So you wanna go to Hollywood!? well you have landed on the right blog!
I was lucky enough to spend a 3 day layover whilst transiting to New Zealand back in 2020, let's just say I saw a lot on what I would call a whistle stop tour of LA.
After arriving in LAX at around 10pm the previous night I was just a tiny bit Jet lagged. Unfortunately there is an 8 hour time difference between London and LA which means the inevitable happened.. jet lag. Comment below your Jet lag cures/tricks!
I still woke up extremely excited, if you are visiting LA, you might be like me! I grew up watching movies and tv shows whilst admiring the bright lights of Hollywood. I was thrilled to have landed in La La Land.
I had an interesting but comfortable stay at Orange Drive Hostel, Hollywood. Now when I was planning my trip to LA I had no idea where to stay, I picked a hostel right down the road from the famous Hollywood Boulevard. You can definitely get budget accommodation if you are a backpacker!
You can check out my youtube Vlog from my time in LA down below.
In this blog I am going to give you tips on visiting this exciting city and recommendations on what I would see/do.
Tip #1 - If you are visiting LA this is a very big city you will want to rent a car. I rented a car from Budget car rental, I picked up my Toyota Corolla from LAX airport - Easy peasy! - public transport is not the best in LA - you could Uber everywhere but this may get expensive.
Tip #2 - Do not stay in Downtown LA or near the Hollywood Boulevard. - I heard after my trip that these two parts of LA are more sketchier than others. Whilst I never felt unsafe I did feel more conscious walking around, especially as a solo traveler! Next time I would definitely stay in the West Hollywood or Venice Beach area.
Tip #3 - Plan your time accordingly - As much as I love to go with the flow and see what happens, I feel like LA is so big you need to plan your time as you have to drive everywhere. - LA is also notorious for bad traffic!
Tip #4 - LA is definitely one of the most expensive places you can visit. As a Solo traveller I somehow ended up spending around £400 in 3 days... Ooops. You can do it on a budget but I did find things like accommodation more expensive than I initially planned.
My expenditure
Accommodation - £74/$104
Car rental - £89/$126
Activities - £105/$149 (I splurged on Disneyland)
Food/drink/other - £130/$184
Total - £398/$568
Side note you could easily spend less/more depending on what you wanted to to whilst in LA.
The view from the Griffith Observatory.
Itinerary of things to do/see in LA
1 - The Hollywood walk of fame.
Now you definitely can't visit LA without seeing the Hollywood walk of fame. I spent a couple of hours walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard, luckily my hostel was a 2 minute walk from the street so I didn’t have far to walk. Whilst on this street you will probably get approached by what feels like a million people asking if you want to do a tour. I didn’t have time but the TMZ tour looked the most appealing. This little district is heavily touristy with other spots such as Dolby theatre and the Chinese theatre. It’s a very busy place you wont want to spend much time in.
2 - Hike to the Griffith Observatory
I drove from West Hollywood to Griffith Park and surprisingly parked for free. (Parking Hollywood Hills, 90068) You can drive to the top and pay for parking, however i preferred to do the walk which took around 50minutes. The views from the top were amazing but sweaty!
3 - Hollywood Sign
From here you can hike to the Hollywood sign, I unfortunately did not have enough time as the sun sets about 5pm ( I visited in January) and I didn’t have enough day light hours to hike there and back. I would mention to bring water and dress appropriately as the sun can get very hot.
This is the view of the Hollywood sign. Don’t be deceived it is further than it looks!
4 - Rodeo Drive and Beverley Hills.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do yourself a favour and rent out a car when you get to LA. The feeling you get when you have the music is on and you are driving through LA is unlike anything else. I literally had the "look to my left and I see the Hollywood Sign" moment.
Next up on our Whistle stop tour is Beverley Hills which is around a 20 minute drive from West Hollywood and it is so worth it. We have all seen the Movies and tv shows, as soon as I pulled up to this iconic sign I could not help but feel excited.
I spent a couple of hours walking around Rodeo Drive and Beverley hills I managed to find free parking for 2 hours. (Beverly -Canon CA90210) I am not into designer brands but its a pretty street to look at and walk down for a few hours.
5 - Santa Monica Pier and Venice beach
This fun, bright and laid back spot will have you wanting to stay longer! Parking was easy, you can choose from short stay and pay at the metres or larger car parks for all day parking. The pier was very touristy and I feel this was more for younger kids as it was full of fairground rides. However, from the pier you can over look the rest of this stunning beach. To get down to Venice beach which was around 1.5 miles. I hopped on a Lime Scooter and headed down there, I have used these before and they are so much fun. Download the Lime app (or other scooter app - they have many) hop on and scoot away!
The scooters do have restricted zones but the app is useful in showing you where you can/cant ride.
Venice beach is filled with small independent shops lots of street art and food cafes - It was a lot more chilled than LA city itself.
6 - Visit Disneyland
Always visit Disneyland! I am totally biased, since visiting Disney world in Orlando a few years ago anytime there is a Disneyland park around you will see me there. There are two parks in the Californian Disney land. These are Disneyland Park and Disney California adventure park. As I was short on time I decided to only visit one park which was the Disneyland Park, this is the park that has Sleeping Beauty's castle.
I will say that if you are not a Disney person you will most likely check out Universal studios :) I'd highly recommended spending a day at either.
My time in LA absolutely flew by and I could have happily stayed an extra week. LA was one of my bucket list places to visit and I am very glad I started my trip here. LA itself is very beautiful in some places. Please keep in mind I was only in LA for 3 days and this blog is based on my perspective of my time and what I got up too.
I would 100% go back to LA and I hope if your reading this you make some time in your future travels to check out this beautiful city.
you can check out my vlogs below for both Disneyland and my LA vlog !
Dain Luka!
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