The Best Places To Visit In LA
OUTDOORS
Sunset Strip
The stretch of Sunset Boulevard that runs through West Hollywood has a colourful history. Sitting just outside LA’s city limits, it became a hotbed of gambling in the 1920s and drinking during the Prohibition era. It was also ground zero for the hell raisers of the 80s hair metal scene, including Motley Crue. Take a walk along it to see legendary venues like the Whisky A Go Go, where the Doors were once the house band.
Santa Monica Pier
Santa Monica Pier has outlasted some grim beginnings as a sewage outlet to become one of the world’s best-known pleasure palaces. The entertainment tends toward the kitsch, but you can’t claim to have done the pier if you haven’t ridden its merry go-round. There are 12 more rides within the amusement park, including the world’s only solar-powered ferris wheel, but it’s also possible to enjoy a lower-octane stroll along the pier’s length.
Visit SantaMonicaPier.org
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The first star on the world’s most famous sidewalk was laid in 1960. Today, you’ll find the stars on both sides of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. Recent additions include Chris Hemsworth and Dr Dre, and there are getting on for 3,000 in total now. Want to find someone in particular? Use the database on the website below.
Visit WalkOfFame.com
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Huntington Botanical Gardens
Take time out from the city at this 130-acre collection of themed gardens in Pasadena. Get lucky and you might see one of Huntington’s corpse flowers in its pomp – they bloom for just a day or so each year and give off a spectacular stink while they do. Also on site, there’s a Library full of rare books and the Art Gallery, whose globally minded permanent collection is supplemented by rotating exhibitions – look out for a typically evocative Edward Hopper.
Visit Huntington.org
Beverly Cañon Gardens
Right in Beverly Hills, next to the Maybourne hotel, this green space has become one of the city’s invaluable decompression chambers. It encompasses public gardens, outdoor dining areas, water features, landscaped gardens, and colonnaded walkways connecting Beverly and Cañon Drives. On Thursday evenings in summer, there’s usually free live music.
Visit LoveBeverlyHills.com
Venice Beach Canals District
Abbot Kinney, the man who gave his name to Venice Beach’s favourite boulevard, was a developer who built a series of canals in the area at the turn of the last century. Some of the waterways, which Kinney hoped would emulate those of the original Venice, survive today and are lined with homes, which were once affordable but are now among LA’s most expensive – Julia Roberts and Nicolas Cage have lived here at different times. You can hire a boat to explore the area, though wandering its ‘walk streets’ on foot can be just as rewarding.
Hollywood Bowl
This century-old amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills is one of the world’s great live venues. In the 60s, the Beatles, the Doors and Jimi Hendrix all played here. A decade later, it was Pink Floyd and Elton John. More recently, it appeared in Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever concert film. Its 2024 season runs from Khruangbin, The National and Anderson .Paak to Bob Dylan and Toto.
Visit HollywoodBowl.com
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Hollywood Forever Cemetery
There can’t be many places in the world that are both cultural events hub and full-service cemetery. Just off Santa Monica Boulevard, this is one of them. Famous names within the grounds of Hollywood Forever run from silver-screen legends like Judy Garland to more recent musicians like Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and members of The Ramones. But the place also hosts movie nights in summer and autumn. Screenings take place on its Fairbanks Lawn, where you’ll be both beneath the stars and surrounded by them.
Visit HollywoodForever.com
Balboa Island & Peninsula
Balboa Island is a popular day-trip destination in the middle of Newport Beach harbour – drive between the two along shop-lined Marine Avenue. It’s a short journey, but there’s definitely a time gap between the mainland and the island, which is lined with old-time holiday homes. Catch a ferry to the outer Balboa Peninsula and you’ll find a designated Fun Zone for old-school seaside entertainment.
Visit BalboaIsland.com
Hiking Trails
A car might be a key part of everyday Angeleno life, but within the urban sprawl there are some green pockets best explored and enjoyed on foot or bike. Climbing to almost 500 metres above sea level, Griffith Park has some special city views. It also has 70 miles of trails that can take you to places from the handsome Griffith Observatory – on the southern slope of Mount Hollywood, it’s one of the best places to see the sign – to an abandoned zoo. The Wisdom Tree, lone survivor of a 2007 wildfire, is worth the climb too. On clear days, Runyon Canyon close to the Hollywood Hills has views to the Pacific Ocean. Close to its south entrance, there are donation-based yoga classes each morning. Further out of town, on either side of the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, Temescal Canyon and Los Leones Canyon are rewarding natural escapes.
