Take it from a mega business traveler who has spent thousands of nights in hotels & AirBnBs. Stop reading go book this now, it's the nicest place to stay in that you can possibly find. I'll wait, because this is going to be a long review...
Okay, now that you're back: My wife and 2 college daughters stayed here for 5 weeks as we live in NorCal and I had to wrap up an onsite project, and they're all remote work/study.
Pros:
- REAL KNIVES! (We usually bring our own or a knife sharpener, we prefer to cook half our meals)
- Complete kitchen utensils/pots/etc (see above)
- Air conditioning works like a dream (insane country wide heat snap while we were there, temps were 90-100 and 75 at 8am. It was put to the test.)
- Quiet neighbors/complex
- Outdoor patio perfect for work or reading (but note quiet line above - don't be "that neighbor" and talk on conference calls destroying the quiet)
- 2 car garage had room for me to set up my indoor exercise bike so wife/I could work out given aforementioned heat snap.
- Washer/dryer are in garage so you can do laundry without any noise bothering you.
- Less than 10-minute walk to: 1) Fancy coffee shop (superba), 2) Starbucks, 3) Shake Shack (uh oh), 4) Whole Foods, 5) Trader Joes, much more (on Arroyo)
- 1 mile walk (20 mins with our 18 pound dog) to Lake Ave with TONS of restaurants, more coffee, bagels, ice cream, cocktails
-4-minute drive to Vons (Safeway in other parts of the country)
- 5-10 minutes to Old Town pasadena with still yet even more coffee shops, restaurants, etc (ahem Intelligentsia coffee rocks)
- 45 minutes to Manhattan/Venice/etc beach
- Tesla supercharger 2 blocks away, I think I saw four Level 2 non-Tesla chargers there too not sure
- Location is ideal for runners. I racked up 51 unique miles out of 100 total in a month, always felt safe.
- Neighbors on the block are SUPER nice & friendly. Two saw that I was a runner, asked me to run with them. Two others have dogs and our dogs would "play" (once we both made sure they got along).
Cons:
- Nothing about the Airbnb itself, that was truly phenomenal.
- If you're not a cyclist (and bringing a bike), nothing about the location. Also phenomenal.
- Cyclists: Based on where you're from, Pasadena is either awesome or awful. My midwestern friends are used to no bicycle safety/awareness from cars, they think Pasadena is great. I'm from NorCal where even with painted bike lanes cars slow down to 25mph when they pass you. I did ~45 miles total around Pasadena, some stretches are okay but others are just terrifying with cars passing you at 45mph with 3 feet of margin. I had planned on doing 200 miles but stopped and did 100% running instead.
We would absolutely love to stay there again.