A great place to visit, but if you don't already have roots there, it is very difficult to set them. An interesting social laboratory to be sure.
Having just returned from a coastal California trip, I'm always amazed by how pleasant the people are and how spectacular the land and scenery are.
Curious what the above statement means.
In addition to visiting the Getty Center (I share Michael's opinion) I also visited Hearst Castle for the night tour-very interesting and worthwhile
As far as traffic that I always hear about, in 14 days(2 trips this winter) in Southern Cal,after driving easily over 1500 miles, I encountered one traffic jam-ironically on the way to the airport-that delayed me 7 minutes.
I experience 10x that every time I leave Eastern Long Island to go anywhere on Long island or in the tri-state area.
The ONLY thing I found to be more expensive was gas, everything else was less expensive than Long island.
I love it out there, but as Lou points out I'm a visitor picking and choosing my spots.
The golf I played there this winter was two munis and one high end private-I really like the terrain and the grasses out there, and the vibe of the people I met on the munis was fantastic.