A TRAVEL GUIDE TO LOS ANGELES
A holiday to LA with some travelling tips to save your dollar. This is based on a week stay. If you want more information scroll down, to find out, where to stay, what it was like, instagrammable spots and finally some advice. 🙂
Accommodation:
Our hotel was in central Hollywood and was one of the cheapest hostels we could find. We booked on booking.com with a good rating (£38 each a night).
Transport: Here we mainly used buses and Ubers. I wish we rented a car here as it was difficult to see all of LA as transport links aren’t as good as Europe.
Food & Drink:
Food is more expensive in the US then when I used to visit. I’d say eating out in LA is similar to San Fran and London prices.
Activities:
There is a lot to see in LA and it is quite spread out, I’d recommend visiting Malibu, Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Hiking to the Hollywood sign, visiting the Griffith Observatory. Finally if you are a nerd like me, do Universal studios one day!
WHERE TO STAY
So we stayed in a mixed dormitory this came to £38 a night each. Despite not being super keen on hostels I am grateful we stayed in one. I would have liked to have had my own room but in general the hostel was really amazing. The staff were super friendly and assisted in making breakfast. There was a huge spread with pans left out with pancake mixture for you to serve yourself, different jams/bakery goods/cereals. You could also buy your on food and use the facilities to cook lunch and dinner.
The hostel offered each day different free tours and would list them at reception for you to sign up to. They also hosted events at the hostel in the evening. Eg. a comedy night, beer pong night so we were able to meet a lot of people because of these various free social events.
WHAT TO DO
Hollywood Sign: So apparently residents in the hidden hills weren’t too keen on all the tourists traipsing through their grounds. So the signs previously guiding you to hike up have been taken down. The only way we were able to climb up to the sign was by watching some videos on YouTube. These directed you up there. We actually were a little cheeky and got an uber to the bottom of the main hiking section. It took us around 30 mins to get to the top.
Griffith Observatory: I’d recommend coming up here to get a great view of LA. We had to get an Uber up to here and back but enjoyed seeing LA as the sun began to set. If you remember LA LA Land, it makes an appearance on this. I’d definitely recommend going to watch the sunset here one evening. Especially after you’ve done all your day activities.
Santa Monica & Venice Beach: Really pleased we ventured here to explore a different side to LA. The beach cities lived up to expectations and we were blessed with good weather. Venice Beach had some interesting characters and ‘muscle beach’ was filled with fitness fanatics working out. We walked the stretch of the beach to Santa Monica when we visited. This wasn’t too horrendous around 30 minutes. As Santa Monica is known for the pier we walked along it. It seemed pretty similar towhat you would expect from your typical pier so nothing groundbreaking but busy! We stopped here for dinner and drinks at The Bungalow. This had a fun lively atmosphere and fire heaters as it got cooler.
Comedy shows: Have a look at what is on in Hollywood. We met some people at the hostel that found some comedy shows in hollywood nearby on the next night and bought a ticket.
Runyon Canyons: I guess like most, we decided to hike up here, again there was a tour our hostel did for free. So as a group we all hiked up here. Something I found really sweet is they had a drinks box at the bottom, nobody manning it. So you could grab a drink and you’d leave money for…and it worked, nobody had stolen a dolla!
Beverly Hills: The hostel we stayed at did a free tour (but you can give tips). This was really good, we got buses up to Beverly Hills as a group. When we arrived, one of the guides from the hostel stopped outside of the houses and explained what celebrities lived there. As public are still allowed on the street there! They gave some fun facts (eg. Michael jackson and Elvis Presley had houses opposite each other). We had breakfast at Ladurée which is super cute and looks expensive but actually reasonably priced!
Universal Studios Hollywood: This was just over $100 for a ticket. I’ve been to Disney and Universal in Florida so many times growing up, this was a must visit for me. We got a metro to the Universal Studios stop and arrived as the park was opening and hardly anyone was there. Really easy to get to even if you don’t have a car- not like the Florida one.
Malibu Beach: Visit the beach and have dinner at Nobu watching the sunset!
WHAT IT WAS LIKE
I didn’t really like Hollywood, we went to get dinner at 6pm and it felt like walking somewhere dodgy in london at 2am. But in the day it was fine. In general the Hollywood strip seemed to be quite dated. I preferred visiting Malibu and Santa Monica. I found LA isn’t a place you can walk around. You really need a car to get around. In the limited accessible areas to walk, you can walk down one stretch of road with fancy cars and lead straight into a bad area. Despite hostels not being my favourite thing in the world, I am super pleased we stayed in one. Purely because the hostel offered so many different tours and events to get involved in and a lot were free! We also got to meet quite a few people here.
Any Advice
Distance: Something to keep in mind is how spread out LA is, from going to Hollywood and wanting to explore Malibu, I didn’t really take into account how big LA actually is.
Transport: While we did manage to get buses around and some Ubers to places in Hollywood or nearby, it was difficult to properly explore LA. We managed to get a couple buses from Hollywood to stop at Santa Monica, but it was definitely time consuming and the areas the bus stopped at were not always the best. I’d recommend renting a car.
Hostels: If you want to meet a lot of people I’d recommend a hostel. I’d heard some bad things before so was never interested in staying in one. I would suggest to book one of the double bed rooms instead of sharing a dormitory with six other people. Will be more expensive but less to worry about and you can have the best of both worlds!
This sounds like an amazing trip! I went to LA a few years ago, but it was only for a few days. We tried to cram in all the tourist stuff like Santa Monica and the walk of fame. I would have loved to go on some hikes or just spend a day at the beach.
First of all, you’re gorgeous! Second, I admire your bravery and think maybe I should give a hostel another shot. The one and only hostel I ever stayed in had bed bugs :S Thank God it was just one night!
Great ideas! I loved Los Angeles when I visited and can’t wait to go back 🙂
Brianna | briannamarielifestyle.com/