Ugh

NoCal is fantastic, loved Yosemite and have spent several vacations in Lake Tahoe. Would love to get back out there again sometime. Never been to SoCal and don't really have any desire to visit there.

Go to Laguna Beach. It's a pretty cool place. I could live in Laguna Beach or that nearby area as long as I never had to go into LA County.

LMAO

http://s.quickmeme.com/img/11/11db2e...1eb30d7baa.jpg

Heat not withstanding, Phoenix, to me, is a nice cross between KC and So. Cal. with costs relative to KC.

Plenty of people here from California and I can have my toes in the ocean in Laguna in 5.5 hours. I can be in Porto Penasco, Vegas, San Deigo in about the same time.

You must have a pretty sweet van.

What's the cost per hour for Uber? You could get an uber every night and give them a destination that's eight hours away, and then sleep in the back seat. Edit: four hours away, and then pin a note to your shirt telling them to bring you back when you arrive.

One of the best places we ever camped in California was in Chula Vista. It has probably changed for the worst since we were there, but it used to be a very nice place. I liked the beautiful weather, the small town feel of the square, the little one movie theater and the very friendly folks that lived there.

Yosemite is on my list as one of the National Parks I have not been too.

Good to see California has finally had some rain. Last time I was there, most of the state was dry, brown and ugly. A lot of the forest had burned in the southern part.

One thing they will never beat my hometown on is the water from the tap. We have the best water in the country. California water sucks. It would get expensive buying bottled water all the time.

Unlike traditional Taxi's, Uber charges from destination to destination, regardless of the time passed during the commute.

A 24 pack of 16oz bottles costs $3 dollars at Costco.

Furthermore, filters for water through a refrigerator cost $18 dollars for 300 gallons of water or six months usage.

And I hope you realize that there are more than 11 million people living in LA County and another 10 million in the LA Basin.

More than 4,600 cars and RVS were in use as living quarters this year in Los Angeles

Marin County is gorgeous. I lived in downtown SF a couple of summers while in college. Loved it. Got across the bridge often. Also lived across the bay in the San Mateo area and liked that also.

Agreed. My wife's from NorCal so I've been there several times and even proposed on Pier 39.

I lived in Berkeley during the summer of '93 and that was a blast.

I'm just saying it's a trend. Tons of vlogs and even a reddit sub category for van dwellers in SoCal. 4,600 is just an estimate. It's hard to point out a van dweller. I'm sure they don't go around bragging about it.

Good ****ing god, Dude. It's not a "trend".

Do you know why there are people living in their vehicles at the beach or around town? Because many CHOOSE to do so.

Also, you're not going to die in the climate when it rarely even reaches 50 degrees at night.

And 4,600 out of 11 million people is 0.000418182%.

People have been living in vans for a long time, especially in that part of the country where there isn't much winter. Also why the homeless population is so big there.

Just because it gets some ****ing press doesn't mean it's something that's new or a "trend."

Don't care how healthy you're trying to convince everyone you are, 6 months from now you're going to get a hankerin' for some QuikTrip.

Does California pay everyone like 300k or something? How is it even possible financially?

I wish. Roommates, rent control and the further East or away from the major cities you live, the cheaper it gets.

Good luck to you.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...425-story.html

Read it and weep.....

I live in NorCal and we have awesome water right out the tap. I'm on the north coast in Arcata right next to Redwood state park. I will agree other parts of the state the water can suck. My town is what you describe. Heck they have the oldest running movie theater in the united states.

I get offered jobs in the high cost of living areas of California quiet frequently. These jobs would boost my pay about 25-30% compared to what I make now. The boost in pay, however, would not let me live how I'd live here. I'd have to live in a house half the size. The wife and I would likely become a one car house. I'd likely even have to live in a less desirable area compared to the nice neighborhood we live in now.

But that's the choice many make in living in a state like California, with great weather and with tons to do. I can totally see why people do it.

A house on my street went for $675k a few weeks ago.

It's on a hillside, about 40 years old and 600 square feet.

I had to wrap my head around looking at houses here that are 2-3 times the cost per sqft than KC.... much less 16 times more. That's a KC mortgage payment per square foot. LMAO

I can't believe it sold. It has to be a tear down, with a new architecturely approved home, right?

I haven't seen the new owner yet, but there are two new builds happening at the end of my street that are 3,500 square feet, with pools and all high end amenities that are already listed at $2.8 ahead of a November completion date, so it makes sense that this buyer bought it as a tear down and rebuild.

