17 Reasons We Love Los Angeles, Now More Than Ever

When I first moved cross-country to Los Angeles in 2008, I lived in a rental off Fountain Avenue. Under the invariably sunny skies, I’d pass a set of tennis courts where there always seemed to be a clutch of handsome men volleying. Outdoor tennis in mid-winter, leisurely café visits and whooshing palms like parentheses around homes and businesses gave the city a jasmine-scented, otherworldly sheen. I was working as a travel journalist, and thought any moment I’d be called back to snowy New York to file a story, because this town seemed to be nothing but one big subtropical resort. How could this be real life? It was too gorgeous.

Now 17 years later, I’ve never left, even as mudslides threatened one home and wildfires another. 2025 has been a heartache of a year for so many of us in Los Angeles, lives lost and entire neighborhoods destroyed. I want to remind myself and everyone I see that, to paraphrase Hemingway, the land is a fine place and worth the fighting for. To that end, here, in no particular order, is your assignment: Take yourself away from the chores/office hours/child care (take the kids along) and visit one of these Los Angeles locales, date nights and delights. Because I’m doubling down on my civic love, and I think you want to, also.

As one Redditor wrote about the stop-sign-only six-way crossing at N. Canon Drive, N. Beverly Drive and Lomitas Avenue, “I'm not sure what chaos muppet designed this, but it's awful even by Los Angeles standards.” Still, every time you make it through, you feel as though you’ve cheated death another day.

Venues like Largo at the Coronet and The Comedy Store attract the hippest up-and-coming talent eager to catch the eye of Hollywood producers, as well as established talent working on new material.

An 8 a.m. hike any day of the week, trails across the city are packed with all ages of humans and canines, from Runyon to the Hollywood and Silverlake Reservoirs to the Ocean Trails Walk in Palos Los Verdes.

Sports fans appreciate that there’s lots to root for with twelve major league professional teams: the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Rams, the Los Angeles Angels, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles FC, the LA Galaxy, the Los Angeles Kings, the Anaheim Ducks, the Los Angeles Sparks, and Angel City FC of the National Women's Soccer League. 

I run into these cunning wild beasts on the regular, especially early mornings on the trails. They are part of the delicate dance of nature and development that makes up the Southland, and I love them (even as I’m wary of letting my chihuahua too far away).

From shorts worn with Chanel in Brentwood to ultra-baggy denim with tank tops in Silverlake or upscale sweatpants with high heels on Abbott Kinney, Angelenos bring a body-conscious insouciance to dressing.

We’re a city in love with the automobile, so you’ll spot 60s’ muscle cars, 70s’ convertibles and pristine vintage Mercedes-Benzes of all ages casually parked throughout the city. Less common but still driving are the zany custom cars that Tom Wolfe immortalized in his 1965 essay “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.”

Los Angeles is dedicated to the body beautiful, and the meal organic. And upscale grocers such as Erewhon are the latest see-and-be-seen hangout—and the Whole Foods on Lincoln in Venice is practically a pick-up spot.

The weather and wealth of this city—along with a vein of creativity and international show-offiness—result in lots of public arts programming as well as emerging and major art fairs like the Felix Art Fair in Hollywood and L.A. Frieze in Hollywood.

You haven’t really sweated until you’ve sprinted, jogged, done yoga or pedaled on the Santa Monica sand. Any given Sunday you’ll find cadets running through a boot camp, a track coach pacing his college athletes and moms like me doing everything from drills to spin classes.

This thorny South American vine explodes into red, fuchsia, salmon and white swaths much of the year, all over the city. West Hollywood’s rainbow display on the fence along the CBS studios is beloved, and the iconic heart-shaped hedge hanging off the 101 embankment gives a little smile to commuters.

Friendly reminder—when you’re all caught up in your little world, take a look upward as the sun goes down. We’re on the edge of the continent baby, and the sky’s the limit!

I love The Now, a national franchise of beachy-vibe massage spots that started in Los Angeles. (Be sure to ask for the Hemp Calm Balm added to your treatment.)

Glen Ivy Hot Springs is an hour inland from Long Beach; slather yourself with local red clay mud and bathe in hot spring water rich in sulfur, calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium

In L.A., we’re too cool for those big coffee chains, and search out the latest new handcrafted cup of Joe to wait in line for. Here, Korean brand Camel Coffee, located at 4459 Sunset Boulevard in Los Feliz.

Pacifist philosopher Aldous Huxley, who moved to Hollywood in 1937, wrote in his 1925 book Americana that “Los Angeles was 'nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis'.” That sentiment is truer than every today, as no less than Pulitzer Prize winning contemporary philosopher, the Compton-born Kendrick Lamar said when he won an armful of Grammies in January 2025. Choose your own adventure, and neighborhoods, collect them all.