Let me guess, kiddos. You don't think Los Angeles can be seen in a small amount of time (you're not entirely wrong). You've heard the public transit is trash (it ain't). And TRAFFIC? No thank you and god bless, or sO tHey SAy.
I think the world should chill with their polarizing opinions on Los Angeles and the surrounding metro area. It's actually beautiful, doable, rather accessible, and has a lot to offer for both families and college travelers on a budget.
My friend and I decided to Megabus down from SF/Oakland >>> LA for a little under 48 hours and here's how we spent that time, on a spontaneous time and smaller budget.
day one
9 am
I started off around Pomona area and took the train to Union Station in Downtown LA which is the perfect home base with its central location and ample nearby destinations. The train was a pretty smooth, empty ride, but as many trains, was not the most affordable. From Union Station I had some time to kill so decided to try out the metro and ride the Blue line all the way to the end in Santa Monica. The line gets pretty packed and at one point there are four bikes in a space that fits one. I tried to read but got some motion sickness and tried to just people watch to pass the time.
It was a beautiful day to prance around Downtown Santa Monica, the beach, and the pier, but nothing I haven't done before and a pretty touristy excursion for me. The highlight of my short beach trip was probably the warmth of the sun and my huge savings on my McDonalds brunch thanks to the company's app (Don't sleep on the McDonald's app, kids). I was waiting to meet up with my friend so just tanned and read along the beach for a couple hours before hopping back on the metro.
~ 2 pm
I met my friend at Union Station and we hopped across the street to Calle Olvera, aka one of the oldest streets in Los Angeles with lots of Mexican and Spanish influence. These charming little quarters are filled with street vendors, market places, and some of the freshest veggie tamales around. I've visited a few times in recent years and Cielito Lindo is the bomb.com.
You can definitely see this place in a solid half hour if you skip buying any souvenirs, and make sure you walk to the end of the street to see the cute little bandstand. Dip in for a few minutes to Avila Adobe, the oldest residence in the county, open 9AM- 4PM everyday. If you're in need of a public restroom, use it here, as it is located right there in the plaza.
~ 3 pm
We naturally wandered over to Chinatown next as it's adjacent to Olvera. As a big fan of San Francisco's Chinatown (widely considered one of the richest Chinese communities outside of China itself!), the LA version really didn't leave an impact on me, and felt satisfied from a quick stroll past fruit stands, fish markets, and a colorful outdoor food court.
There were a few fun accents of red architecture and dragons that riddled the streets, and we didn't stop to eat so will have to return in the future. As a disclaimer, I feel like I needed a more insider scoop to appreciate this place to its fullest, and I did no research going in...
~3:30 pm
Next, we hauled our backpacks over to LA City Hall, where visitors can go to the 27th floor observation deck for free for probably the cheapest skyscraper experience downtown. Shout out to my friend for finding this super dope view! It was quiet the experience navigating to the top of the tower, and we had to follow an odd sequence of elevators to arrive at the right place. At some point a high-profile looking guy urged us to get off the elevator at a employees-only level to try to get the insider experience, but we were confused and looked a little too out of place for any business in that ornate building. Would recommend this fairly unexplored, tourist-worthy experience for both families and individuals.
~4PM
We walked the few short blocks to Japantown, a lovely but small outdoor courtyard with red lanterns adorning the space. This was a nice place to shoot some profile-pic worthy shots and peek our heads into fun Japanese toy shops, but we left pretty soon thereafter without any souvenirs or food in our stomachs. We were really amping up for our hike in Griffith Park and had to hustle to stay on schedule. Called the Uber (incredibly cheap in LA, so much it seems illegal) and were on our way. Per our style, in the mere two hours we had been exploring, we already checked four destinations off our list!
~5 pm
I had once hiked behind the Hollywood Sign on one of my favorite hikes of all time and was trying to repeat the route. Alltrails.com and various blogs gave me confusing directions so we kind of just Ubered to the main observatory and followed what seemed to be the intuitive way, ended up somewhere between 6-7 miles roundtrip. If you want to visit the Hollywood Sign, you can't go up and touch it, nor can you go very close on the front side, but you can get about 20 meters behind the letters. Check out the picture to see how absolutely magical it was as we reached the turn-around point right around sunset.
If you're trying to repeat this hike for yourself, just start walking and ask people along the way since it's pretty popular among locals. There is a more accessible, paved route if you were to take an Uber as far up Beachwood Canyon Road as possible (Hollywood Hills) but it's clear the residents of that neighborhood won't let you park anywhere near the start.
