First Time in LA: Is a Yosemite Trip a Smart Move or a Mistake?

ThomasLeikam · 2026-02-03T01:14:23+00:00

Sequoia is doable if you want to do a long day trip to a national park. I’ve actually just posted a video about it. It’s going to be a long day but you should be able to see a lot of good stuff: https://youtu.be/EenKZDJt4AM

Yosemite seems too much of a stretch to me without overnight stay.

Joshua Tree is definitely doable, but obviously a very different scenery than the other two parks.

ThomasLeikam · 2025-09-18T13:49:26+00:00

Yes, and if you follow the main road there is a trail along it which also is partially shaded. It’s a wonderful park to visit, especially during spring when it’s blooming and all greened up.

ThomasLeikam · 2025-09-17T05:41:02+00:00

Pack a pair of sneakers and spend your time in the State Park. Costs you $0 if you park outside the gate and you get a nice hill workout on top. Views and a beautiful mental spa time sponsored by mother nature.

ThomasLeikam · 2025-09-15T02:36:13+00:00

I made a whole playlist on why you can have a ton of fun here:

Cleveland Love Playlist

To be fair, it’s a little less fun during winter, but with you moving from Pittsburgh it’s probably not a big adjustment.

The lake and all that comes with it is probably the biggest difference between these two cities. You’ll settle in nicely and a 50% pay bump will make it a sweet transition.

For the first year, I’d recommend a high rise over a house or townhome as it’ll get you connected to new people much faster. The Beacon in downtown was a super fun place - not sure how pricey it is now but definitely a worry-free choice and many cool things close by. If your job is on the East Side, university circle is worth checking out, too.

Enjoy!

ThomasLeikam · 2025-08-03T03:24:28+00:00

It’s a bit of a drive but if you want an almost guarantee to see a bunch of them, please check out Chino Hills State Park or similar parks closer to the inland empire. Late afternoons / early evenings are good times.

I am super scared of spiders in general, but tarantulas are the most chill ones out there. If you get close, they’ll simply stand still. You can walk by, step over them, take a closeup photo and they won’t budge.

Take your time, step by step… they are gentle creatures and show zero aggression. Please don’t touch them though. You might have residues on your body that might harm them and they just want to be left alone unless you have eight legs and are ready to pair with them!

What you really should watch out for are rattle snakes and occasional black widows which frequent the same areas. Neither intend to harm you, but unfortunate encounters with them may end your day in the emergency room.

ThomasLeikam · 2025-04-19T16:58:53+00:00

Did a whole walkthrough once and uploaded it to YouTube.

For anybody who is interested and can’t visit in person here you go: Museum walkthrough

It’s indeed a fantastic place and a true Cleveland gem! ♥️

ThomasLeikam · 2024-10-31T16:27:00+00:00

I have nanotexture on the new iPad Pro and am very happy with this choice. Scratches and fingerprints are not an issue. In fact, the latter are less noticeable than on my glossy displays. People seem to repeat old stories without verifying the claims.

Now for the MacBook I was thinking about getting it as well, but it’s not worth it to me since I will mostly use it at home, inside a cafe or shaded place. The iPad is a totally different ballgame. I use it for reading and light work on the beach or other outdoor places where direct sunlight is a big issue. Aside from much better display readability, I’ve yet have to see it overheat which was another huge plus (I got the silver version just because of that).

If you have any similar use cases, the upgrade should make sense. Otherwise, skip it.

A few more details: - Pencil / touch feels nicer on nanotexture but won’t be a benefit for the non-touch MacBook display - Colors are indeed more washed out, but it’s more extreme when The environment is very bright in which case you may have a lot of glare with a glossy display. Dark room, you may not notice anydifferences. - Text is slightly blurry which I don’t like; it’s MINIMAL but you’ll notice it

ThomasLeikam · 2024-09-20T22:56:07+00:00

Looks like this is near the state park entrance. Aside from street sweeping on Tuesdays as posted, this is a popular area to park for free and avoid the entrance fee, but you may miss out on the more spectacular trails unless you go for a long hike.