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INDOORS
Stahl House
In the Hollywood Hills, the Stahl House is an icon of mid-century style. Built in the 60s as an idealistic solution to the nation’s post-war housing shortage, its glass walls and sharp steel features offered a modernist update of the old American dream. There are two or three guided tours a week and you should take one while you can – the Stahl family are seriously concerned that planned developments nearby could undermine the cliff it sits on top of.
Visit StahlHouse.com
Gagosian Beverly Hills
A mainstay of the 90210 art scene, Gagosian Beverly Hills caught eyes around the world with its 2024 Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition. Gagosian himself curated it, having worked closely with the artist in LA in the 80s. Other stellar names to have had their name in lights here recently include Cy Twombly, fashion photographer Richard Avedon, and the architect Frank Gehry.
Visit Gagosian.com
Universal Studios
With cinema in a post-superhero depression, it’s a good time to remind yourself of everything the artform can be. Universal Studios is a great place to do that. A studio tour takes you behind the scenes on a tram – look out for the Bates Motel from Psycho and Doc Brown from Back To The Future. Then you can immerse yourself in the fully formed theme worlds of Jurassic Park, Harry Potter and more.
Grand Central Market
Grand Central first opened as the ‘Wonder Market’ way back in 1917. The name has changed since then, but the ambition remains the same: keep Downtown well fed. Try sandos or lobster rolls as well as Michelin-recognised tacos and award-winning burgers. Alongside the rising food-scene stars, you can also find vendors like China Cafe and Roast To Go, who have been doing their thing here for more than half a century.
Visit GrandCentralMarket.com
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Billing itself as the biggest art museum in the western US, LACMA makes good on its bold claim with some big names – recent exhibitions include one on the great Ed Ruscha. It has also built an ‘encyclopaedic’ permanent collection that spans Kandinsky to Kahlo, though one of its most popular pieces is Chris Burden’s ‘Urban Light’ – a forest of street lamps collected and restored by the artist himself.
Visit LACMA.org
The Comedy Store
The Comedy Store has been a fixture on Sunset Strip for more than half a century. When it was opened by Elvis’s warm-up guy in what used to be legendary celeb hangout Ciro’s, it was the world’s first all-stand-up comedy club. Down the years since, everyone from Jim Carrey to Chris Rock has honed their craft here.
Visit TheComedyStore.com
Hauser & Wirth
The taste-making gallery group now has two places in LA: one occupies an old flour mill in Downtown, the other a former car showroom in West Hollywood. Whenever you have a moment in either neighbourhood, both lay on free exhibitions with no booking required.
Visit HauserAndWirth.com
Museum of Contemporary Art
The Museum of Contemporary Art now splits itself across multiple locations in Downtown. MOCA Grand Avenue is where’ll you find its main galleries and can explore a permanent collection that continues to add significant pieces from the likes of Ellsworthy Kelly. Its second site is an old police car warehouse that has had a Frank Gehry redesign and is now called the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.
Visit MOCA.org
The Wallis
A decade ago, the old Beverly Hills post office became The Wallis, a strikingly modern arts centre. On opening, it won multiple architectural awards. Today, it has its eyes on art prizes. Programming embraces theatre, dance, music, film, cabaret, comedy, performance arts and family entertainment – songwriter Rufus Wainwright is one of the bigger names slated for its 2024/25 season.
Visit TheWallis.org
The Hammer Museum
Every couple of years, the Hammer hosts a keenly awaited ‘Made in LA’ exhibition of the region’s best new art. In between, it invites artists from across the globe to take the spotlight for one of its signature Hammer Projects. Ongoing renovations recently saw it add an outdoor sculpture terrace to the old office block it occupies in Westwood Village.
Visit Hammer.UCLA.edu
The Broad
This Downtown art museum zooms in on contemporary art from the 1950s to the present day. The Broad has a couple of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, pieces by Keith Haring, as well as career-spanning collections of work by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Basquiat. It has big plans to add some rooftop outdoor space to its striking home in time for the LA Olympics in 2028.
Visit TheBroad.org
The Getty Center
Up in the hills of Brentwood, the Getty Center has the scale of a university not just a museum. You could lose a day wandering the treasures of its multi-building permanent collection. In autumn 2024, it also launches the third edition of PST ART – a collection of 60-odd exhibitions and many more events funded by $20m in grants from the Getty. This time, the theme is ‘Art & Science Collide’. Down by the ocean in Pacific Palisades, there’s a second permanent site – the Getty Villa Museum – where you can see Greek and Roman antiquities in a recreated Roman country house.
Visit Getty.edu
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