Los Angeles offers some of the best outdoor experiences, especially during the summer. The weather is great, and there’s no shortage of natural beauty like beaches, hills, and parks. The city's size means there’s always something new to explore, and the general vibe—especially near the coast—can be energizing and fun. Places like The Valley may offer a quieter, more pleasant stay compared to more hyped areas like Hollywood, which was noted for being dirty and underwhelming. However, several issues came up repeatedly. The city is highly expensive; things like taxes, daily services, and rentals can cost significantly more than expected, often without matching quality. Public transportation, especially buses, is unreliable, making renting a car almost necessary. The massive size of the city also makes commuting difficult, compounded by heavy traffic. Another common concern was the social atmosphere. Making meaningful connections seems challenging, with many reviewers highlighting a distant or unfriendly culture, especially toward foreigners. The strict regulations and taxes also make it tough for startups and small business owners. Despite these drawbacks, some still found the experience worthwhile short term and would consider returning.
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tax
insane
hollywood
nice
suggest
neighborhoods
bus
long
gold
Los Angeles offers some of the best outdoor experiences, especially during the summer. The weather is great, and there’s no shortage of natural beauty like beaches, hills, and parks. The city's size means there’s always something new to explore, and the general vibe—especially near the coast—can be energizing and fun. Places like The Valley may offer a quieter, more pleasant stay compared to more hyped areas like Hollywood, which was noted for being dirty and underwhelming.
However, several issues came up repeatedly. The city is highly expensive; things like taxes, daily services, and rentals can cost significantly more than expected, often without matching quality. Public transportation, especially buses, is unreliable, making renting a car almost necessary. The massive size of the city also makes commuting difficult, compounded by heavy traffic.
Another common concern was the social atmosphere. Making meaningful connections seems challenging, with many reviewers highlighting a distant or unfriendly culture, especially toward foreigners. The strict regulations and taxes also make it tough for startups and small business owners. Despite these drawbacks, some still found the experience worthwhile short term and would consider returning.
AI-generated summary of reviews 6 months ago
It's obscenely expensive for low quality service with kinda mean people. Not nice. The regulations and taxes here are insane too. You pay a neighbourhood tax, district tax, city tax, county tax and then state tax on every payment you make!
The traffic here is insane too. And just getting from place to place is difficult because city is so gigantic.
We talked to our hotel's manager here and he struggles a lot with the insane amount of rules California tells him to follow. It makes it hard to start or run a business here. A lot like Europe.
I understand so many people from Los Angeles left to Austin and Miami.
2 years ago
I spent 4 months working here during summertime. It's one of the best summers I have ever had in my life. The city is just amazing and offers dozens of outdoor activities. There are so many different places such as parks, lakes, hills, mountains, beaches, etc. Also, you can feel the Californication vibe on every step.
I lived in Hollywood and I would avoid this place at any cost. It's just too overrated and won't meet your expectations. Hollywood (esp. West Hollywood) is a big pile of dirtiness with people wandering around. I'd suggest looking for smaller neighborhoods preferably in The Valley. That area is just lovely. Also, anything close to Santa Monica is overwhelming yet too costly.
One of the things I also didn't like was the lack of cultural influence and this is for sure not a city that will offer nice architecture. Another thing I disliked was the huge social distancing towards foreigners which is most likely part of the American culture. If you were to make deeper friendships here, this is not a place to go. You will end up getting ignored and in the worst case, people will stop any contact with you.
Also, the public transport of LA is not reliable especially if you use bus transportation. Get ready to wait a long turn before you get to a bus. I suggest either using the metro or renting a car which is probably the best option in LA. Otherwise, get prepared for long walks throughout your place of stay.
With all of the above said, I will for sure return to this city again and can't say I'm not missing it. It's one of those places where you always want to get back, at least temporarily :D
4 years ago
Nothing does a better job of explaining LA’s beautiful diversity and different neighborhoods than the documentary about the late Jonathan Gold, our city’s greatest amabassador and the only food critic to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. It is called, "City of Gold" and if you want to know LA, just watch this film. Trailer link: https://youtu.be/DmKTRDfz1zM
8 years ago
✅ Beautiful nature and outdoor activities
✅ Good weather
✅ Fast internet
✅ Lots of fun stuff to do
✅ Warm all year round
✅ Perfect humidity now
✅ Good air quality on average
✅ Many Nomads.com members here all year round
✅ Spacious and not crowded
✅ Very easy to do business
✅ High quality of education
✅ Great hospitals
✅ Roads are very safe
✅ Great freedom of speech
✅ Democratic
✅ Everyone speaks English
✅ Safe for women
✅ Family friendly
✅ Very friendly to LGBTQ+
✅ Not many people smoke tobacco
✅ (Medical) marijuana MAY be legal, unenforced or decriminalized (always double check this)
Air quality clean 46 US AQIclean 35 US AQIclean 40 US AQIclean 49 US AQIokay 50 US AQIokay 59 US AQIokay 61 US AQIokay 60 US AQIokay 56 US AQIokay 55 US AQIokay 52 US AQIclean 46 US AQI
Sun seek shade 3 UVIseek shade 5 UVIavoid sun 6 UVIavoid sun 8 UVIavoid sun 8 UVIavoid sun 10 UVIavoid sun 10 UVIavoid sun 10 UVIavoid sun 8 UVIseek shade 5 UVIseek shade 4 UVIseek shade 3 UVI
Green is good. Red is bad. Values shown are the medians of all daily highs in a month based on past few years, not necessarily current numbers. Remote worker count is estimated based on the total amount of trips logged by Nomads.com members.
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1,400 remote workers in Los Angeles now, of which 4+ members checked in (some members are set to private)
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Values shown are estimated visits by traveling remote workers based on the total amount of trips logged by Nomads.com members. Visits to a place are only counted once per year per user, even if they visit more in that year. Visits are also normalized by overall trips added per month on the site, so if site usage goes up or down it does not affect trends. Not all digital nomads are on Nomads.com, and not all Nomads.com members log their trips. So the data is only indicative.
The chart below shows visitors by nationality normalized for population size. This means we take all trips logged on Nomads.com, check which country of origin the user is from, then divide that total visit count by the country of origin's population. If we didn't, it'd just show the big countries like US, Brazil and India always on top. Instead, this shows which nationalities worldwide proportionally visit more or less, which is more useful.
One-time-payment: (削除) 39ドル.98 (削除ここまで) 19ドル.99💫 0% off
Billed once. Then never again
One-time-payment: (削除) 98ドル (削除ここまで) 49ドル💫 50% off
Billed once. Then never again
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