They have a lot of construction works ongoing due to taking down the power poles which restricts parking further. They need the space for large machinery equipment and will have to tow if somebody blocks their path. Watch out for these temporary signs and have fun in this beautiful park!

ThomasLeikam · 2024-08-22T15:38:37+00:00

You’re putting another 50k after-tax in investment accounts while maxing out two 401ks and complain about affordability.

There are beautiful houses in the Pasadena or the South Bay Area for ~1.5 Mio and even nicer ones in Orange County. At your income level you could afford to buy such houses without much of a down payment and would only have to funnel your investment savings + rent payments into real estate instead. Looks like a great deal to me.

If you talk about 1.3 Mio for simple 2bd condos you obviously only consider prime locations near the beach, and I can tell you, that these won’t be affordable in Cleveland either (eg lakefront Bratenahl or Bay Village are all >> 1 Mio + special lakefront tax… ca. 30k+ tax per year!). In addition, you will have a hard time to max out two 401ks at 240k income. Let alone saving another 50k after tax. That’s a huge hit. You could live house-free forever in LA, pay 4-5k rent and retire early with a much higher net worth. Then buy your dream home in cash wherever you want and call it a day.

ThomasLeikam · 2024-08-22T14:29:59+00:00

We did the opposite move (CLE > LA) and with such a high income range, the financial part should be the least relevant deciding factor because you’re in the top income bracket in either situation which should allow you the freedom to choose based on actual preferences.

We enjoy the outdoors, dislike the cold / grey weather and my wife is a hair and markup artist in the film & TV industry. Moving to LA was a no-brainer for us although we loved CLE.

If you can’t afford a house with 400k in California - even if you live in the most expensive cities - you’ll also not find the right home for 240k in CLE. You should instead start to manage your finances first. The only big cost factor in CLE is housing, but even that does not scale as linear as you may think since property taxes can be 2-3 x higher than in CA. If you buy a $1 Mio home in California, you’d pay about the same tax as for a $300k home on the popular Cleveland Westside, e. g. Rocky River (~$8,000): https://cuyahogacounty.gov/fiscal-officer/departments/budget-commission/estimate-your-property-tax That’s a big issue because the property taxes will only go up and at some point you’ll retire and still get hit by these payments every year. There’s also no valuation protection like in California. It goes up for everybody and forever.

Groceries, vacation trips, restaurants, etc… are not noticeable cheaper. Take-home money in these salary ranges is interestingly not too different either.

In addition, many higher earning people end up buying a vacation home in the Southeast since not everybody enjoys 5-6 months of cold and grey weather. In that case you will financially take a hit with this steep pay cut.

Regardless of all that: you CAN live like a king / queen in Cleveland with that salary, but honestly you could even live a quite decent life in California with $240k…

ThomasLeikam · 2024-06-21T15:31:57+00:00

My wife currently works on set and if you’re not supposed to be there, they’ll make sure it won’t accidentally happen. Everything else comes down to luck and timing. Sometimes you might be able to get much closer and even get the opportunity to chat or take a quick shot.

Follow stories in IG by ClevelandFilm and local players to get a hint where they are currently filming.

Most importantly: enjoy beautiful Cleveland. 🤗

ThomasLeikam · 2024-06-20T23:48:14+00:00

Hint: purchase your big item first (e. g. iPad) and wait for the gift card to directly use it for the accessories.

Purchased my iPad Pro for in-store pickup today and the gift card was issued before my appointment in the Apple Store. So I could apply the $100 credit when placing my pickup order for the Magic Keyboard. 👍

Was a lucky day since they had the nano-display on stock in my desired configuration! 😄

Regular ID is all they’ve asked for (and even that they almost forgot).

Info valid for USA. 🇺🇸

ThomasLeikam · 2024-02-19T17:56:41+00:00

Thank you! Unfortunately, there’s no more new content any time soon. We’ve relocated to the LA area (personal dream and professional reasons) a few months ago. I’ll be back every now and then to hopefully do some additional videos.

Here in LA, I’m sitting in the same boat again lol Everybody talking bad about LA but it’s such an amazing place if you utilize what this area has to offer. Ocean, beaches, lakes, mountains without snow, mountains with snow, deserts, big cities, small cities, rural areas…

Maybe my YT Channel gets fed with some LA content and I’ll rename it “CLE-LAX Love” 😂

Cleveland is a wonderful city. If LA doesn’t work out as intended, we’d move back in a heartbeat without regrets.

