Odd question for anyone who's been to LA

[bookworm1982]

Someone who visited said to me that it smelt gorgeous, because of all the plants and flowers etc, but when I read up on it it's a real mixture - some say absolutely lovely, like orange and jasmine and salty air and hot dogs, and then others saying the whole place stinks to high heaven, especially Santa Monica beach!

If anyone HAS been to LA and they remember a part of it that had a permanent, lovely smell, where was that and can you describe it please? Thank you so much xxx

Ooh interesting

I can’t say I’ve ever noticed around LA in general but (and I’m not sure if it’s the same now) on one visit around 15 years ago we stayed in Anaheim for a few days and there was a distinct smell of rosemary whenever we walked from the hotel towards Disney.

Can't remember it smelling particularly nice. Sure there are some oleander but also a huge amount of cars. In the more hilly bits more brush not scented flowers.

That's because Santa Monica beach has a large homeless population. But I'll probably get flamed for mentioning that because 'casual hatred of the poor' or something 🙄

Even San Francisco has/had it's own human poop patrol and an app called SnapCrap. I wish I was joking.

Well

this is not a nice story

The stench of rotting flesh festering in the sun. And as we turned thé corner we saw why. There was a dead chihuahua in a handbag slung onto the top of a bin.

That's awful. From what I remember LA itself was full of traffic fumes. Laguna beach, Balboa etc was more residential and fragrant. I couldn't say what flowers they were though

Been to LA and been to Florida, both places seemed to have a peppery smell, I thought!!
I was surprised at how runndown and scruffy Hollywood looked!!

Thank you! Some really interesting responses here! Rotting flesh though - yuck! ☹️

Didn't notice a particular smell really, agree with a PP, Hollywood is actually pretty drab, it's run down and a bit tired looking.

LA is massive as they don’t have a lot of high rises so the city is quite spread out. So there is no one smell that I can recall. My hotel had this great climbing Jasmine in the courtyard where we ate breakfast that I liked though.

I didn't notice any smell. LA is a bit scruffy in places. Huntington Beach/Newport Beach/Laguna etc all lovely.

I don't remember a particular smell. I remember lots of congestion and traffic on the roads. It was a concrete jungle. I preferred San Francisco and San Diego more.

LA is huge! And Santa Monica is actually a different city. But anyway… I lived there for years. I wouldn’t say it had one particular smell! I mean, when you’re sitting in solid traffic on the 10 freeway it smells of car fumes. When you’re walking down a residential street in Santa Monica you might smell jasmine or some other plant. Etc.

I didn’t notice a smell either, but it was hot with lots of homeless people and wannabe types. Beaches were amazing and I loved Santa Monica Pier. Apart from how the towns/houses/people looked and it’s in America (!), the climate and terrain to me seemed very much like the Canary Islands.

I’ve been and didn’t notice any smell. I was surprised at how run down a lot of LA is- some bits are quite dodgy. Lovely beaches though. And really cool street performers in some bits. I enjoyed it there though and the weather was amazing!

I remember beautiful scents, jasmine, candles...

I’ve visited LA a few times and it had no distinctive smell - it’s just a city with all the usual city smells.

Lived in Texas for a while - nothing special there either.

I don’t remember it smelling any different to any other city - nice bits, stinky bits, petrol-y bits.

Never noticed any specific smell either ,
love LA especially the beaches … Malibu and Venice as well as Santa Monica .
I try to go as often as I can

I honestly can't remember a smell, but it is so beautiful and would love to go back!

Downtown smelled very strongly of weed in my memory! A lot of medical marijuana around.

Probably worse now as you don't need to pretend to have a medical condition anymore.

Thanks again everyone. Jasmine seems to come up a fair bit, and I read that too in a few travel blogs (it's the good smells I am interested in!) 😃

LA is a dump. I don't remember any nice smells. Fast food maybe?!

i didnt notice any smell in particular, some bits you had the smell of weed, some just a normal city, and down the beach areas you could smell the ocean

The first and overiding memory of SF for me was arriving at our hotel at 5am and there were two people blatantly shitting on the pavement just to the side of the door.

Don't know about LA but most of SF stinks, as soon as you get to the piers it's all fishy sea lion smell.