90% of people I met over the past week in California are transplants - meaning they were all born and raised elsewhere before coming to CA. I've always heard so many nice things about CA I wasn't surprised that people would naturally flock to the state for all it's sunny days and temperate climate.
However, I would NEVER live in Monterey/Salinas. If you're young, single and have no kids, you can afford to pay $2000 in rent every month and hang at the local bar (daily since there is nothing else to do there but drink). If you are retired and have a handsome retirement fund you can live there and sail, or open a local bar where all the single, young professionals can hang out all week night long.
The area we were in is all agriculture - lettuce, strawberries and the likes. California also breeds wine snobs! "Is there a note of chocolate in this bouquet?" one would hear at least once during dinner. Don't get me wrong, I like wine, but I don't presume to make a study of why I like the damn thing. I like what tastes good and if I like it enough, I might buy a bottle. I do not have the money nor the inclination to search out and join a wine tasting or wine tour purely for the sake of educating my nose to which fermented/rotten barrel of grapes could possibly house a 'note of chocolate'.
By golly if I wanted chocolate, I would have driven my butt to the nearest chocolatier, or the nearest supermarket!
Despite all sorts of issues related to travel and the wine snobs here and there, the view in Monterey is something to see. It was nice having the mountains as a back drop to your morning commute. It was interesting to see homes carved into the hillside. The last night I was there, we ate at a place called the FishHopper. The place literally stretched all the way out to the edge of the pier, and we sat surrounded by floor to celing window on three sides of us and watched an otter play in the evening fog that rolled onto the shore. We saw the sunset from Carmel beach. BEAUTIFUL.
I thought about my boys back home and wished they could have seen it with me.
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