Pasadena is the cultured, leafy counterpart to the sprawl of greater Los Angeles. While the rest of LA chases the next big thing, Pasadena holds onto its Craftsman bungalows, its tree-lined boulevards, and its world-class institutions with quiet confidence. You probably know it from the Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses Parade, but there is far more here than New Year's Day football.
The city punches well above its weight intellectually. Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are both here, which means this small city has had an outsized role in everything from earthquake science to Mars rovers. The Norton Simon Museum holds one of the finest private art collections in the country, and the Huntington Library — technically just across the border in San Marino, but everyone calls it Pasadena — is reason enough to visit Southern California.
Old Pasadena, the revitalized historic downtown along Colorado Boulevard, is the heart of the city's social life. The brick buildings that once housed hardware stores and feed shops now hold independent restaurants, bookshops, and bars. It is one of the few walkable, genuinely pleasant downtown districts in all of LA County. South Lake Avenue offers a quieter, more local shopping stretch, and the residential streets radiating out from both are full of early-twentieth-century architecture worth wandering past.
The weather is reliably warm and dry, with the San Gabriel Mountains rising sharply to the north as a dramatic backdrop. On clear days — and there are many — you can see the peaks dusted with snow while sitting outside in shirtsleeves. It is an easy place to like.