[JavaBrewer]

Traffic - we drove home to San Marcos from Santa Barbara on New Years day. Took the 101 South to 5 South and hit Hollywood area at 1:00 pm. No traffic!!! WTH?? Entire drive took 2 hrs 37 minutes and that included a 10 minute stop at Subway in Oxnard. The same drive has taken me as long as 5+ hours.

Agree with ^Eric. I travel quite a bit and find that prices follow quality pretty much the same wherever I am. The only two exceptions to that is anywhere on the Las Vegas strip and in Tokyo where everything is about 2-3x more expensive.