It has a park

It's not too far from the coast, it seems quite a convivial place.

Unless they are seriously loaded, they are going to have to look at places like this.

Houses are still around $3,000 to rent though:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11...20438453_zpid/

And now back to the real question –VISA. Not to be rude but “we are seriously thinking of moving in a year or two” does not quite cut it.

Need to have a business plan and serious money to move.

That sounds reasonable...cost us over $2K per month to rent an apartment 15 yrs ago.

The public schools that your children will go to is determined by the address of your home. Use the following map to get an idea of the rank of schools in different areas. You can click on any of the symbols to get more information about the school.

http://schoolperformancemaps.com/ca/...00159%2C11%2C1

Thanks for your replies guys, we have been to LA on a number of occasions now but not enough to know where we would ideally like to live. I am interested to hear what you, being Brits, seeing it and having done it think. Can you all come up with some locations that you suggest we should visit whilst we are there in December. Ideally we would like to stay a week in one area and a week in another as this should give us a good feel for them. Schools are very important so we need to be near great schools, and without wishing to sound snobby private is our preference, any suggestions? As for the living area, we just want to be near a great community, outdoor playing parks, activity centres etc. Speak soon, Alvin

Private will cost...in NJ kindergarten starts around $25k per year. You are also expected to cough up a 'healthy donation' each year. Google is your friend.

Thanks Jersey girl!!

If you Google to find the names of private schools in Ca and go to their website the fees will probably be listed.

Need to establish the area we would like to relocate to first I suppose!!

Since you ask, I suggest you concentrate your efforts on the visa - without which, all of this is just a pipe dream. You are setting yourself up for heartache if you don't get the visa - especially if you put so much effort into researching where to live, what school to send the kids to, and just about everything else. No visa = no move. Once you get the visa, there's plenty of time to sort out the rest of it.

Ian

I realise you're probably only sussing this all out at the moment...but as Ian has said you really need to sort the visa out first. If you can't get a visa you're wasting your time looking at school fees, areas to live etc.

Figure out the likelyhood of getting the visa, if it's no chance, don't waste the time and enjoy the holiday.

My morning commute in LA is 50 miles, takes about 45 minutes. Apparently I live in the right part, up the hill


As for the OP's asking about Santa Monica:

There are approx 300,000 Brit ex pats living in California, with the exception of maybe 6 of us, all the others seem to live in Santa Monica. As you're from Pompey you'l understand this: It's like Southampton, but with scouse accents...

I appreciate this probably doesn’t work without the Visa but I am sure well find a way around this if LA is the place we finally want to move to. Plus it would be like saving for a car we’ve never driven..... I would rather get to know the areas first, see what they are like then once we have definitely decided that LA is for us then we can exhaust the Visa situation. But I am aware and take on board your advice that it is not as straight forward as the UK. All you have to do here is seek asylum and not only are you fine, they give you all the benefits you could ever dream of....