Trip to Los Angeles area....is there anything to do there?

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,380
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I'm planning a trip in October to Los Angeles for 8 or 9 days. It's tough to determine which natural disasters will be going on during the trip this far out, but what kinds of things should I plan for?

I figured I'd take the kids to Disney for a few days and can probably swing a hotel around the park, but I'm guessing after that, we may rent a car and check out other sites. What else should I do?
 

NutBucket

Lifer
Aug 30, 2000
27,012
533
126
I like your tongue-in-cheek title.

How old are the kids? Of course there are things to do. The question is what would they want to do. Hell you may show up and find it to be beach weather.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
44,745
30,152
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CSC (as noted above)
Universal
one of the Studio tours
USS Iowa in Long Beach
Aquarium of the Pacific also in Long Beach
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
68,020
25,119
136
The tar pits are the best thing in LA. Sit and watch tar bubbles. Pop, pop, pop, nothing more relaxing. Also, the tar pits are free.

The tar pit museum is good. There's some sort of museum next to that museum. Don't remember what it was other than quite large.
 
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Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
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Right next to USC there is the California Science Center, it's free and it has tons of cool stuff, such as the space shuttle Endeavor and a theater that plays science documentaries in 3D.

But the theater cost money.

View attachment 77745
We saw Discovery in 2018 outside of Dulles at the National AIr & Space Museum Annex. Definitely sounds like a cool destination.

Kids will be 9 and 11 on the trip.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
68,020
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Head to the north end of LA to see the condor sanctuary. No guarantees but you might see a condor. You can't go into the sanctuary itself but can look for condors nearby. Piro Lake is one good spot.

 
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NutBucket

Lifer
Aug 30, 2000
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Super Mario World just opened at Universal Studios.

Cliche but Griffith Observatory is pretty awesome, even for us locals. Gotta hit Santa Monica too. And yes, dead serious you can likely plan for a beach day.
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,380
1,769
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Super Mario World just opened at Universal Studios.

Cliche but Griffith Observatory is pretty awesome, even for us locals. Gotta hit Santa Monica too. And yes, dead serious you can likely plan for a beach day.
We hit up Orlando every now and again and my kids haven't done Universal yet there. That may be something we want to consider.

You're exactly right with the Observatory. Out West, there are more wide open spaces than what I'm used to. I want my kids to see some of the views you can see from iconic spots. When I went to visit my cousin in Portland, he was taking me to some of the highest spots so we could see Mt Adams and Mt St Helens, and Hood, etc... I remember those views as much as anything in the trip.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
36,946
7,818
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Could drive to Hollywood and see the sidewalk with the names and hand and foot prints of Stars memorialized in the sidewalk, I think it's outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. They're always showing those on TV, but seeing them in person is something different.

The Walk of Fame is an installation of over 2,600 stars along Hollywood Boulevard and beyond. The Chinese Theatre, meanwhile, also sits on Hollywood Boulevard, is known for the celebrity handprints and footprints on the cement of the theatre's forecourt.

images


See if you can get stuck on the 405 for a few hours. Nothing more quintessential LA than that
I grew up there, before the 405 was built. Before they built the 405, they planned a freeway that went from downtown directly toward the ocean. It was going to go basically through our lot at the perimeter of Cheviot Hills. Some pressure from the community caused it to be diverted south a bit. Cheviot Hills is midway between Culver City (where MGM was located, since bought out by Sony) and Century City (which hadn't been born yet, it was just 20th Century Fox Studios at the time). Of course, when the 405 was developed, the freeway from downtown toward the ocean had an interchange at the 405, which runs parallel to the ocean. L.A. has changed a lot since those days, it's a lot more dense. It's not NYC dense, it's kind of flat dense if that makes sense. There's a lot of mini-malls, something that didn't exist before. Malls are a development of the 2nd half of the 20th century, seems to me.

