Family Moves From Salt Lake City to a Small Texas Town

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lance Koster, a 61-year-old Pilot instructor, and his wife, Michelle, who moved to Justin, Texas, in 2024.

Justin is a small town about 40 minutes north of Fort Worth. According to recent Census data, its population is 6,197.

The essay has been edited for length and clarity.

Lance: In my career as a pilot, my family and I moved around the country a lot. In 2010, we ended up in Salt Lake City and lived there for 14 years.

We loved Salt Lake City. Its landscape was amazing, especially the mountains. We were always skiing, biking, or camping. And while we didn’t have much family there, we made a lot of friends.

However, we needed to make a change. The job was getting a little difficult, and my traveling was starting to increase. I was spending a lot of time away from home.

My wife and I are getting a little older, and I was ready to slow down — I wanted to be home at night and not on the road. I thought it was best to take a position training up-and-coming pilots, which would give me a more stable schedule.

Throughout my career, when I was training, my family and I spent some time in Texas. There are a couple of large jet training facilities in the state, so I knew there would be opportunities for me to become a pilot instructor.

My family and I have also always been intrigued by Texas. Every time we’ve visited, it’s been a pleasant experience. When it was finally time for us to make a change, it was the most logical destination.

We moved to a small North Texas town

Lance: In June 2024, I got a job as a pilot instructor at a company located at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. In September, we bought a home in Justin, just north of Fort Worth.

It’s a small town, but it’s growing quickly.

A lot of the people who live in Justin have lived and worked here their whole lives, so it’s actually a little uncomfortable for them that it’s growing at such a rapid pace. Still, we’ve had nothing but pleasant experiences.

Our home in Justin is 3,500 square feet and has five bedrooms and three bathrooms — enough space for my wife, me, and our two teenage sons. We live in a new neighborhood developed by homebuilder KB Homes.

We really like our neighborhood. It has both larger and smaller homes, which was perfect for us.

My wife’s mother was living with us in Salt Lake City, and when we moved to Texas, we wanted to find a home with a mother-in-law suite, but we weren’t having much luck.

So, we decided to buy a larger home that would fit the four of us, and a smaller home for my mother-in-law, also in the same neighborhood. She now lives about a quarter mile from us and is fully independent.

There are pros and cons to living in Texas

Lance: Salt Lake Valley, where Salt Lake City sits, has a population of almost 2 million people, so even though we lived in a suburban area, it still felt pretty busy. Life is a lot slower in Justin.

The town has a little downtown, with a small grocery store and a couple of restaurants. We have to drive about 15 or 20 minutes toward Fort Worth to do most of our shopping at places like Costco or Walmart.

Our younger son likes living in Justin. He works at the grocery store, which is about half a mile from our house. However, it’s taken our older son a little more time to adjust.

The biggest change we’ve noticed since moving is the culture — it’s a lot different. Justin is a lot more diverse. Utah has a large Mormon population, and when you’re not part of that, it doesn’t always feel like you’re included.

The weather is a lot different in Texas, too. Salt Lake City was a lot cooler, and while it does get warm in the Summer, it’s nowhere close to how hot it gets in Justin.

We started building a pool in December and finished it a couple of months ago, so we have our own little oasis in the backyard to beat the heat.

Michelle: Another big difference in Texas is that you do not have to pay income tax. But the property taxes are high. Our house in Salt Lake City was 1,000 square feet larger than our home in Justin, but our property taxes here are three times the amount.

Everything here is also so spread out compared to what we were used to. We lived at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley and it would take us 25 minutes to get downtown. If we go to Dallas from Justin — almost 40 miles away — it can take us anywhere from an hour to two.

We’re happier than ever

Michelle: We do miss our friends in Salt Lake City — we made some very good, lifelong friends — but we don’t plan on moving back. They all come out to visit us, and we see them when we go back.

Our son misses the mountains in Utah, especially in the south. We had really nice views everywhere, and based on the mountains, you could always tell if you were facing north, south, east, or west. Everything about it was beautiful.

That said, we’ve accepted our new home, and the locals have accepted us, too. We’ve already started making friends. We’ve even hosted parties at our house on cool nights, and it’s been great.

It’s hard for us to quantify, but we all agree, we enjoy it here more.