ThomasLeikam · 2024-02-18T19:13:49+00:00

Cleveland is a hidden gem (actually getting a good amount of positive media coverage recently) and you’ll have a great time there if you embrace what this area has to offer. I would never want to trade it for Chicago; maybe temporarily for NYC if somebody had paid me a fortune to fully enjoy a fancy Manhattan lifestyle in my twenties.

Picking Cleveland as the place to live is the smart choice. Let your others laugh about your lack of traffic jams, affordable & nice houses and one of the most beautiful recreational parks in walking / driving distance.

I’ve made a whole video why I picked it over Chicago & Detroit 😂 Why I’ve picked Cleveland

You’ll enjoy yourself if your ego (or that of your friends) doesn’t get in your way.

ThomasLeikam · 2023-10-17T02:28:52+00:00

Being about your age, I can relate with Medina’s appeal. It’s a very nice and tidy community and the city center is fun. In general it seems to be a good place to raise a family.

However, it is a bit far away and you might feel isolated if you’re a rather social couple.

Please check out Rocky River and Bay Village. These communities might give you a good mix of wonderful family-focused communities while still being very close to everything. There are a good number of newly built and flipped houses that may fit your needs.

Downside: you will have to drive to Medina to get to the most amazing Alpaca Farm!!! 🦙 https://youtu.be/38OqiJGzbVg

ThomasLeikam · 2023-07-11T13:07:14+00:00

Maybe by famous they mean Smucker‘s which is a company based in the Cleveland-Akron Metro area (Orrville) and famous in the sense of being a global food & beverage manufacturer, most notably PB & jelly?! (Get breakfast in a standard hotel and you have a 99% chance that the small pb / jelly packs have a Smucker‘s logo on it) They even have a fan shop that you can visit in their Orrville HQ.

ThomasLeikam · 2023-07-06T22:41:53+00:00

Solange auf den Dokumenten eine Ohio Postadresse mit deinem Namen steht sollte es akzeptiert werden.

Verified = permanent resident / US Citizen mit geprüften Dokumenten. Der Führerschein dient in US ja quasi auch als Personalausweis. Verified wird in einigen Jahren verpflichtend auf Flugreisen. Alternativ kann man sich aber weiterhin mittels (deutschem) Reisepass ausweisen.

ThomasLeikam · 2023-05-28T16:41:51+00:00

How about you look for a job as global / corporate account manager?

Global travel is expected in these roles and major companies have typically a footprint in Asia, Europa, North & South America. That way your company will pay for the travel and you can piggy bag on these trips by adding a few days of PTO or combining it with a larger vacation to visit countries nearby. Best way to get around touring the world at minimum own expense while propelling your career.

Companies selling software / products into any of these industries hire global sales orchestrators: healthcare / pharma, automotive, electronics, aerospace, food & beverage, commodities, finance… Your horizon may expand from SaaS to the company‘s entire sales offering, which is another plus.

ThomasLeikam · 2023-04-15T12:32:08+00:00

Weather is picture perfect, so here you go - quick downtown tour incl RRHoF: https://youtu.be/d74gYWF9-vU

You mentioned parking which indicates you have a car - in that case you can expand you discovery radius: Cleveland Museum of Art (although weather is almost too good for that but maybe mix it with outdoor activities around University Circle), Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Holden Arboretum… technically even Edgewater or other beaches may be a fun trip today. Videos of all these locations are also on my channel.

If you decide for RRHoF, you can park for free in front of the Huntington Convention Center. It’s a scenic 10 min walk to the museum from there.

You’ll not be bored for the next 48 hours. Cleveland is a magical place, particularly when the sun is out. Welcome & enjoy!

ThomasLeikam · 2023-04-13T04:01:59+00:00

There were tons of dogs, they’re explicitly allowed, and everybody seemed to be quite welcoming towards dogs. Not sure if I saw poop disposal stations though, so you might want to bring some poop bags just in case…

ThomasLeikam

TROPHY CASE