My partner and I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and needed a place to stay for a month in LA. We're not used to driving, so we thought this place might be a good fit for us because it's a very walkable neighborhood and close to the Little Tokyo subway stop. Pia and her studio loft exceeded our expectations!

This studio is very spacious, in a quiet building, with friendly neighborhoods. Great jacuzzi and grills on the rooftop with a view of the skyline. If you search this location on Google maps, it seems as if there's nothing but industrial buildings around, but there's many great hotspots that people drive here to visit. Around the block is Tokyo Marketplace, a massive grocery store where we did most of our grocery shopping and across the street is Resident LA that hosts a few Airstream trailers serving up wine/cocktails/beer, fancy burritos, and a concert venue in the basement. Walkable to several breweries, Little Tokyo, pop-up clothing shops, and my new favorite place to write/chill: The Springs LA. If you take an Uber to Echo Park/Silverlake/other East LA places, it's pretty reasonable (about $10). The new Expo line to Santa Monica opened up, so you can now take the subway about 45 minutes to the beach!

My only reservation is that you're quite close to what's left of Skid Row, so be vigilant if you are walking by yourself on Alameda or at night.

In terms of hosting, Pia is very quick to respond to any questions we had and offered a lot of great suggestions. She even checked up on us a couple of weeks later to make sure we were doing okay in the apartment.

I fell in love with the Arts District and it's only getting better. I'd definitely recommend this place if you need a writer's retreat, want to be near the hip spots in East LA but would still like a quick way to get to the beach.