notable events on the city's calendar are the Shakespeare Festival (June-August) and the Boise River Festival (June).

To the southwest of Boise, near Nampa, is the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge, consisting of Lake Lowell and more than 100 islands (accessible by boat) in the Snake River. Birders will be ecstatic when they see the number and variety of waterfowl that stop there. Nampa is the site of the annual Snake River Stampede in July, one of the top rodeos in the country. It includes nightly entertainment by top-rank country-music entertainers.

We highly recommend making the scenic 45-mi/70-km drive northeast to Idaho City, an old mining town. Highlights include Boot Hill and the Boise Basin Museum, a one-time post office that now has displays about life in Idaho City during the mining boom. There's good skiing during the winter at Bogus Basin, about 15 mi/25 km north of Boise.

For something truly unusual, head to Bruneau Dunes State Park (64 mi/103 km southeast or Boise), where you'll find sand dunes as high as 470 ft/140 m, some of the tallest in North America (great for climbing).