Housing in Curlew is minimal and low-density, reflecting the community's tiny population and rural setting. The area offers a mix of modest older homes, cabins, and recreational properties, with some riverfront and larger country parcels in the surrounding countryside. There is no subdivision development, and the housing stock serves a blend of year-round residents, retirees, and seasonal or recreational users drawn to the lake, river, and rail trail. This gives Curlew an attainable, rustic housing character, with the understanding that nearly all goods and services require a drive to Republic or beyond.

Curlew offers a quiet, deeply rural way of life in the Kettle River Valley. Its tiny year-round population and unincorporated status keep the pace slow and self-reliant, with neighbors, the school, and the outdoors forming the core of daily life. Services are minimal, so residents travel to Republic, the Ferry County seat, for larger shopping and services. Recreation is immediate and year-round — fishing on Curlew Lake, floating the Kettle River, and riding or walking the rail trail — attracting seasonal residents and outdoor enthusiasts. It is a place for those who value solitude, scenery, and a genuine small-community scale.

Curlew is served by the Curlew School District, a small pre-kindergarten through twelfth-grade system based in the community on Curlew School Road. The district operates just two or three schools and enrolls roughly 240 students, with a low student-to-teacher ratio and a combined elementary and high school campus. Its small scale gives students a familiar, community-centered education, and the district serves the town and the surrounding Kettle River Valley countryside. For a community of Curlew's size, maintaining its own K-12 district is a defining feature of local identity.

Curlew is reached by State Route 21, the principal north-south route through the Kettle River Valley of Ferry County, connecting the community to Republic to the south and Danville and the Canadian border to the north. The area's rail lines, which once served Curlew, have been abandoned and partly converted to trail use. As in most of rural northeast Washington, personal vehicles are essential and there is no transit service, with travel oriented toward Republic, Colville, and the wider region. The community's remoteness is part of its character, and the nearest larger population centers are an hour or more away.

Curlew's recreation centers on water and trails. Curlew Lake State Park, an 87-acre park just outside the community, is a popular destination for fishing and camping, with about two miles of hiking and biking trails and abundant wildlife, including bald eagles, ospreys, and a heron rookery. The Kettle River offers fishing and floating, and the Ferry County Rail Trail, following the abandoned railroad corridor, provides walking, biking, and horseback riding with the Curlew Lake Trestle as a highlight. In winter, the surrounding hills and the region's snow add cross-country skiing and snowmobiling, making the area a year-round outdoor destination.