For Los Angeles, everyone has these very varied preconceived notions about it, so much so that, depending on their experience, it either meets or exceeds their expectations, or disappoints; they come away loving it, hating it, and/or everything in between. Los Angeles is also very geographically huge, so, visitors will have very subjective experiences depending on which part of LA they spend most of their time in, or if they traveled around this very large metropolis; if they spent their time taking public transportation vs. driving around to get to where they want to go. I think some people are intimidated about driving in LA, and its size. I also think some people are actually even scared about driving in LA, and scared of taking public transportation in LA. It's funny, because back in the early 90s, a Canadian pen-pal I had from Edmonton came to visit me; he stayed at a hotel in Santa Monica, took the bus EVERYWHERE, and loved his vacation in LA. He stayed for about a week. So I think too, it depends on how adventurous a visitor is.
But the one universal thing that many around the world think LA has---good weather. I'm typing this right now, a week into summer, looking out my office window from work at 8:30-ish am... and it's dark and gray and misty and very cool. We are going through our June Gloom period, when basically, it's cloudy and cool from morning until about noon, give or take an hour. Sometimes it even drizzles. We go through this in May, too, and we call it May Gray. Last year, my Dutch friend visited me and my partner and stayed here for a week, and for 4 of the days he was here, IT RAINED. He was expecting sunny weather, too. I said "you brought the weather from Utrecht with you." Hehe I even found myself apologizing for the weather, and he said "It's no big deal, I can handle rain."
For me, I LOVE this kind of weather, because most of the year, it is indeed sunny, and especially in summer, it can get very hot. So I appreciate the nice cool cloudy weather when we do get it, because basically from July until mid-October, it's gonna be hot, though people visiting from other parts of the US LOVE it for some reason. I guess because we don't get the humidity that other parts of the US do.
I've had relatives visit from Chicago and New Jersey during winter, and it's funny to me because I will ask them "are you cold?" And they'll say "PLEASE, this isn't cold!" And then when nighttime arrives and we're still out and about, I can tell they're cold, hehe. And then when we go out again at night, they'll bring their jacket.
I recently watched some travel vloggers on Youtube talk about their experiences visiting LA. Some love it, and some are let down by it; I saw some travel vloggers say that they were disappointed with LA's weather... and sure enough, they were here in late June/early July. It amuses me too the things they said they did in LA, and I'm all thinking "well, no wonder you didn't care for it." The funny thing is, there are a number of videos of people who "try In-N-Out for the first time." PLEASE. When my Dutch friend visited last year, I made it a point to take him to authentic Thai restaurants, Armenian-Lebanese places, very good Mexican restaurants that are totally in the barrio, really good sushi places, Persian ice cream... none of that fast-food shit. He loved it all. And I also made it a point to drive through areas I always drive through, the really gritty parts of LA that tourists probably usually don't see, like El Sereno, East LA, etc. He's very well-traveled, too, he's been to every continent except Antarctica... and he came away saying that while he was in LA, he often felt like he was in Asia. Haha!