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View Poll Results: Which area would you prefer to play or vacation?
Los Angeles/Santa Monica 200 57.47%
Miami/Miami Beach 148 42.53%
Voters: 348. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 01-11-2018, 11:45 AM
 
Location: South Beach and DT Raleigh
13,966 posts, read 24,000,674 times
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I can give insight into how life is like in South Beach since I live here.
If you chose to live in South Beach, chances are you'd live on the Biscayne Bay side and not near Ocean Drive or Washington Ave. Now, you can live near the party/tourist scene if you want but it's not as likely given the amount of housing available. If you were of more modest means, you'd likely live in an apartment in the historic district between 5th Street and Lincoln Road (South to North) and Washington Ave to Alton Road (East to West). If you have more means, you'll likely live along the west side between Alton Rd and the bay in a condo or apartment with amenities and covered parking. If you were very wealthy, you'd either live in one of the ultra luxury towers South of Fifth or along the bay, or in a house on one of Miami Beach's islands in the bay between South Beach and Downtown Miami.
Living in the historic district or on the bay side of the beach would mean that much of your daily life needs could be accessed by foot, by bike share or by free circulating trolley. This would include groceries, general shopping, movies, dining, entertainment, services, etc. You'd look for reasons to NOT cross the bridge into Miami if you didn't have to. You would only choose to drive your car to the grocery store in order to carry stuff home. Mostly, you'd walk, bike, trolley or uber your way around the beach. You'd make the exception to crossing the bridges to go to Target, Home Depot and Costco. ;-)
From South of Fifth or the west side, your work commute to downtown will be a very short drive that's basically crossing a causeway. In nice weather, you could ride a CitiBike across the Venetian Causeway and grab the free MetroMover to take you to most areas in downtown and Brickell.
You'd surprisingly not go to the beach as often as your friends elsewhere think that you would. After a while, you'd likely do the touristy things only when your friends came into town. You're more likely to find the "locals" places and frequent them often. You'll have a boat of some sort or know friends who do. You'll likely spend a lot of time outside year 'round and a lot of time in pools in the long Summer. You'll go to the gym and/or find some sort of active outdoor fitness regimen because you won't be wearing many clothes in the hot months. You'll learn that Lincoln Road is more valuable to you than Ocean Drive.
You'll find yourself measuring the year by the many festivals hosted in South Beach throughout the "season" from Nov. through April, and will plan accordingly to attend your favorites. You'll learn how to get into many of the events and parties for free as a "vip" or by some sort of locals discount. After the "season" is over, you'll love that all the tourists are gone; by mid-Summer you'll be yearning for it to begin again!
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Old 01-11-2018, 03:48 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles, CA
505 posts, read 497,134 times
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I live in the LA area and go to Santa Monica now and again (I prefer other LA beaches like Manhattan and Hermosa; less crowded, cleaner, etc), so I went with Miami for vacationing.

But overall my heart belongs to LA
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Old 01-11-2018, 03:52 PM
 
4,997 posts, read 3,834,906 times
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Miami for the beaches and nightlife. LA for everything else.
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Old 01-12-2018, 12:52 PM
 
23,690 posts, read 9,236,329 times
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La
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