I have at least visited every state west of the Mississippi, and all of the SE. Visited Hawaii but never Alaska. So basically everywhere except the whole original 13 colonies type areas. There are plenty of places that are decent and I'd be fine living in, but California would be the undisputed best if it weren't for the massive shithole that is their politics (including things like auto regulations, building codes, etc.) the past few decades.
Anywhere that you have humidity is automatically inferior in terms of weather. San Diego is literally the best weather I can ever imagine, anywhere, anytime. The rest of the state can fluctuate a ton, like where I live in Sacramento we get as low as maybe 25 in winter (no snow though) and as high as 115 in summer. Still better than almost anywhere else. And I can go 2 hours west and get to the beach, and 2 hours east and go skiing.
I actually hate San Francisco in terms of if I had to live there, and I have no desire to sightsee and tour anymore, but to someone into that sort of city it is awesome. Los Angeles is a shithole unless you're in one of the suburbs, but you can't deny the importance it has in so many different industries.
We grow practically everything you can fucking grow, and probably more of it than anywhere else. Many people consider the wines, cheeses, nuts, avocados, countless other things, among the best in the nation.
Our drawbacks are the shitty politicians and all that comes with that (not even saying just the liberal side of things, I mean all the people only in it for their own benefit or special interest groups), way too many illegal immigrants, shitty education policies, and shitty water management. Remedy the politician part of that equation so that they fix shit like immigration, sanctuary states, excessive regulations, water, education, etc. and I would say that California blows everyone else away, not even close.
Oh, and the cost of living in any major metropolitan area is probably a lot higher than the national average. Sacramento is even getting fucking outrageous, and it is nothing like SF, LA, SD.
But since we've got all those problems, it is getting harder and harder to justify staying here, unfortunately. The cost more than anything really is really fucking hurting, but the SJW shit is getting really out of hand too. I'm afraid if something doesn't change soon we're going to be the worst state in the union.