LA is fine and all but there's a reason the tourists mostly stay in Venice or Santa Monica. OP probably stayed in DTLA because the downtown is typically a safe bet for staying in a European city. But besides a small handful of places like Grand Central Market and Little Tokyo (and at that point just go to Tokyo instead), there's not a ton to see in that area.
I just don't get how OP decided to travel internationally having clearly done zero research on their destination
I really do think people should travel to our country, but I just canāt wrap my head around why people would choose to spend all their time in our cities. We have, in my opinion, the most naturally beautiful and diverse country on the planet. We have everything from stunning coastlines, tropical beaches, snow capped mountains, huge forests. Most of it protected and easily accessible because of the NPS and our state parks services. Why tf would someone want to hang out in the smog of LA?
You literally mention stunning coastlines in your post and still ask. And this is coming from someone who lived in LA and didn't like it.
NPS is amazing along with our parks, but not everyone is into nature or can drive, or can drive in the US. Plus, not Europeans but people from other places might live in nature already and might want to see a city instead
It almost proves my point more. Arguably the most beautiful coastline in the world is a few hours north of LA, so why hang out in a boring modern city jam packed with as many cars as possible.
If Iām a traveler looking to visit cool cities (which I am) then Iām looking at all the great European and Asian cities. We have a few cities that are worth visiting, though none of them hold a candle to the old world cities and should all be stepping stones for the real beauty of America: our nature. But to each their own.
Even worse, you can see all of that in the same state OP allegedly visited. Just start in LA and drive up the 1 Coastal Highway. You can do pretty much everything you wrote in 3-4 days.
Ahh, so the "LA sucks" narrative is still sticking to 1980s knowledge, got it.
You want to see our gorgeous coasts, beautiful green spaces, amazing mountains? LA's probably the best city in the entire world to do this. Depending on the time of year, you could, in a single day, surf in the morning, hike in Griffith or Angeles National Forest midday, and Ski in the afternoon.
Well, you see, when travelling around Europe you don't really have to much research other than how much early to show up to an airport. In fact my favorite kind of trip is hopping around a country randomly by bus or train or ferry going from city to city on a whim and it has worked out great in Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Greece where I've tried it. Everything looks beautiful, everybody is helpful and google maps + public transport will get you to anywhere you want to go.
Having what I would call an ongoing civic disaster in the middle of a major city of a rich country is not something I would know to look out for.
The Arts District is amazing, the Museums in Downtown LA are world class, the concerts venues and stadiums within a few mile radius of DTLA are world class, and Little Tokyo and Chinatown offer a distinctly fusion experience of those cultures that you wouldn't get in Tokyo or China.
You've also got the largest and greatest Ktown on the other side of downtown to the west, and amazing Mexican neighborhoods to the east and south.
It's really only Skid Row to avoid. And it is absolutely a shameful travesty that Skid Row exists and that we don't house and rehabilitate people, but this "DTLA has nothing going on" narrative is pretty dated.
Because the people from overseas and the conservatives on reddit canāt seem to understand that every city has rough parts, yes some worse than others, and every city has beautiful and awesome parts. Tons of people live in these cities, normal people like all of us. Skid row is a well known homeless drug addict area for many, many years. This isnāt a new thing, but theyāre acting like the entire city is like that. Same with SF and the Tenderloin district downtown.
The reality is, there are MUCH worse crime infested cities in Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, etc. But they like to point the finger at liberal cities that have crime problems (and yes I think all cities should be much tougher on violent crime).
Acting like a small area of a huge city is representative of the whole thing while not acknowledging that the cowshit town they live in has been rotting away with meth and opiates for decades.
Because the people from overseas and the conservatives on reddit canāt seem to understand that every city has rough parts, yes some worse than others, and every city has beautiful and awesome parts.
The rough parts of Paris were not as rough as growing up in East LA in the 80s and 90s, but they were still pretty shitty
International travelers have the money to not live in those neighborhoods they pretend their home countries don't have
Can confirm, from Louisiana but have visited LA and SD a few times. Anyone saying those cities are shit holes have no clue what a Shit hole is really like
Its not everywhere. Its only in a couple areas where homeless people live. The human shit thing is so overblown. LA metro is over 500 square miles, and there's only a couple of streets where you'll find homeless shitting. The average person will never come across it if they dont live near those areas.
Conservatives get off on shitting on California in particular. Classic hateraid, don't listen to those dumbfucks. Where they live is 1000 times dirtier, more depressing, more unwalkable and most especially more dangerous than any of the CA cities and they need to sing themselves the lullaby that CA is worse so their dismal lives feel a little more rosy. LA is currently the #2 travel location for foreigners, and I doubt the OP is anything other than a right-wing douche pretending he's a foreign traveler.
