I'm old and fat, and should go to the gym, but the enquiry is for my son. He's 18, and finishing high school next week. We live in the Olympia area.

When we used my money for him to go to a gym, he went to the Brian Johnson Academy, and then his friends all talked him into going to Crunch Fitness. Well, Crunch went out of business, and his wallet wouldn't support BJA. He's thinking LA Fitness or Planet Fitness, but there are other local gyms he'd consider. For him, budget is a real concern.

Does anyone have good experience one way or another?

I’ve heard Planet Fitness can be hard to quit.

As in, you can cancel, but they often keep billing your credit card, then mess with your credit.

LA Fitness near us has a pool, Sauna, etc., and The PF does not…

LA fitness has more free weights than the local PFs do. If he’s in to clanging and banging. LA is where it’s at. If he’s in to resistance machines, then PF.

That being said, the PF on the west side has a packed parking lot all the time. Not sure of the sausage ratio, but there is a lot of people in that building.

do NOT go to Planet Fitness. They've been flagged by credit card companies because of their practices and can no longer take credit cards for membership charges. They now make you link you BANK ACCOUNT for them to auto-draft monthly charges.
LOL

repeat: do NOT initiate a membership with Planet Fitness.

Planet Fitness is shit, I left there and started at the local Anytime Fitness by my house before Covid hit.

Its open 24 hours, you get an RFID for the door, not always the biggest locations but nice equipment.

If you have the space at home, look on Offerup, Play it again sports, or Craigslist for used equipment, or try Top Fitness for new stuff.. Now that the gyms are open, lots of people are selling the stuff they bought during Covid to work out at home with for a fraction of what it was new. I filled my garage with some new and some used equipment for under $6k.

If its at home, you might use it too.