Both my wife and I have occupational home offices in/around LA and we both chose to work remotely due to the cost of housing. Chicago is the biggest bang for our buck amenities-wise as we're willing to go outside of some life changing salary offer. I'll take the humidity and cold for an entire world within walking distance outside my front door at this stage in my life. I don't want to turn 50 in Chicago though, it's a youthful grind, so the west coast/southwest US will always be on the radar.

Plus you wouldn't get to hang out with scho63.That's the real downside. :D

Hijacked!

This is so true.

Plus I don't think I could swing the Cali vibe like Dane does. That takes a special kind of person.

Smart man... Wow, just WOW!!!

Not that smart, but thanks :D

The smart move would have been to order an Uber at 7:20am. :(

I missed my buddy Brian Tyler's Keynote speech.

I despise LA. Looked like a space colony to me. Ick!

I will always prefer the East Coast anyway, more charm, more history, more quaint. Tho' Cali has some quaint areas going up the coast. It's a pretty state and the west has more majestic landscapes. It is very beautiful driving up Rte One through to Seattle. Would love to see Yosemite. But I'm an East Coaster.

My pool will be as warm as bath water in July and August.

I miss the seasons but wouldn't want to bear NorthEast winters again. I am considering North Carolina because it's the furthest south on the east coast you can go and still get seasons. Just not as severe a winter.

I'm good. This place is magic. If I never have to move again, I'm set. Yeah I will have to figure out how to afford a 1.5Million dollar 3 bedroom home, but to wake up every day amongst cawing birds and eucalyptus and redwoods and a cup of organic coffee, then hike to the beach...and then a few times a year drive my old VW camper up the coast and camp in the dunes...that is all worth it to me. Gonna do what I must to make it so. KC, I love you and it was great and I'll be back for a Chiefs game each year, but, me gonna do this for now.
http://i.imgur.com/Z9k2NuK.jpg

Being near an ocean is nice. Ocean is a must for me. Nice picture.

Did you say organic Coffey?

That looks a nice place, no wonder it's so expensive

So it's nothing like this site claims http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/

Yes he did and it's quite good.

Otherwise, you'll be livin in a van.......DOWN BY THE RIVER!

Any way to do mass transit either full time or a few times a week to save money? :hmmm:

My best friend moved to Vancouver, Oregon (just outside of Portland) and he got a nice house for 355k which seems like a great deal. He's got mountains and the ocean within 90 minutes of his house.

I have thought about relocating before, and I won't get too far into this, but I just can't handle the politics of the west coast.

Then it is no longer a pool and just a giant bathtub! :eek:

Is that really your Costco water price? Here in Overland Park we get a 40 pack of 16 oz bottles for $2.99.

Damn straight. I moved to San Diego late last year after living my entire life in the midwest, and I can't see myself ever leaving. 3-4x/week at the beach, lots of great hiking, relatively easy access to mountains, perfect weather year round, best beer scene around. I'm outside every day, can play sports year round, and my dog is in heaven at the numerous dog beaches.

Sure, the cost of living is high, but it's worth every penny. Plus, Chiefs games ending at ~1pm most Sundays is amazing - the rest of my day at my disposal.

I'm just going to sit here in high-altitude heaven and watch all of you lowlanders talk up your places.

We love living in Kansas, but definitely recognize there are some things we love that it just can't offer, mostly related to the outdoor activities, such as mountains and oceans and all that those things entail. But that's why we want to try to purchase a vacation property or two, that would be rented out when we aren't there. Thinking something in Colorado for the mountains, hiking, etc and then something near an ocean. The low cost of living here makes those things very doable.

Yep.:D

So what differentiates one place from another?

We've got a couple of obvious things:

climate
topography/geographic features

I think human culture is a third. I think people have different life philosophies in different places, though I'm sure you could find different subsets in larger cities. But still, San Francisco is fundamentally different than Nashville. This is not just political, but also religious and even vocational. People in an industrial town may have a different way of seeing things than people who live in a technology town or a college town or a military town.

Perhaps a subset of human culture is food. I was back in southern Missouri recently and the restaurant choices leaned much more classic American than I see in Denver.

I saw a reference to water quality earlier in the thread, and perhaps air quality could fall into that as well.

