Anyone been to LA? Help

themistry

themistry

themistry

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15 Jun 2006
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575
Hi all,

so I made a Vegas thread, now an LA thread. Im staying there with the wife for 3 days in Feb and god, im totally confused about this city. From everything i read, its a total scumbag filled dump, im almost scared to go!

Basically, i think i have concluded that I want to stay in Hollywood, near Hollywood Blvd, can anyone recommend if this is a good place to be?

If not, any experiances are welcome. I'd prolly like to visit Rodeo Drive, the walk of fame and Maybe universal.

A good cheap place to stay in a safe area with good public transport links is all I ask for (not much ey! :p).

Any help would be really appreciated!

Thanks all,
TM
 
LA is a place where you get the connecting flight to Vegas, that's all it's there for :D


Actually I have heard from friends that have been that it is a dump too :(
 
I stayed in a cheap hostel, right on Hollywood Boulevard opposite the Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Flightplan was premiering at the time. It also has good transport links and there are people who hand out free tickets to TV shows. I was in the audience of an episode of American Idol. Just caught a bus to beverly hills. Downtown LA is safe aswell and there is a neon art museum and other such attractions and a massive shopping district.

Also there is links(from hollywood) to the Universal City Walk in studio city, just north of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, which is worth checking out. Some nice shopping around there at sherman oaks, also easy to get to on the bus.

LA is more like 5 small cities stuck together so it can be a hard time getting around, took us 4 hours to get into the city in an 8 lane highway! If you got time, venice beach and santa monica are worth it aswell. Underground Metro takes you to most of the places.

Hope that helps?
 
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Depends what you mean by Los Angeles, if you include the whole Greater Los Angeles area then its massive something like 100 cities joined together. Most of it is pretty rough, Hollywood is a total let down :p Theres a few nice places along the coast although when I got to Santa Barbara I wished I had just gone straight there and missed LA out all together.
 
I was there last week, not much to see or do at all. The aquarium is quite good (take the tour for an extra $10), the queen Mary is also quite nice to walk around. Lunch in the ivy is quite nice. Other than that I could not find much to do in the 2 weeks I spent there. I ended up staying in NewPort / Orange which is a lot nice but there still is not much to do.

Vague on the other hand was awesome
 
I lived in LA for a few months when I was 22 (over a year ago). LA is nothing like you see on TV really. There are lots of really cool places in LA that aren't that obvious. If you are very British and love Stella, Football, The Sun, English Breakfasts, Eastenders etc you will probably hate LA.

It's inspiring to be somewhere where everyone is mostly there to try and live their dreams. When you're there you also realise a lot of people do succeed and being there really erases the idea of celebrity and makes you realise how much you are missing out on or how you could change your life.

LA has so many different parts and is so big and varied some people watch Menace 2 Society and think it's full of gangs. Most of LA is nice and I feel a lot safer there than I do in any British City full of chavs. It's an exciting place to be. People are really friendly. I met some really nice people at gigs etc. I realised how closed in British people were after living there.

Go to Echo Park, Silverlake, Pismo Beach if you can drive, Santa Barbara, check out Hollywood Hills (go up Beachwood Drive from Franklin Av) Go out to the Sunset Strip at night, go up Mulholland Drive at night, drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. You can probably fit all this in if you try.

I wouldn't stay on Hollywood Blvd, that place is just a tourist trap. You'll probably never really know whether you are in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, or Hollywood most of the time, it's not like the UK where you drive out of one town and end up in another. All the streets are grids and it's so easy to get somewhere (I pretty much only drove and turned right all day trying to figure out how to turn left at crossroads)

Rodea Drive is kinda crap too, there are much better (and cheaper) places to shop. Don't be suprised if you get followed in shops in Rodeo Drive by a security guard. Glendale Galleria is a good mall if you can get to it.

If you live in a city LA is a pretty mellow place to be. It's not really a city to be honest. If you can get a car I'd really suggest it. I was terrified when I got in the car but got used to it in an hour. I was 22 and never really driven in a busy area (wouldn't drive in Manchester for example)

LA is an amazing place and to be honest you dont need a lot of money to have a good time (like vegas) most shops on Melrose Av are pretty cheap.

Damn that was long. I just love LA! If I could move there I'd leave this *****country in a second.
 
From everything i read, its a total scumbag filled dump
PHP: 
Your research is correct, avoid liker the plague.

The only reason to go to LA is drive Highway 1 up to SF. NorCal is where its at, anywhere south of SLO is just pap. Head north, north of Sf absolutely rules, sa really lovely place with killer scenery.
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Thanks for all the replies guys,

well now im confused, urgh. Im flying into LAX, im there for 3 days, where should we go for a nice relaxing time?

Muchos Gracious

Rotty, thanks for your input hahaha :D

TM
 
i've just got back from the US, LA > SF > lake tahoe and LA was a bit strange. hollywood blvd is a dump, the only decent thing is the chinese theatre the rest of it looks like any run down inner city. we stayed at universal studios which is definitely worth a day. our taxi driver from LAX to our hotel gave us an impromptu tour, pointing out OJ's house, where he went on the run, the getty museum, beverly hills etc, you can also get a scandal and murder tour i believe!

we only spent a day and half there, which we spent in and around universal. there is a shopping mall sort of thing with restaurants etc outside the park itself, including the hard rock cafe hollywood and a starbucks (surprisingly enough). can't really tell you more than that though as we weren't really there long enough!

nin9a
 
Stiff_Cookie said:
Dont wear lots of red and dont wear lots of blue
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I hardly think they'd take notice of a white British man wearing either colours*? I dont know if your'e joking or really trying to scare the guy :\

*yes i have made two assumptions here..