And this is true of rural areas too. Don't hang out in trailer parks or church parking lots and a lot of rural/southern areas have quite beautiful areas.
What's unusual about Skid row in LA, and what makes it stand out, especially to visitors to the city, is how central it is, it's literally in the centre of the city, right in the Downtown area. Same with the Tenderloin in San Francisco.
Sure every city has it's sketchy areas, but in London you don't walk 5 minutes from the Houses of Parliament and end up in Peckham. It's very unusual (outside of America) to have such a run down area so centrally located and so close to tourist areas, and even then, places like Peckham in London might be poor and run down, but they don't even come close to places like Skid Row or the Tenderloin when it comes to urban decay.
Even in the US it's not like this always, NY has its dodgy areas, but again, you don't just step out of the Empire State Building and stumble upon them, they're not in the city centre, so they don't stand out so much and aren't noticed by visitors, who generally stay in the centre.
Fair points but can we at least acknowledge the clear and present vastness of the homeless LA has? Last count i saw was like over 60k and im sure it's far more than that. That is insane and in no way comparable to anywhere else.
Yes, LA gets dragged for problems other cities have and maybe even worse than LA but lets not act like a small city of homeless is normal. Its not. The sheer number IS unique to LA and SF so let's not do what aboutism here bc it's not comparable on a homeless level.
There's that many homeless people because they are leaving the other shitholes for LA. At its root, it's really not a problem "created" by LA by any fair measure. So it's not really fair to expect them to somehow solve it magically. They could totally "solve" it by violently cracking down hard on the homeless, which would do absolutely nothing to help with the actual homelessness, they'd just go somewhere else or, y'know, die. But I'm sure the city would look a lot "nicer" as a result.
To properly address the issue you really need to do something at a federal level, and reduce nationwide homelessness, which could be tackled in many ways I'm not about to go into. It's not realistic to expect CA to foot the bill to deal with the bulk of the homeless in the entire country, and painting it like somehow something must be crazy wrong with their cities because there's a lot of homeless is naive at best, intentionally misleading for ideological purposes at worst.
Yes I absolutely agree that the homeless population in both of those cities is insane, thereās other cities with similar problems. I donāt know what the answer is. Part of me wonders if they are almost āhomeless destinationsā due to the great weather and lenient policies. People from all over can make their way to LA, SF, SD, etc
If you were homeless would you try to find your way to some place like Montgomery, Phoenix, Chicago, Denver, etc where there may be fewer services, rough winters, or rough summers, or Los Angeles, where there are services and a temperate climate?
Homeless rates in California are lower than the UK, France, Australia, NZ, etc
I did say that some cities have worse parts than others. And I also said the homeless situation is really bad in numerous cities on the West Coast. Just like the crime and gun violence in St Louis, Memphis, Birmingham, Gary, Baton Rouge is out of control.
Having so many homeless, addicts and crazies in the streets is NOT normal. I did not see homeless camps in habana, mexico city, hanoi, bangkok all considered shitholes by US standards.
Last time i went to LA was june this year and its as bad as it was 5 years ago, if not worse. The government is not doing anything to improve, the only thing i see they do is move the camps if people start complaining. None of these camps are near politicians houses of course š
I think the difference is that those cities in Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, etc. aren't nearly as celebrated. There aren't as many tourists going to Gary Indiana with high hopes as there are visiting Hollywood Blvd or Santa Monica pier and having to bob and weave through scam artists and the guy high off his ass on something clawing at the grass and cursing at God, then getting harassed on the metro ride back. That was my experience in LA at least. I knew the tourist spots would be tacky, but I didn't expect them to be so... grimy. Hiking trails were pretty though.
The LA hate is because most people that say it live in some small shit hole city or town. theyāll more than likely never get to Los Angeles so it seems like some made up overhyped fantasy to then. it just devolves into anger and resentment. Literally everybody I know that has moved to Los Angeles loves itļæ¼
Itās the little things. Coming from a small city. And being hungry at letās say 2 AM. Youāre fucked.ļæ¼ in LA I can literally go get donuts 24 hours a day. Hey you live in the middle of Mississippi and you wanna go skydiving tomorrow, get fucked. You live in LA and you wanna go skydiving randomly for your first time on a Wednesday. Go for it. Itās just not the sameļæ¼ļæ¼
To me that just sounds like there's just more ways to spend money in a city that is already going to charge you a huge amount of your paycheck for the privilege of living in the middle of 5 million other people. Big cities feel like the most exaggerated form of wealth inequality to me - if you have the money there's no limit to what you can spend it on, and if you don't you're stuck in some of the worst areas in the country.