Requiem for the Mall - Popular Mechanics
1678174286793.png
Popular Mechanics
https://www.popularmechanics.com › life-at-the-mall

Nov 27, 2017 — Malls were the great social and economic experiment of the second half of the twentieth century. Their death has been greatly exaggerated, ...

Uh, so were freeways, i.e. fast multi-lane highways with onramps and offramps, interchanges, and no commercial development at the edges. L.A. was transformed by the gradual development of freeways in the 2nd half of the 20th century.
 
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Dr. Detroit

Diamond Member
Sep 25, 2004
8,062
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As dumb as it sounds, the La Brea tar pits are quite interesting for about 90-minutes. Have the kids watch the 1997 film, Volcano, prior to visiting!

Griffith park, go see the observatory and Hollywood sign.

Catalina island

Getty Museum

Huntington beach & the PCH

Nuclear titties in San Clemente on the way to Legoland in Carlsbad

San Diego Safari Park
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
36,946
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“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” Tennessee Williams famously said. :D
 
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JeepinEd

Senior member
Dec 12, 2005
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If you like nature and wide open spaces, I would recommend you head out to Death Valley. October is a good time to visit. The scenery out there is just incredible and there are a couple of areas where you can rent a room for the night. On the way, you can also check out the Manzanar internment camp museum. It's very moving & educational.
 

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MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
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I would do a day and or two in the city checking out the views and the beach. Do not forget to make some posts like on a Los Angeles food subredder or something and get some recommendations for your favorite cuisine cuz one of the greatest things about big cities is the food options.

And then I would go outside the city to nature like some people posted. I wouldn't spend the whole time in the city limits
 

nutxo

Diamond Member
May 20, 2001
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I haven't been there since the 80's... I would say Griffith observatory. The Iowa would be cool as hell. I toured the Missouri when it was active and it was amazing.
 

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
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See if you can get stuck on the 405 for a few hours. Nothing more quintessential LA than that

get back on san vicente, take it to the 10

then switch over to the 405 north and let it dump you out onto mulholland where you belong
 

kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
6,015
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I'm planning a trip in October to Los Angeles for 8 or 9 days. It's tough to determine which natural disasters will be going on during the trip this far out, but what kinds of things should I plan for?

I figured I'd take the kids to Disney for a few days and can probably swing a hotel around the park, but I'm guessing after that, we may rent a car and check out other sites. What else should I do?
If you plan on visiting Disneyland, check the dates are available for reservation. Yes, you need a ticket and a reservation to enter the park.
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,380
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If you plan on visiting Disneyland, check the dates are available for reservation. Yes, you need a ticket and a reservation to enter the park.
Definitely gonna plan that. I'm going to book through a group agent, stay at the Grand Californian for maybe half the trip and add as many days as we think we want for park days. We've done WDW probably 10 times with the kids, so we're expecting it to be similar in many ways, but maybe smaller scale.

I just want to hit some LA hotspots so the kids have the memories.

I wish we had more time to pop up to Napa and SFO, but we'll probably make another trip if that next year. (And maybe without kids)
 

GodisanAtheist

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2006
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LA is incredible, but you want to try and be centrally located in the Orange Country area otherwise trying to get from one side of the megapolis to the other is just not worth it.

Stuff to do:

- Griffith Park
- Getty Museums (Villa and Museum)
- La Brea Tar Pits
- California Science Center
- Los Angeles Natural History Museum (Awesome 1920's style nat history museum with a shitload of dino bones etc in there).
- Huntington Library (hidden gem, basically a complex of museums)
- Theme Parks (Knotts Berry Farm for coasters, Disneyland for nostalgia, IMO ignore Universal their "rides" are incredibly nauseating).
- Catalina Island (Beautiful and just enough for a day trip but no more).
- Salton Sea / Borego Springs area (Find the Shields date factory out in the Palm Dessert area and have some of the best smoothies in existence to cool off, drive out to East Jesus/Slab City/Salvation Mountain for that dessert hippie vibe).
- Arrowhead/Big Bear Lake if you want some of that mountain town vibe.

There is more but I'll leave it at that for the moment.