The Inland Empire's name is misleading in one major sense - it's no empire. Empires have a central palace or mansion from which all life radiates. If a city or metropolitan area is an "empire" then its commercial business districts with office buildings, city hall's, libraries, restaurants, bars, museums, sports stadiums, etc. would be it's palace. The Inland Empire doesn't have any of that. The Inland Empire is a collection of towns thrown together, not thrown around central hub, that seems to lack any cultural or historical shared experiences to bring everyone together. There's this strange sense of openness.
What to do in The Inland Empire? A search of local activities and "Best ofs..." turns up a pretty disappointing list: The #2 Sports Bar: Applebee's. The #3 Breakfast Spot: Denny's. Come on Inland Empire. There's more here than that. Not much. But there is more.
What to do in The Inland Empire? A search of local activities and "Best ofs..." turns up a pretty disappointing list: The #2 Sports Bar: Applebee's. The #3 Breakfast Spot: Denny's. Come on Inland Empire. There's more here than that. Not much. But there is more.
The LA Metropolitan area, consisting of LA and Orange counties, has 13.3M people making it the second largest metropolitan area in the US. The Inland Empire, consisting of San Bernadino and Riverside Counties, is its own metropolitan area of 4.5M people. It is 13th largest metropolitan area in the US. How many Americans know that? Without a sports team, without a downtown core and skyline, most Americans have no idea what or even where the Inland Empire is. To put this in perspective it would be like if people hadn't ever heard of Phoenix, San Francisco, Boston or Atlanta. Which is crazy.
I'm always amazed when I travel through China and India of the cities with populations over 1,000,000 that I've never heard of. Both countries have sprawling metropolises that get crowded out by Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta. It's hard to believe that a place like that could exist in the U.S. California and the Inland Empire is similar, only instead of a 1M person threshold a 100K threshold is more appropriate. The Inland Empire alone has eleven cities with a population over 100,000:
Would anyone actually visit Riverside over Pittsburgh? I'll go ahead and say no. Pittsburgh has much more to see, do, eat, and drink. Riverside has a large Spanish Mission Church and a block away is the Mission Inn - site of Richard Nixon's wedding. It's hosted nearly every President over the years and is an opulent hotel.
I'm always amazed when I travel through China and India of the cities with populations over 1,000,000 that I've never heard of. Both countries have sprawling metropolises that get crowded out by Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta. It's hard to believe that a place like that could exist in the U.S. California and the Inland Empire is similar, only instead of a 1M person threshold a 100K threshold is more appropriate. The Inland Empire alone has eleven cities with a population over 100,000:
- Riverside: 322,424
- San Bernadino: 216,108
- Fontana: 207,460
- Moreno Valley: 204,198
- Rancho Cucamonga: 175,236
- Ontario: 171,214
- Corona: 164,226
- Temecula: 112,011
- Murrieta: 109,830
- Rialto: 103,132
- Jurupa Valley: 100,314
Would anyone actually visit Riverside over Pittsburgh? I'll go ahead and say no. Pittsburgh has much more to see, do, eat, and drink. Riverside has a large Spanish Mission Church and a block away is the Mission Inn - site of Richard Nixon's wedding. It's hosted nearly every President over the years and is an opulent hotel.
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San Bernandino is the Inland Empire city I'm most familiar with. It has more of a city feel than Riverside although there's patches of nothingness around the city's airport. San Bernandino is the first town west of the desert and effectively served as a welcoming point for travelers heading to Los Angeles along Route 66. The McDonald Brothers opened there first hamburger barbecue joint along Route 66. Today he location is an un-official McDonald's museum holding all sorts of memorabilia and knick knacks.
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Redlands is a nice small town just east of San Bernandino. Augie's Coffee is a great place to stop for a morning caffeine fix. It's in a commercial area with a decent Main Street.
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I struggled with exploring and finding things to do in the Inland Empire. Despite the proliferation of restaurant chains and big box stores, there's a burgeoning movement for microbreweries. Brewers have taken advantage of all the warehouses and use the unrented open spaces to brew beer. The microbreweries all kind of look the same in that they are in warehouse districts away from a commercial thoroughfare but the beer mostly tasted good and it is a pretty cool environment.