Free things to do in LA that immediately come to mind:
1. The beach
2. Go hiking
3. The Getty (and Villa)
4. Griffith Observatory
5. The multitude of free music and shows
Thereās tons and tons of cheap things to do if you look a little, the point is that thereās options to do those things if you want
Neither of those things seem appealing to me. I get my donuts at 5am from the same mom and pop shop I have in the passed decade or ride my dirtbike for the same effect.
No better feeling than the fresh air hit your face as you pass through budding crops and feeling the engine under your seat wake up as the dense air fills the carburetor with more oxygen.
I agree itās not the same.
Plenty of space for pets to have a calm and healthy lifestyle. Imagine getting a rat terrier and confine them to a small apartment.
Unfortunately my dream is to live in a high rise condo with an acre of land, pole barn for all my toys, in walking distance from the places I like to go daily, but no dense traffic for when I want to drive. Priorities are a bitch.
Im from nyc and visited a friend in LA for 2 weeks. Other than all the fresh mango carts every where i wasnt impressed at all. Gotta take a 45 min to an hour bus ride to the beach or anywhere for that matter. Im good
You sound like every New Yorker I know thats moved her after 2 weeks. They all came around eventually after their first winter haha. NYC is dope though, I could never in a million years see myself living there though. Probably the same way you feel about LA
hey cool bro, and I donāt like the snow and giant rats. You honestly think that if somebody visited New York for two weeks that would be a good representation of the city? And how many beaches does New York have? So are you saying that somebody that lives in a burrow that doesnāt have a nearby beach, doesnāt have to drive a little bit to get to one? And you understand that it was 45 minutes, from where you were right you do understand there are people that live, on the beach? Right? I know I asked a lot but try to stay with Meļæ¼ļæ¼
Didn't love it. It's an ugly, dirty city and having to navigate the traffic and parking just makes going to the million great places to eat not worth it.
Great weather, great beaches, great hikes. But outside of nature it's just hard living.
Again, somebody that was in one part of the city and judge the entire city based off of the one part. You literally just said the place where they film a shit ton of media is ugly? Sure buddyļæ¼. yeah, my view overlooking the valley on the Fourth of July for fireworks was so ugly. I promise you you havenāt been to San Fernando Valley, which is also part of Los Angeles. It operates literally the opposite of the main city area. parking is regular just like anywhere else, thereās way less traffic, etc ļæ¼But you wouldnāt know thatļæ¼ļæ¼
Ok whatever a large part of LA is ugly and trafficky. Obviously if you go to the outskirts it's less trafficky but yes, the main parts of the city are polluted, dense, and ugly.
The main part of the city is full of amazing artwork, architecture, locations, landscapes, and views. But if youāre an unhappy pessimistic person then I could see how you could see it the other way.ļæ¼
And no my boy, hard living is being in a small ass town where if you donāt have a car you have to work specific hours because public transportation wont run past a certain time. Unlike Los Angeles. Hard living is being hungry at 2 AM and the grocery store is closed and everything else is too because you live in a small town. unlike Los Angeles. I could go on like that for literal hoursļæ¼
Spoken like a person thatās never had to pay rent in Los Angeles. Iāve never paid that much for it and Iāve had studio apartments sir. Of my own sir. Also I would rather pay $1500 for a hole in the wall in one of the most active cities in the world where I donāt ever have to be home. Versus $700 for a two bedroom apartment in the middle of fucking nowhere where thereās nothing to do. Exciting. And trust me before you get to talking, Iāve done bothļæ¼
Conservatives are have spent the last 50 years hyping up any major US city as a warzone, especially liberal cities with lots of brown people.
So a ton of people are only exposed to these cities in the context of crime and liberal politics, despite the fact that these things aren't exclusive to those cities.
LA, Chicago, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Philly, all of these places are beautiful and have an amazing culture and tons of awesome shit to do. But people love being ignorant.
Bc they lie and say they go to the hood even tho the entire vacation was spent on rodeo drive, but happened to drive past a run down area on the way to the airport
I live here. LA is hard to live in because property values are so high. Youād probably get more bang for buck somewhere else.
That being said, it is a super fun city. Especially in your 20s and early 30s. Sunset is extremely fun and a great part of the city is if you go west you get the beach and if you go east you get both the desert and the mountains. Lots of variety.
I donāt think I would raise a family here unless I was mega rich. And there are parts to avoid but thatās like every city. The inequalities whatās crazy, Skid Row do you have tons of homeless and itās right next to one of the biggest financial districts.ļæ¼ļæ¼ļæ¼ļæ¼
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u/jjjfffrrr123456 Jul 11 '23
I donāt get the hate, LA has plenty of nice areas. We were there last year for a few days and it was fine. We obviously avoided going to skid rowā¦