Los Angeles in October for newbie - Where to stay, park etc.

[drane]

Hello! As per title, first time. Going with teenage daughters and want to do the usual LA type stuff - walk of fame, hollywood sign, Disney, Universal, sunset strip etc.

I'm told you absolutely must have a car. Is it true? If so where do you park it? Do the hotels offer parking? And is there parking everywhere you go? I'm thinking when I take my car to London it's more of a liability than a help, is LA quite different then?

Any tips on where to stay that's safe and not too expensive? And how easy is it to drive in LA? I'm not a nervous driver, but have never driven on the right.

Any other tips and advice appreciated

Bump?

Hi, LA is a lovely place and i’m sure you’ll love it!

We went to LA for the first time as a family of 3 last summer, and this summer DD went to LA alone with her boyfriend. We had a car last summer and DD + bf didn’t have a car when they went, so I can provide information for both sides.

Whilst you don’t ABSOLUTELY need to have a car, it makes things a whole lot easier considering the public transport isn’t the worlds best. We stayed near manhattan beach, and the hotel provided free parking. As for finding parking spaces, it wasn’t too tricky as there are car parks everywhere but was quite expensive - we paid about £20 to park on Hollywood Blvd! We live near London and driving in LA is very different, I find it much easier as roads are bigger, however I may be biased as we used to live in the US.

On the other hand you can use public transport like my DD + bf did. They stayed in downtown LA and used the metro + buses and the occasional uber to get around. To use the metro you’ll need a TAP card and each journey (no matter how far you go) is $2.50. You also can’t spend more than $20? (not too sure of the figure) a week on it so essentially after you’ve spent $20 in travel the rest is free. Public transport can be a good alternative for things like visiting the observatory, as we drove up to the top and paid extortionate prices for parking, but a better alternative is to park at the greek theatre and take the free observatory shuttle to the top (which is what DD did).

As for where to stay, we stayed in Manhattan beach and therefore needed a car as public transport is limited there. If you stay in Downtown LA, the metro is right around the corner and took DD everywhere she wanted to visit. However it wasn’t a very nice area and she said it felt quite unsafe at times. In the end where you stay doesn’t really matter unless you’re going to rely fully on public transport.

I hope this helped a little bit but if you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask!

We’ve been to LA recently. Used Lyft to get around as didn’t fancy the driving. Had planned to use the metro a bit, but ended up not doing so.

Stayed in the Garland in Burbank which was very handy for universal, not too far from Griffiths park, Hollywood sites etc. For Disney, bear in mind that it’s in Anaheim so it’s a bit of a journey (took us an hour to get there on a Sunday evening from Burbank). If you plan to do a day in each Disney park, or want to get there for rope drop, then I’d recommend splitting your stay and going to Anaheim for two or three nights. There are tons of hotels in walking distance to the Disney parks.

We didn't stay in the LA but did visit Hollywood. It was seedy. On street metered parking was easy enough to find.

Santa Monica is a lovely place to stay by the beach. Also accessible. The train network is good too.
Venice beach is interesting with muscle beach and the skate board park which is pretty cool. Lots of cool hang outs. People watching is brilliant. Also the Venice canals are very nice to walk around.

One of my favourite hotels is the Viceroy Santa Monica. Be prepared to spend it's so expensive. In general everywhere, more than NYC for example and other parts of America.
I go a lot for work numerous times a year. I also have air bnb'd it quite a bit and have a good recommendation if you want to pm me for more info.

It's so spaced out, I have done it many times with and without car. It's easy to get around with Lyft and Uber. Download both as sometimes one is much cheaper than the other. On the other hand I have never had issues parking. There is lots of parking. Although some signage can be confusing.

Hollywood walk of fame (although a must see) is quite tacky and disappointing. There is a really good Hollywood tour I can also recommend if I find the link. It takes you to the Hollywood sign, round the hills to see famous people's houses and does a stop at Santa Monica farmers market and Hollywood walk of fame plus more.

I don't like driving on the freeways, but I'm a bit of a wuss. If you do get a car I 100% recommend tagging a couple of nights in Palm Springs too. It's a 2hour drive but the most amazing place. Super chilled and the Joshua tree national park is brilliant. You can also stop at desert springs shopping outlet on the way which is pretty great.

Be prepared for crazy people in LA. The homelessness is very shocking and I have seen some horrible things. It makes London look tame. Oh and it stinks of weed really bad.

We went on holiday to LA last summer. We stayed in West Hollywood at Hotel Ziggy, a music themed hotel on the strip. WH is very upmarket. We also stayed there because my rocker dh and ds wanted to visit iconic places like The Rainbow etc. You absolutely DON'T need a car, we travelled far and wide using Lyft which come within about 2 minutes of calling them. Santa Monica, Warner Bros, Pasadena, The Observatory all fab. We visited Hollywood mainly to see the walk of fame. That part of Hollywood is very Blackpool on steroids but fun for a day out. We also took one of the many tours available that took us to the Hollywood sign, Beverly hills and so on. The Grove is also very pretty. If you're music fans there's a fabulous walking tour called The Rock & Walk Tour. You absolutely wouldn't find a better tour guide than Johnny.
Enjoy!

As per PP we stayed in Santa Monica and having travelled into LA for a basketball game and to see walk of fame/ Hollywood sign im so pleased we chose to stay there. We found La exhausting and a bit grubby but Santa Monica was a joy. The beach is amazing, we cycled along Venice Beach (saw Barbie Movie being filmed!) and our teens say it was the best place they have been

I'm just back from LA, ( we did San Diego to San Fran). We didn't have a car in LA and used Uber. We stayed at the Luskin Hotel on the UCLA campus which was well located and safe.
Make sure you visit the Getty Centre which is free and has great views and art. We couldn't get to the Getty Villa in Malibu as it was booked out (it's also free).

Yes the homelessness is shocking although not as bad as San Fran which is terrible and upsetting - pavements full of people lying zoned out on drugs.

Hi OP, did you have a good trip?

Hello @tennissquare yes I did! I loved it, thank you to everyone for the advice. I booked a car for part of my trip and found there were pros and cons to having one. It wasn't an absolute must in my experience. But it was useful for the last day in particular to drive around with our bags in the boot after checking out of hotel as ours was a late night flight. We stayed in Hollywood, right on the walk of fame and I didn't actually find it that bad. Although like a pp said, the smell of weed everywhere in the city 😩