Welcome to This Ugly Beautiful City 2.0

Welcome and welcome back to This Ugly Beautiful City! This blog is my love letter to Los Angeles and my goal is to make you love this city as much as I do.

I am writing this blog for everyone who wonders what to do while they are in Los Angeles. It is for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who are not sure how to plan their L.A. vacations. It is for you Angelenos who are answered with “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” when people come to visit. This blog is for the locals who are overwhelmed by all the things there are to do here, that they end up doing nothing or the same thing over and over again. It is for the many of us who want to do things on the cheap and who want to know more about this city.

If this sounds like it is for any of you, I hope you join me on this passion project of mine that has been several years in the making.

This Ugly Beautiful City was born from the idea to put all of my recommendations for Los Angeles in one place. After thirteen years I have done a lot of this legwork for you. I have made vacation itineraries for my family and friends, planned themed vacations, and have spent time exploring the greater Los Angeles area. I love that people ask me for advice on which restaurants to try, where to go on dates, and things to do in neighborhoods they haven’t explored yet. I thought this would be the perfect avenue to share this information so that it is accessible to everyone not just the people I see on a daily basis.

Hasn’t this been done before?

Yup. People write about this city all the time. My goals for This Ugly Beautiful City is to give a different perspective as a resident. I want to make sure that you know that what this town has to offer doesn’t fit into two separate camps; the for tourists only or for locals only.

Wait a second…did you say 2.0?

Again, yup. I started this blog in 2015. What I had tried to do with the first version was to create a lasting document of things to do here, but so much has changed. That is the joy and problem of L.A., it is constantly evolving. There were so many instances where the things I have recommended have disappeared from the LA. landscape. I also had so much I wanted to add. I felt a little bit of pressure from people to talk about restaurant and bar recommendations since I give so many in person. I also spend a lot of time reading about Los Angeles and thought I would give you some ideas of places to visit that give setting to your favorite books. I thought it would be better to start from scratch. I hope you enjoy this blog and it helps you delve deeper into Los Angeles.

For those of you who followed me since 2015, I hope there is enough that is new that keeps you sticking around.

So here it is This Ugly Beautiful City 2.0.