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In the Netherlands, people often have a positive image of the following cities:
Honolulu
San Francisco
Los Angeles
San Diego
Las Vegas
Dallas
Orlando
Miami
New York City
Boston
the following cities tend to be perceived mostly negative, which some positives:
Detroit
New Orleans
the following cities are relatively well known and perceived rather neutrally
Seattle
Denver
Austin
Houston
Memphis
Nashville
Atlanta
Chicago
Washington D.C.
Philadelphia
Tampa
the following major cities are not really well known/thought about by most Dutch people:
Portland
Sacramento
Salt Lake City
Phoenix
San Antonio
Oklahoma City
Kansas City
Minneapolis
Milwaukee
Indianapolis
Cleveland
Dutch people seem to love LA and Miami but dislike it after visiting.
I agree with the OP, but except most people I know (I'm from Melbourne) tend to love LA. Perhaps it's because I'm 18 and I tend to associate with people in my age group and they all have a very idealised view of LA about how it's the land of celebrities, sun, tanning, palm trees etc. They know of dodgy areas like Compton obviously, but the positives of LA in their opinion, outweigh the negatives.
Dutch people seem to love LA and Miami but dislike it after visiting.
The tricky thing about LA is that it's freakin' huge, it goes on forever and ever... I don't think that you get urban sprawl like that in Europe. The public transit here is getting better - they're extending light rail, finally, after decades... but as it stands now, to get from Hollywood (touristy stuff) to Santa Monica or Venice (beaches) in the middle of the day, you're looking probably like 30-40 minutes driving if you're unfamiliar with LA's streets and how people drive here. Also, Downtown LA's nightlife is growing and there's a lot of cool stuff there, but it's still the sort of place where you literally can walk around the corner from some hip bars and brewpubs, and straight into a ****-stained alley with some guy asking very firmly for ten bucks... five, six years ago, there was practically nothing there, which is weird since usually you want to be downtown. Moreso than most places, if you don't know what to expect, it can be really, really stressful and make for a miserable trip.
I always tell people to get a hotel in Santa Monica, Venice, or Marina Del Rey for a few days if they plan on being at the beach, and then get a hotel in Hollywood for the days they plan on being out there; that way, you don't have to drive back and forth through the city unless you really want to. Beverly Hills or West Hollywood is a good compromise if you only want to stay in one hotel during your trip.
^ oh yeah I forgot to mention Detroit, I think Detroit has a reputation because of what we hear about it.
Yeah it's interesting the perception of LA varies a lot...I notice the more 'travel snob' types tend to dismiss LA, a lot of those people actually also dismiss the US but have been to Europe like 5 times. There are of course still a lot of people who do love LA here, Hollywood, Disneyland.etc...it's one of 2 main entry points for Aussies into the US so many will have been there and there are quite a lot of package tours to LA. LA has a lot of monotonous, boring development but it's just a fascinating place to visit. I think Memphis is one city which underwhelms, but it could be great. It has a lot of fine buildings. If only they could revitalise it so it's not so much like a ghost town.
I agree with the OP, but except most people I know (I'm from Melbourne) tend to love LA. Perhaps it's because I'm 18 and I tend to associate with people in my age group and they all have a very idealised view of LA about how it's the land of celebrities, sun, tanning, palm trees etc. They know of dodgy areas like Compton obviously, but the positives of LA in their opinion, outweigh the negatives.
^ from my time working in hospitality and also running into Aussies out and about, they seem to have a better time here on average than a lot of other tourists do. Lots of Aussies have a very lighthearted, open attitude about coming here, and seem to be able to accept LA's quirks a lot more easily than a lot of other people who seem to expect that it'll be exactly like whatever the big hub back home is, just with palm trees and perfect weather (and that goes for people traveling from within the US as well).
The tricky thing about LA is that it's freakin' huge, it goes on forever and ever... I don't think that you get urban sprawl like that in Europe. The public transit here is getting better - they're extending light rail, finally, after decades... but as it stands now, to get from Hollywood (touristy stuff) to Santa Monica or Venice (beaches) in the middle of the day, you're looking probably like 30-40 minutes driving if you're unfamiliar with LA's streets and how people drive here. Also, Downtown LA's nightlife is growing and there's a lot of cool stuff there, but it's still the sort of place where you literally can walk around the corner from some hip bars and brewpubs, and straight into a ****-stained alley with some guy asking very firmly for ten bucks... five, six years ago, there was practically nothing there, which is weird since usually you want to be downtown. Moreso than most places, if you don't know what to expect, it can be really, really stressful and make for a miserable trip.
