travel LA

Why go?

America’s second city is often mistakenly thought of as simply a movie industry town.  One in six of its residents has a creative job, but many work in fields other than film and TV such as fashion, art, architecture, design, music, literature and theatre.

Los Angeles' museums and burgeoning gallery scene have an experimental edge that is often missing in other cultural capitals.

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In other words, LA is one of the world’s most creative cities.  Its museums and burgeoning gallery scene have an experimental edge that is often missing in other cultural capitals. It boasts many of the country’s most exciting chefs and has a lively fashion and design community that creates innovative architecture, clothing and graphics.

And as if that wasn’t incentive enough to visit, LA is the perfect city to intersperse relaxing escapes into nature with metropolitan pleasures. The city has many beautiful semi-wild parks (among them Runyon Canyon, Will Rogers State Park and Griffith Park) and there is also the 22-mile long South Bay bike path that runs from Will Rogers State Beach in the north to Playa Del Rey in the south.

And half a day’s drive from the city you can experience great skiing at Big Bear, the vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley near Santa Barbara or hike in the High Mojave desert near Palm Springs.

While LA can be intimidating to the novice to navigate (at its widest it is 44 miles across) and its 10 and 12 lane highways look terrifying to the beginner, once you get the hang of the fairly slow moving freeways, it is easy to cross great distances in a little time.

When to go

LA is a great year round destination.  Summer temperature is typically in the 80s and winter highs are in the 60s and low 70s. January and February are the rainiest months, so bring protection and winter temperatures can plunge dramatically in the evening, but who cares when you get to spend most of the day in a T-shirt?  Year round temperatures are typically a few degrees cooler at the beach and from May-June it can take most of the morning for the grey ‘marine layer’ to burn off.

Los Angeles boasts many of the country’s most exciting chefs and has a lively fashion and design community that creates innovative architecture, clothing and graphics.

Getting there

Flights: British Airways (0844 493 0787; britishairways.com), Virgin Atlantic (0844 209 7777; virgin-atlantic.com), Continental Airlines (0845 607 6760; continental.com), American Airlines (0844 499 7300;aa.com) and United (0845 8444 777; united.com) all fly direct to Los Angeles from the UK. Flight time is around 11.5 hours outbound and 10.5 hours inbound when returning to the UK.

Transfers: Arriving at Los Angeles International Airport LAX (lawa.org), most people opt to rent a car for the duration of their stay.

A taxi from LA to Santa Monica costs $35 and takes roughly 20 minutes depending on traffic. From LAX to Hollywood costs $50 and takes roughly 45 minutes.  A cheaper option is the Super Shuttle (001 310 782 6600; supershuttle.com) a shared ride that cost $16 per person to Santa Monica and $17 to Hollywood and would likely take 60-120 minutes (due to the number of drop offs). 

A great budget option is using the LA Metro Trip Planner (001 323 466 3876; socaltransport.org) to find out which bus and/or metro combination gets you closest to your destination.  A recent search for a ride from LAX to the posh Shutters on the Beach hotel in Santa Monica found a bus trip that cost just $1, took 45 minutes and dropped you 4 blocks away.

Getting around

Buses and trains: Few people think of taking the bus or subway in LA, but you may be surprised how speedy and convenient it can be in some locations.  Use the excellent LA Metro Trip Planner (see above) to find out which bus and/or metro combination gets you closest to your destination.

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Cycling: For a city dominated by cars, Los Angeles has a surprising number of separate bike trails (labikepaths.com) and over 140 miles of bike lanes and 4,000 bike racks.   The Santa Monica and Venice beach promenade is dotted with bike rental and skate rental huts.  One of the most popular bike stores is Spokes N Stuff ( 001 888 242 3971; spokes-n-stuff.com/location_rental.html), which rents out bikes in Santa Monica, Griffith Park and Marina Del Ray from $14.99 all day.

Taxis:  Yellow Cab Co (001 877 733 3305; layellowcab.com) and LA Checker Cab (001 310 330 3720; ineedtaxi.com) are two of LA’s most reputable taxi companies.

Car hire:  LAX has nearly 40 rental car companies, but only 10 have courtesy shuttles that drop off passengers at the terminals, these are Advantage, Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Fox, Hertz, National, Payless and Thrifty.  You can also rent cars by the hour or day from Zipcars (zipcar.com/la) this is a convenient option if you are staying in Hollywood where most of the Zip car pick up and drop off locations are situated.

Know before you go

Essential contacts:

British Consulate-General in Los Angeles: 001 310 481 0031
Los Angeles Visitors Information Center: (001 213 689 8822;discoverlosangeles.com, 685 South Figueroa St, Downtown)
Emergency services: dial 911
Local road traffic accident/emergency evacuation information: dial 511 and at go511.com
Directory inquiries: dial 411

America’s second city, Los Angeles, is often mistakenly thought of as simply a movie industry town.

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The basics:

Currency: US dollar
Telephone code: LA has 5 different area codes 305, 213, 323, 424 and 818.  Calling LA from the UK dial 001 then one of the three digit area codes and then the seven-digit number. From within Los Angeles dial one and then the three-digit area code followed by the seven-digit number
Time difference: -8 hours
Flight time: London to Los Angeles is approximately 11.5 hours, the return leg 10.5 hours

Local laws and etiquette:

Always have your passport and driver’s license with you when driving in the US, in case you get stopped by police.

You can turn right at a red traffic light (provided you come to a complete stop first, there is no oncoming traffic and no contradictory sign saying “no turn on red”).

In most American cities, you have to park with your car pointing in the direction of the traffic on the correct side of the road, otherwise you will be fined.

Also, avoid parking within 15ft of a fire hydrant.

Half a day’s drive from the city you can experience great ski-ing at Big Bear, vineyards near Santa Barbara or hike in the desert near Palm Springs.

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