Architecture is certainly a regional difference. I was in Virginia a while back, and I can appreciate their strong colonial architecture, but I'm not a huge fan of it.

What else differentiates a place to live?

I think it's a 24 pack. To be honest, I never really paid attention, as I only buy it for events like birthday parties and such.

I'll confirm next time I'm there.

I have always wondered if national retailers change the price based on location. But with places like Home Depot people can buy online, so I wonder do they also give different online prices based on location? Or is it the same and they don't inflate based on location? Anyone know?

I actually considered a move to the Denver area earlier this year...until I saw your property values up there. I'll just stick to visiting once a year.

Apparently, the cost of bottled water.

My price for this is $6.80. What's yours? http://www.homedepot.com/p/Morton-Sa...1500/100089553

My price for this is $9.38. What's yours? https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dr-Pepper...z-6pk/20854248

My price for this is $26.99. What's yours? https://www.costco.com/Kirkland-Sign...100047638.html

I don't think that climate, geography and topography can be overstated. The Mean Temperature in Los Angeles is 71 degrees, with only 18 inches of rain per year. When it's sunny 330 days out of the year, it really does affect your disposition, especially in the morning.

Also, where I live, I can hike directly in front of my home or at Lake Hollywood, which is a 2 minute car ride or about a 10 minute walk up a step hill. I can be at the Santa Monica Pier in 45 minutes or less (without traffic, probably 30 minutes) or at my favorite beach, Will Rogers, which is in between the SM Pier and Malibu. I park on Temescal Canyon Road and can ride my bike on a bike path from there all the way to Redondo Beach and back (about a 40 mile roundtrip hike).

I can drive 2 hours to Palm Springs, which is awesome in the Spring and Fall (and not too bad in the summer, if you're at a nice resort), drive 5.5 hours up the coast to San Francisco or 90 minutes down the 5 to Carlsbad, which is essentially the IPA Beer Capital of the World. From there, I can go to Legoland or catch the Amtrack for a few bucks and have it drop me off in front of the Padres baseball stadium, where I can see a game or hit one of the many bars and restaurants, then take the train back to Carlsbad.

I can take a 45 minute boat trip to Catalina Island or take a two hour car ride to Lake Arrowhead in the winter to go skiing and snowboarding. Disneyland is generally a 30 minute drive from my home most mornings and I can hop a 2 hour flight to Cabo San Lucas to hang out and drink in an infinity pool for the weekend, then fly back home without missing a beat.

It's impossible to do these things living in Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, et al, which is probably why we have 40 million people living in this state.

LMAO

Same prices except the salt is $6.95 for me. So much for the low cost of living in Pigsknuckle.

We've had some notable price appreciation during my 20+ years here, most definitely. I'd be hard-pressed to afford the house that I live in if I was buying it today.

Most areas probably have similar patterns, but there are huge differences by region within the metro area. Out by the airport, I think the average price is 1/2 of the average price in my central-city neighborhood, or even less. But those people are generally paying a hefty commuting price, even without the Golden Gate Bridge toll.

You're getting screwed over on your salt.

Carlsbad? I can see saying that about San Diego County as a whole, but curious why you would tag that to Carlsbad specifically...

I was looking around the Aurora/Centennial area, because that's where the potential job opportunity was. I could probably get around $180k for my current house here, I can't even touch a fixer upper in that area for that money.

Indeed. The last time I was in Denver, people were raising hell about all the California people who were buying up the real estate in Colorado.....

I have a friend that lives there that's constantly raving about all of the places in the Village and the numerous IPA's.

I joined him one Saturday afternoon and man, it seemed endless.

I drove nearly 4 hours to get to Denver airport to pick up my daughter and the entire drive was flat. Only got to see the mountains that stretched a great distance but it was still flat coming into Denver.

Carlsbad is nice. I grew up in Oceanside, the neighbor to the north.

But yeah, breweries are all over San Diego county...it's like...our thing i guess...

"San Diego basically owns two global subcultures for a short period of time each year: They own nerd culture during San Diego Comic-Con. And they own beer culture during San Diego Beer Week. It’s arguably the best city on the planet for beer, let alone the United States, particularly if you’re into the now-trendy hop-heavy variety of craft beer.