~8:45 pm
Back at Griffith Observatory and Ubered to Libra Hotel to check in with hostel-type accommodations in an 8 person room for about $30/person, which I personally think was not the best deal. Overall, this place was just fine, very central location, but only had tiny lockers for valuables and could barely fit my laptop in there safely. The staff was helpful and place was clean enough, we were just abruptly woken up by a fire alarm in the building that forced us up earlier than we hoped.
We finished off the night by acknowledging our hunger and stopping at Veggie Grill (? lol) near the Grove, an upscale outdoor shopping mall. The mall was well closed by 9:30 but I know there is a lovely Original Farmer's Market with some pricier fresh options during daytime hours. We then finished off the night by walking to Urban Light, the LACMA display with 200 lampposts and the perfect aesthetic backdrop. We were exhausted and passed out with the intent to do a sunrise hike the following day, but let's be honest that did not happen.
day two
~8 am
Upon waking up to the fire alarm which went off in the building, we made our way to Melrose Ave, the iconic spot for cute cafes, high end shops, and most importantly, Instagrammable murals. We split french toast brunch for about $15 so that LA dining didn't get the best of our wallets. We strolled down, making notable stops at the Pink Wall, and a cool mural with some Halsey lyrics. I almost lost it when Shawn Mendes posted the same mural in the same spot on his timeline exactly a day later (he is the love of my life fun facts!) At the end of the road we found ourselves at quite the upscale coffee joint (Alfred) and dished out for some ~aight~ drinks.
~11 am
The rest of the day became a little more spontaneous and unplanned. For one thing, we wanted to Uber to a good hiking spot in Malibu area without paying a huge sum of money sooo we half-sent it and got dropped off at the cliffs of Pacific Palisades. We then proceeded on an urban adventure through the neighborhoods, eventually 3 sweaty miles later landing at the top of a lovely view on Inspiration Point Loop in Will Rogers State Historic Park.
Don't recommend you repeat this activity because we definitely were just walking alongside the road at a number of places where it wasn't pedestrian friendly, but keep in mind it's $12 to park at the trailhead so maybe you will opt to walk in. Regardless, we were super stoked to walk through hundreds of hidden steps and cool walking paths that meandered through the town.
~ 12:30 pm
You know when you were a child and were tired of walking around Disneyland all morning so you would crash at some point midday and get really cranky until you ate or rested? I would say that was quickly becoming the sentiment as we got down to about Santa Monica pier and started searching for some kind of rentable bike. These are always a mistake let it be known, they cost more than any Uber out there. Bring your own bike or just walk, that's just my two cents.
Anyways, a short bike ride kicked us out at Venice Beach on a very windy day. So windy that we brushed past the awesome vendors to find a sheltered location for lunch, and I was extremely content with my acai bowl. We were also nearly out of charge so the owners were dope and let us plug in our various devices with their chargers while we ate.
I ended up purchasing some aesthetic but completely non-functional round, tinted shades which made for a great accessory in the remaining photos of the day. Kinda over the whole spending money thing, we ended up long hauling the walk back to Santa Monica, parallel to the ocean but a few blocks from the beach because it was too windy to even enjoy with sand stinging your face. It was nice to see this area behind all the touristy facades. We ended up at Downtown Santa Monica in the middle of the shopping center.
~5:30 pm (time gets fuzzy here..)
We were catching an 11 pm bus back home that night so we debated between a sunset hike and getting dinner with friends from home, and decided on the latter. Reminder that a heavy backpack and lots of mileage will already poop you out before you start hiking. We went to Tatsu Ramen which was absolutely delicious.
There was a little bit of a wait which was totally cool because we just explored Japanese markets until our table was ready, but I hear the lines can get ridiculous. The ramen was delicious (see me slurping down the last bit!) and I highly recommend you get three extra sides of sweet corn since it's free and it is corn.
~8 pm
Our friends bring us to Korea Town, or K Town, and we go to the kind of outdoor, multi -story mall there. We get ice cream in fish cones at Somi Somi and mine had Nutella. GOOD content. That was kind of all we had energy for as the trip was wrapping up and we just got back to Union Station and passed out on the whole Megabus back.
Certainly, this itinerary was spontaneous at points and had us bouncing all around the metro area, but hopefully it inspires you to see you can indeed get urban, nature, beach, and good food even in just a limited time in LA, one of my favorite cities. So public transportation? Yeah, but Uber was easier and generally faster. Traffic? It exists, but if you're a tourist, there's no need to travel at rush hour, just work around that!