I have visited LA a few times and also lived there for 6 weeks during the summer when my Dad did some work out there. I personally love the place. The last time i went back it was with a Uni trip and we stayed downtown -- practically in the financial sector i think. I had a friend who had never been abroad before and he was obviously going through all that you are -- getting very nervous about his safety etc.. Imagine his shock when we'd just stepped of the hotel (in a massive conspicuous group) and some guy takes two looks and starts asking us ''where ya'll going? whats going on?!'' in a typically loud American way. My poor friend was petrified and it took me all of the week to explain to him that all Americans arent crazy -- they're just not frightened of talking to strangers! The guy saw a group of about 20 of us walking together and just wanted to know what was going on, lol! :)

When i stayed there for 6 weeks i stayed in Marina Del Ray. Real nice place and just away from the touristy spots. We stayed in apartments not far from the beach, and if we walked along the beach it was about 20mins to Venice Beach, and about another 30mins to Santa Monica Pier. Which brings me to Santa Monica. Fantastic place, i'd try and stay there if i were you. It's got a nice pier and a nice pedistrianised shopping place (3rd St. Promenade) with a decent mall. As my friends on our Uni trip said when we took a cab there for an evening ''it's what we thought LA was gonna be like''. However SM is quite cut off, as is most of the places along the coast as the subway/tube doesnt go there. I think you can get to Long Beach at the end of the line tough. (This is all off the top of my head so might be wrong).

When we were staying downtown it was easy to get around as we were 10mins walk from a subway station, from which we could get to Hollywood (yay for a night out in the Hollywood Hooters -- had to be done!). You can also easily get to Universal Studios from the subway -- there's a station right opposite the main entrance. Universal Studios also has the Universal City walk which is a great place to spend an evening after a day at the park. It has loads of restaurants (go to Tony Roma's!), a cinema, jazz club, shops etc.. Talking of Hollywood, on the Uni trip we did a drive around the stars homes in Beverley Hills (our tutor got caught and persuaded outside the Chinese Theatre, lol). It was surprisingly good (i was very cynical beforehand), and interesting. They know how to put on a good tour. Not only that but we saw Sly Stallone pull out of his house, the traffic lights went red as he got to them -- so we pulled up alongside him and waved, heh. :p

So really, downtown isnt a great place to stay (it's a bit like staying smack bang in the middle of London), but to get around it's very useful indeed.

The problem with LA is that it's absolutely massive. There really is nothing that you can say to describe how massive it is. It's not a city, it's comprised of so many different cities. You think people are joking when they say no one walks in LA. They really dont, as you wont get anywhere! The pavements are almost completely empty, heh. You will need to get the subway (no worse than any other, if not just bigger.. we got it late at night with no troubles), buses, cabs, or rent a car.

My recommendations of a couple things to do would be to rent a bike and cycle along the beach path for as long as you want, walk around Venice Beach, shop or spend an evening in Santa Monica (near the pier), and go to Universal. If you're feeling adventerous and fancy trying to find Warner Brothers Studios which i think is in Burbank, their VIP tour (which i think anyone can get on) is very good -- miles better than the Universal one. We got to sit on the Friend's sofa, and walk around a lot of current sets (Wisteria Lane, Gilmore Girls, E.R. etc..). It's a really open tour compared to universal -- it's odd getting to walk around the actual sets where people are painting, setting up etc.. after being stuck in the tram at Universal. Warner Bros really is in the middle of nowhere though.

Have fun. Dont let everyone put you off with their crazy-talk :)

EDIT: Our Uni trip was in January and most of us ended up wearing shorts. You'll need a jumper or jacket for the evenings though.
 
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I Did a Christmas trip a few years back with my parents. Flew into SF, hit Lake Tahoe for Christmas day and went down to LA for NYE. All I can say is that LA was the biggest let down of the trip.

Santa Barbara and Santa Monica are two stunning places I highly recommend visiting, as for the rest of it we weren't too impressed.

Panzer
 
I went there a while ago for work and thought it was a dump :p we spent 3 days in LA then 4 days in San Diego, which was ten times nicer, absolutely loved it. Its not too far down the road if you have a car but if you're reliant on public transport its probably too far away.
 
I visited LA in '96 as part of a 2 week tour of the West Coast and I have to agree with most other comments here... it was a dump.

Hollywood Blvd was soooo disappointing, no glamour anywhere.

Best thing about LA is Anaheim and Disneyland!!
 
The Hyatt Long Beach is a good place to stay - the Shoreline Village will keep you occupied for a day or so with good restaurants for evenings and great typical LA-style black gangsters and their powerboats :D

But you must go to Six Flags if you're into roller coasters.

Also go to the House of Blues. Especially if you can make it to the Sunday brunch.

LA isn't that exciting - it's a smog-filled, sprawling city/metropolis with endless traffic and lots of driving to get anywhere.

It's not a bad place, though :)
 
Beansprout said:
But you must go to Six Flags if you're into roller coasters.

Also go to the House of Blues. Especially if you can make it to the Sunday brunch.
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Quoted for truth. Definately check out who's playing the House of Blues!

I also agree what others say about Hollywood. It is a let down. If you want to see it you'll need about 10 minutes to see the Chinese Theatre and walk along and see some of the stars (on the ground..) and that's about it. The rest is full of tacky shops :\
 
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guys thanks for all the replies.

So it looks like you recommend staying in Santa Monica or Beverly Hills. Will look into it some more, man i wish things weren;t spreado ut so much there!

Thanks
TM
 
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