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Going to LA
Septus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
On October 19th, I'm headed to the LA area for a wedding, and I need some ideas of things to do. I'm spending a day in Joshua Tree park, hiking around outside, but I'll have a Wednesday and a Friday in the city. I'm thinking about going to a boardwalk area in Newport, potentially a whale watching ride, but I could use some ideas for the city itself, like museums, areas that are particularly nice and walkable, or historic/architecturally interesting etc.
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I guess hitting some places on the way southeast of LAX on Wednesday would be good, unless that makes us miss something really great in the northern part of the city. But, I also want to give heed to travel time to some extent.
Also, eat In 'n Out.
Hiking at the Bronson Caves is fun, you can see where the cutaway for the original Batman TV show was shot!
The California Science Center is getting one of the shuttles and it might already be there, look into it because holy shit a shuttle.
CSC is right near the Natural History Museum, I wasn't a big fan. The Page museum at the Tar Pits was neat, really nothing else like it.
LACMA (LA's museum of art) is a solid choice is you like art
I also didn't spend a ton of time there, maybe I missed a few things?
edit: I've also been to a lot of natural history museums, so I've seen most of what they have on display elsewhere.
You're probably bound by time though, and my point was more that the History Museum won't give you anything unique over any other (good) history museum. Tar Pits and possibly seeing a shuttle though? More unique.
The beaches (malibu in particular) are great walks if you're not already jaded at the sight of the endless horizon. Venice beach is more about the people than the water but also quite a nice walk.
How much can I rely on google maps for travel times on a weekday, say between 10 and 4? The afternoon bit I imagine will be much morse.
I'm also considering spending a few hours on a boat whale watching. Good idea? Bad idea, for my first visit to the city? I do enjoy the ocean and wildlife.
There really isn't very much south of the airport...Manhattan beach is there I guess, which can be fun to walk around a bit, get some drinks, maybe watch some volleyball etc. If you really want to see L.A. though, you're going to have to go north, NW, or NE. Unless you want to up your street cred, in which case Compton is just a hop a skip and a drive by east.
Or there's the Watt's towers (http://www.wattstowers.us/) which are, uh...something! [Don't go to Watts]
I usually add a few minutes to online directions, but traffic does vary from street to street. If you're on Santa Monica Blvd. ever, for any reason, at any time of day, you're doing it wrong. Sunset gets bad at night. Try and stay away from freeways after ~4, Sepulveda is often a good alternative depending on where you're going. Weekends aren't as bad.
If you want to see a great beach, even though it's way, way out of the way, my top L.A. recommendation is to go see Matador Beach if you get a chance. It is a long drive, but you can take Pacific Coast Highway which is really beautiful in its own right.
Yeah, I was hoping that whatever beach I saw, would be to the southeast, and slowly travel toward that, but I may have to revise that.
I'm feeling more set on making sure to go to the natural history museum, so that at least puts me in the vicinity of some other museums, and presumably other fun stuff.
Also, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Yessss.
Go to In-N-Out.
Get some Fish tacos from one of the better taco stands. Whatever part of LA you're in, do a search for best fish tacos within 5 miles, and enjoy.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
Joshua Tree park was great, but probably too far of a drive to recommend to other people unless they specifically want to do rock climbing, or hike around the desert while in the general metro area.
Whale watching was not particularly impressive, but that may be a matter of managing expectations. I was probably hoping for much more than the average sightings. Newport beach was ok, the atmosphere was nothing to write home about, and if just going for the beach, it seems that I might have preferred Venice beach.
Also, using Yelp to pick highly rated(and not expensive) did not yield any impressive food. I'm assuming price was the catch here.