The riches are endless: Stone. AleSmith. Ballast. Green Flash. Modern Times. Mike Hess. Karl Strauss. Societe. Rough Draft. Helms. Benchmark. We could go on: the city is home to 123 breweries, microbreweries, and brewpubs. The city basically created the Double IPA, and one of the local breweries has won “Best Small Brewery” at the Great American Beer Festival four times, and Pizza Port has won several awards as one of the brewpubs in the US.

We don’t usually like to honor the big, obvious choices in these lists, favoring always lesser-known and lesser-appreciated towns and cities, but there comes a point when you’re so big, and so obvious, that ignoring you is just plain stupid. San Diego, we bow to your beer dominance."

And finally, for me anyway, I live in Los Angeles because it's the music and entertainment capital of the world. If the music and entertainment capital of the world was Kansas City, I would have never moved but in 1993, I didn't have a choice. Today, it's somewhat easier due to the internet but it's nowhere near as "easy" as attending one of the many music related functions each month and getting real "face time" with decision makers (i.e., Music Supervisors, Production Music library execs and creative departments, Ad agency execs, etc.).

While I haven't forayed much into composing for scripted television and movies, mainly due to the time it requires, which would take away serious time from my young children, I could theoretically move from Los Angeles to another city (or state) because I'm already established as a composer for the biggest production music libraries in the world. But as mentioned earlier, both of my children have aspirations of working in the TV and movie business, so it doesn't make any sense to move further from Hollywood, which would take them out of this element.

So in reality, there's no reason to do so. My children love their friends, their respective schools and where we live. My wife has an amazing job 15 minutes from our home. We have plenty of friends nearby and with the 17 new hotels and multiple skyscrapers planned for Hollywood just minutes from our home, we'll have even more choices for restaurants, "Staycations" and will likely see our property value skyrocket once everything completed. Also, our home does everything we need, including housing a large, sound proofed studio for me, an office for my wife while each of my kids have their own bedrooms and bathrooms.

But yeah, I think location is also tied to certain job opportunities for sure.

Have you ever been to Dini's? We hung out there one Saturday afternoon and drank so many different IPA's that I couldn't keep track. Awesome view of the ocean as well as many hot chica's.

Having just returned from somewhat of a beercation in SD last weekend, I was a bit underwhelmed with their IPAs, and I love IPAs. Their beer scene was super cool though and I respect it, just came away underwhelmed with what I was able to try. I glanced at some literature that listed 200+ breweries/craft-centric pubs in the SD area though, which is impressive.

The mountains are only for residents.

Interesting! My price with Home Depot is $5.65 so over a dollar difference. On the Dr. Pepper with Walmart I get the same price, however the product is not in stock and shipping is not available anyways. On the Costco seasoning I also get the same price but it does say prices vary by store.

1. Salt - My price is $4.14.
2. Soda - My price is $9.38.
3. Spices - My price is $26.99.

I always find it funny how much hate we Californians get, yet our state/cities are overflowing with people from the rest of the country.

I have not. There's a lot pf places i need to check out still. I'll add this to the list.

I'm underwhelmed by IPA's in general. My wife loves them and we went through a phase for a couple of years where we'd try anything and everything.

Afterawhile i realized that an IPA tastes like...well an IPA.

Kinda like weed. After awhile it all starts tasting the same lol.

As someone who drank beer from age 14, about 5 years ago, I stopped drinking beer. I don't know what happened but it was like a "switch" was flipped and I just didn't like the taste, the buzz, nothing. I switched to Vodka/Soda and I've been happy with that ever since. It's kind of weird.

Anyway, I did enjoy the IPA's that I've had in Carlsbad. My bud owns a place in the Village, so he knows all of the best places (and they know him). That was probably an advantage that most people don't have, so he chose all of the different IPA's and it was quite fun.

It didn't cause me to rush home and try IPA's from Costco or the grocery stores and I'm still not drinking beer in general, but it was a nice experience, nonetheless.

That was pretty much my experience with the IPAs in SD. There were SO many that I was having trouble differentiating one from the other. If you're ever near Petco, and haven't already been, Half Door Brewing was really cool. They converted a really old house into a brewery. They also have some east coast style IPAs on tap that are a little sweeter and less bitter than the west coast version.

Crazy talk. Where did you go/what did you try?

Half Door is awesome - really cool space. The west coast IPA originated in SD, and is a very hop-forward beer, typically with hop bitterness. The east coast IPA is a craze now, quite often hazy, and much more juice-like flavor with very little bitterness. The east cost variety is fairly recently big - will be interesting to see how it progresses.