Fodor's Los Angeles 2001
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No matter what your budget or whether it's your first trip or fifteenth, Fodor's Gold Guides get you where you want to go.
Color planning sections help you decide where to go with citywide virtual tours and cross-referencing to the main text.
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Insider info that's totally up to date. Every year our local experts give you the inside track, showing you all the things to see and do -- from must-see sights to off-the-beaten-path adventures, from shopping to outdoor fun.
Hundreds of hotel and restaurant choices in all price ranges -- from budget-friendly B&Bs to luxury hotels, from casual eateries to the hottest new restaurants, complete with thorough reviews showing what makes each place special.
Smart Travel Tips A to Z section helps you take care of the nitty gritty with essential local contacts and great advice -- from how to take your mountain bike with you to what to do in an emergency.
We've compiled a helpful list of guidebooks that complement
Fodor's Los Angeles 2001. To learn more about them, just enter the title in the keyword search box.
Fodor's Compass Amercan Guides: Coastal California: A full-color guide, providing in-depth coverage of the history, culture and character of Coastal California.
Fodor's upCLOSE California: Designed for those who want to travel well and spend less.
Fodor's Exploring California: An information-rich cultural guide in full color.
Destination Los Angeles"Only in L.A." You'll hear the phrase often, as a mantra for a this-is-the-good-life moment or with a laugh over a local oddity. Los Angeles teems with quirks, idiosyncrasies, and racing trajectories -- the fascinating fallout from the city's alembic of ambition and invention. Dozens of cultures and affiliations jostle for position: Hispanic, Chinese, African-American, Korean, surfers, cyberminds, and of course, movie hopefuls. A cinematic glow colors everything, from the Griffith Park Observatory, where James Dean fought in
Rebel Without a Cause, to the nodding oil pumps seen in
L.A. Confidential. It's an industry town, it's a car town, it's smoggy, it's glitzy -- and it's always captivating.
Arts & CultureL.A.'s simmering arts scene turned white-hot with the opening of the hilltop
Getty Center -- a spectacular combination of extraordinary architecture, remarkable holdings, and sweeping views. Architect Richard Meier grouped gleaming white pavilions around courtyards and fountains: a tour of the galleries could lead you to paintings by Rembrandt and Cézanne, photographs by Paul Strand, or a reconstructed 18th-century French salon. But on a clear day you may be tempted to spend just as much time outside as in, wandering through the garden and peering toward the coast to spot Catalina Island. L.A.'s other exceptional collections run the gamut from vintage cars (at the Petersen Automotive Museum) to American art (at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art). The Norton Simon Museum is rich in two disparate fields: Asian sculpture and Impressionist and post-Impressionist treasures. Packing a double punch with two locations, the
Museum of Contemporary Art keeps its finger on the cultural pulse. Its acclaimed permanent collection, representing artists like Mark Rothko and Diane Arbus, is matched with high-profile visiting shows. Rare manuscripts, classic portraits, and more than a half-dozen gardens fill the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens complex; everybody leaves with a soft spot for its pairing of two British paintings,
Blue Boy and
Pinkie. Natural history specimens, fossils, and hands-on exhibits at the
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the George C. Page Museum of La Brea Discoveries are practically guaranteed to spark your curiosity.
Celebrity SpottingIf luck goes your way, you might find yourself doing a double take as a famous face shows up at a Montana Avenue coffee shop. But you don't have to leave celebrity-spotting to chance. To absorb the aura of past and present stars, head to the mile-long
Hollywood Walk of Fame, where sidewalk plaques salute legends like Charlie Chaplin and Marlon Brando, and to the fantastical
Mann's Chinese Theatre, still a favorite for premieres. In the theater's courtyard, you can size up the foot- or handprints of golden-era stars like Joan Crawford and Humphrey Bogart. (Here's your chance to share a step with Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers.) If you're truly determined, there's always dinner at Spago Beverly Hills.
DiningL.A.'s amazing mix of cultures -- and its flair for the dramatic -- spills into its cuisine. You can even have a great meal at the airport, at the space-age
Encounter. Los Angeles is a breeding ground of celebrity chefs, spearheaded by Wolfgang Puck with his culinary coup
Spago, still going strong after years. (There are now several more restaurants with the Puck touch.) Excellent Mexican spots, including local fave
El Cholo, pepper the city, as do Asian-fusion temples and creative vegetarian specialists. Then again, L.A. is also the birthplace of the cheeseburger.
BeachesHit Highway 1 and let it sweep you along the coast: its more than 30 miles of shoreline take in a score of relaxed beach towns and limitless surf. There's a concentration of funk in Venice Beach, where chain-saw jugglers share a crowded boardwalk with tattoo artists, skaters, and T-shirt vendors. Muscle Beach is a quintessential part of the Venice strip -- it's not really a beach at all but a cordoned-off weight-lifting area fringed with people gawking at the flexing bodybuilders. For the more standard kind of aesthetic appreciation, visit the Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach in
Malibu where jagged boulders frame a gorgeous view. Zip over to the sandy expanse of Santa Monica State Beach for a classic pier scene complete with a Ferris wheel, carousel, and arcade. When you've tanned long enough, you can join the Roxy girls and surfer guys by windsurfing or board surfing (try Malibu Lagoon State Beach). Then there's beach volleyball with its rhythmic leaps and dives. After all, getting sand on the floor of your car is practically a requirement. For the real "Surf City," go a bit farther south to Huntington Beach. This is surfing past and present, with an International Surfing Museum chronicling early heroes like "the Duke" and pro surf competitions readying new blood. A Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirt would fit right in.
NightlifeMartini mavens, jazz buffs, alt-rock, scenesters, and swingers -- L.A. embraces them all. At places like the
Viper Room, the crowd shifts nightly. Cocktail culture is well entrenched, and you'll find scores of places steeped in the Rat Pack aesthetic. (And then there's tiki territory.) Live music, from lounge to surf guitar, fills boîtes and ballrooms all over the city. The legendary Whiskey A Go Go on the Sunset Strip still rocks, while the Conga Room adds a heady jolt of Latin. Toss your hair at Sky Bar or plant both elbows on the oak of a low-key, local hangout. And you can always jockey for a booth at an old-Hollywood watering hole like
Formosa.ShoppingAll that Hollywood money has to go somewhere, and a large chunk of it is redistributed in the platinum-card realms of Beverly Hills. Wilshire and North Robertson boulevards shimmer with enticing boutiques, but it's
Rodeo Drive that's still synonymous with serious shopping. Melrose Avenue and up-and-coming Beverly Boulevard mix hot designers with vintage finds. (In this town, vintage is a
very good thing.) For outdoor markets and crafts, head to the Farmers Market or
Olvera Street.
