California vs. New York

Most likely, you’ve heard of New York.  It’s where you live.  If you know what New York is, you most likely have also heard of California.  If you DON’T know what California is though, it’s a state, similar to New York, but much larger and on the West Coast, instead of the East.

I’m going to compare these two states using a series of subjects, and if you want to you can play along.  If you do, then whichever you prefer in the subject, (For example, if you prefer the climate of California to New York after reading the comparison, then New York would get a point, and whichever has the most points at the end would probably be your favorite).

You might think that since I’m a New Yorker, I would be automatically biased.  Well, I moved from California about a year ago, and so I actually KNOW both places, I’m not just getting everything off the internet.

Okay, let’s start with climate. 

California’s climate is much less diverse and is usually just warm all year round. In my ten years of living there I never once had to put on a coat.  As you can see, the climate is always very warm, and NEVER drops below freezing. It’s like summer all year; winter is basically cool-ish summer.  The seasons are much less pronounced and the leaves don’t change very much.  Now, for New York’s climate. I haven’t lived here as long so I don’t really have the gist of the weather yet, but so far it ACTUALLY snowed; the summer was pretty hot but not as hot, and spring didn’t change very much.

The summers are more humid, the winters are colder, the fall actually has leaves that fall, and the spring is basically the same. New York is basically the more extreme version of California in climate.  (Except Spring and the heat intensity).  And personally, I like that better (also I like cold much more than hot).

Now, you might be asking, WHERE’S THE DATA? Well, the average temperature was misleading, and the highest and lowest temperature would not agree on any site, and were ALSO misleading, so I just decided, Heck, don’t I just have NO data? I have experience! Also I did research. It’s just the absolute TEMPERATURES and GRAPHS were hard to find. I spent like three whole hours trying to find stuff,

Now let’s move on to size. If you do not know already, California is the THIRD largest state, with a whopping 164,000 mi2. That’s very big. New York’s is… 55,000mi2. Wow. That means California is about the size of 3 New York. Wow. Personally, I like large states more because then there’s so much more to explore. San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Yosemite, Disney, Hollywood, so many places to explore! 

Now let’s move on to the oceans.

As I said before, California is on the West Coast, and New York is on the East Coast. This means that California is next to the Pacific and New York is next to the Atlantic. Well, I know this probably doesn’t matter to you specifically, but the Pacific is the largest ocean and the Atlantic is the second largest. Just some cool trivia. Anyway, if you’re looking for vacation spots, the Atlantic has the Bahamas SUPER close to New York. Like, a three hour plane ride. The Pacific has Hawaii as a vacation destination, but it’s a whole six hour flight away. If you’re concerned about time, New York is the way to go. If you don’t care, then this piece is probably worthless to you unless you strongly prefer the Bahamas over Hawaii or the other way around. Now let’s compare the beaches. The water in the Atlantic is significantly warmer, and the Atlantic is much more salty. The Atlantic also has higher sea levels. But, the waves in the ocean are much more crazy in the Pacific.

This, for me, gives a point to the Atlantic, or New York. In my opinion, size and salt don’t really matter to me, what matters is temperature and vacation spots, and although I don’t significantly prefer Hawaii to the Bahamas or vise versa, the fact that the Atlantic is warmer and New York is much closer to the Bahamas than California is to Hawaii just makes me all the more excited about Atlantic adventures.

Now, for the layout. In California, everything is farther apart, but more full of nature and less compact. Things are less tall because they’re working with a much larger piece of land, so they don’t HAVE to be. In New York, everything is much closer together, since it’s much smaller, especially in the city. Everything is so compact and tall and it can sometimes make me claustrophobic when it’s crowded. That’s not to say I don’t love New York City, it’s super beautiful. It’s just to me, personally, I prefer the layout of California to New York.

Now, the finale, LANDMARKS (or just famous towns/areas). Landmarks are important because they’re how you know a place. It’s iconic. I doubt you would know much about California if it wasn’t for Disneyland, or the Hollywood sign-hill thing, or the Golden Gate bridge. All of those are iconic landmarks of California. New York has them too. The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, Coney Island, Montauk, all those things are iconic parts of New York! Personally, I’m indecisive on this one. I love all of these landmarks, and to me, they’re all equally amazing.

In conclusion, I cannot decide between the two. They are both amazing, and if you haven’t yet, I hope you go on vacation to California to experience it all. This was an opinion article where I wasn’t really TRYING to convince you of anything. You have your opinion, but I really hope you will go to California. It’s really great, even if it’s not better than New York in your opinion.