I always tell people to get a hotel in Santa Monica, Venice, or Marina Del Rey for a few days if they plan on being at the beach, and then get a hotel in Hollywood for the days they plan on being out there; that way, you don't have to drive back and forth through the city unless you really want to. Beverly Hills or West Hollywood is a good compromise if you only want to stay in one hotel during your trip.
My friend and I stayed just off Hollywood Boulevard, and found it quite good for our purposes. We relied on the metro and buses to get us around. It's fine to get to/from the city, and certain areas further out like Pasadena or Long Beach, but we had to bus to Santa Monica (about 30 minutes) and take the Amtrak to Anaheim for Disneyland. We walked around downtown LA at night and it was almost deserted. Also very dark. Lucky nothing happened to us. My favourite parts of LA were probably West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, Griffith/Echo Park, the hillier part of Hollywood and Pasadena. Long Beach was okay too but we didn't really see a lot of other places. Large parts of LA are kind of ugly looking, as well as inner parts of Orange County.
^ from my time working in hospitality and also running into Aussies out and about, they seem to have a better time here on average than a lot of other tourists do. Lots of Aussies have a very lighthearted, open attitude about coming here, and seem to be able to accept LA's quirks a lot more easily than a lot of other people who seem to expect that it'll be exactly like whatever the big hub back home is, just with palm trees and perfect weather (and that goes for people traveling from within the US as well).
I think Aussies more readily adapt to the sprawled out, car-based character of American cities, and LA has many similarities to Australia (although many differences to. The Spanish culture is definitely one of them.). I think San Diego is the most Australian city in the US though, the downtown reminded me of first and plus there are a ton of gum (eucalyptus) trees there. I think some Aussies never make it past the West, but many people here still would love the idea of going to New York.
My friend and I stayed just off Hollywood Boulevard, and found it quite good for our purposes. We relied on the metro and buses to get us around. It's fine to get to/from the city, and certain areas further out like Pasadena or Long Beach, but we had to bus to Santa Monica (about 30 minutes) and take the Amtrak to Anaheim for Disneyland. We walked around downtown LA at night and it was almost deserted. Also very dark. Lucky nothing happened to us. My favourite parts of LA were probably West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, Griffith/Echo Park, the hillier part of Hollywood and Pasadena. Long Beach was okay too but we didn't really see a lot of other places. Large parts of LA are kind of ugly looking, as well as inner parts of Orange County.
Yeah, the light rail extension to the West Side is being built right now; they've got it finished to the point that it runs fairly far down Venice Boulevard, and then it's continuing so that it'll keep going towards Olympic in Santa Monica. It's about time they got it done... there were lots of hurdles with the cost of land, local resistance to rail lines and stations, etc, but it's really needed to happen for a long time now. Even from when I first moved to LA in '02 till when I first moved away in '07, the traffic had gotten that much worse... it was shocking!
There are parts of DTLA that are lively at night, but again, it's in pockets rather than being a continuous stretch, and the parts between can be pretty sketchy.
A lot of LA has medium-density apartments that were built in the 60's-80's and aren't the best or most interesting looking stuff... but then, there are a lot of cities that are unremarkable. Orange County is nice enough, but it's just a big suburb basically - I've never understood why it is that so many people are drawn to it, but then, on the flip side I've never understood the visceral hatred that it seems to stir in many people in LA... it is what it is: a suburb. I'd get people who would say, "we want to go see 'THE OC'" when they came here, and I was always like... well, you've got Disneyland in Anaheim, Newport Beach, and then the Irvine Spectrum, none of which are close to one another..." Drive through most of OC and it's just working-to-middle class houses, offices, and shopping centers.
Pasadena and Long Beach are pretty nice and have a lot of cool stuff going on; they're quite different from LA, even though they're part of the greater LA area. After I get back from China, I may look around Long Beach; I'm sort of sick of the Beverly Hills thing
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What I've heard
