We have a friend from NJ coming to visit, and she keeps referring to her “trip to Cali”. I find the term a bit grating, the kind of thing you only hear in rap music. I never hear people who live here call CA “Cali” but that might just be me and my particular work/social community.
So if you live in California, do you ever refer to your state as “Cali” in normal conversation?
It’s a NorCal thing. A pretentious NorCal thing at that. If you said that down here you’d get your ass kicked. By a grandmother.
Cali native…never use the term (except for just now).
It’s like “Frisco”. Only non-natives use it.
I’ve lived in Northern California for 32 years and have never heard this.
Roddy
Cali-for-nye-AY, motherfucker. 
Never Cali. Sometime SoCal.
That is because your aren’t pretentious, silly.
Lived in Norcal growing up. People from outside of California might refer to it as Cali. I noticed that when I lived in Asia. But I don’t and pretty sure no one in my circle from California ever called it Cali.
Norcal, Socal, California are all used but not Cali IMHexperience
I grew up in Chicago, but I’ve lived near San Jose for 27 years. I’ve never used it, and have heard it used exactly once, and that was by a non-California resident. And it sounds really stupid to my ears.
I’ve been here 10 years and I don’t think I ever heard anyone say “Cali”.
It’s California, or SoCal & NoCal.
Strangely, I don’t hear NorCal either. Maybe NoCal is a SoCal thing and NorCal is a NoCal thing … . 
SoCal native.
I definitely did not (and do not) say ‘Cali’.
I’ve lived in Northern California my whole life (42 yrs) and I’ve never heard a native say “Cali”. Not even the pretentious ones. I’ve only ever heard it used by non-Californians. I think they say it to sounds “hip” or something, but they just sound stupid
Grew up in SoCal to age 18. Never heard “Cali” except for back in the 80s when LL Cool J was “Goin’ Back to Cali, Cali, Cali…”
No, I don’t think so.
Lived in California for 16 years, in the Bay Area mostly & never heard anyone say Cali. As someone previously said, it’s like Frisco… only someone not from here says it.
I blame Guy Fieri.
I may have called it “Cali” a time or two, but that didn’t happen until after I’d moved away. But if I said I was going to Cali, I would mean Frisco or someplace other than where I lived (southern California). And yeah, I know “Frisco” annoys the people who live there.
Well, thank you. Very kind.
That would account for why I never used that term myself. The only thing that would account for why I never heard it is if no-one around me is pretentious either.
Roddy
I heard it frequently while living in Reno (about ten miles from the California border), at least a few times from a SoCal native.
I think in general people from an area don’t refer to it in an abbreviated form.
In Massachusetts I never hear natives refer to it as Mass. or MA. but people from out of town frequently do.
I do generally say MA when typing because I’m lazy though.
I’m from the SF Bay area (originally from central CA) and I’ve never once called it “Cali” nor heard any of my friends do it in 47 years.