Townsend's vole lives in a burrow system and creates runways among the vegetation in its habitat. The runways are used all year round by successive generations of voles and may be deep. In the summer the voles may take advantage of the denser cover available and also move about elsewhere. Feces are deposited in the runways and large latrines may form, often at intersections. These latrines have been reported as reaching dimensions of with a height of up to . Nests may be built on the surface of the ground or on hummocks, and this allows the vole to live in seasonally-flooded areas where its burrows are sometimes underwater. Both underground and surface nests are made of grasses.