Customer Reviews

Top 10 Los Angeles (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I took this guide book with me on my first visit to LA recently. I was interested in doing all of the typical tourist things. This book was indispensable. I also bought Frommer's guide book and I never opened it.

I rented a car and traveled through LA. I was driving alone and the maps in this book were a huge help. They are very detailed and held up through being thrown in the car and in and out of bags. The pictures are great. The decriptions are short and to the point. I also loved the size of this book. It is small enough to easily carry in a larger purse or backpack.

I didn't use the Top 10 book to plan my trip - only what to do and where to go when I got there. A more detailed book might serve you better if you need help decided where to stay and what hotels to use.

You can't go wrong with this guide book - it is really the only guidebook you need for LA.

During the past few years, I've become increasingly convinced that L.A. is one of the most interesting cities in America. Unfortunately, much of what is there is overshadowed by ersatz "attractions" like Disneyland and Universal Studios.

This guide overcomes that problem by focusing upon different areas of interest and then listing the top 10 attractions within each area. Yes, Disneyland and Universal Studios are still covered, but so are the numerous museums, architectural landmarks (this book first made me aware of the Bradbury Building), parks, restaurants and hotels.

Despite the enormous amount of material covered, the guide is compact enough to easily fit in a pocket or purse, yet still offers attractive graphics and intuitive organization. I bought Fodor's guide at the same time, but despite its greater amount of text, found that I used the Top 10 Guide virtually exclusively.

The 10 to 12 pages on Pasadena are quite good. Pasadena is a city worth a visit, especially the Norton Simon Museum which offers a fine collection of art in a peaceful, uncrowded setting. Highly recommended.

Since "The Loved One" has just come out on DVD, I especially wanted to visit Forest Lawn, the cemetery satirized in that film. Interestingly, none of the guide books I scanned provided directions, although the Top 10 Guide does provide directions to the Hollywood cemetery where some of the top stars are buried. As it turned out, there are six Forest Lawns scattered about the LA area, with the Mother Church being on the west side of Glendale along I-5 [Los Feliz exit]. Well worth a visit.

Since I visit LA on a regular basis, I plan to use this book a lot in the future, but to augment it with other, special purpose (e.g., architectural) guides.

If you can find a copy, there's a fine book about LA, L.A. Lore: A Scintillating Exploration of Los Angeles by Stephen Brook, that provides a narrative overview of the city. Brook is an English journalist who came to LA in 1990 with an excellent list of contacts, and visited virtually every section of the city. His observations are intelligent and generally unbiased.

We visit the LA area two or three times a year.

This is simply the best compact guide to LA that we've seen.

It's quite usefully organized around several different communities in the LA area. This is the only way that's useful in LA since, if you're staying in Santa Monica, reading about a great restaurant in Pasadena isn't all that helpful.

A very dense collection of useful information. It's introduced us to hotels (e.g. Magic Castle Hotel) and restaurants (e.g. Newsroom Cafe) that we've really enjoyed.

Hopefully they'll be able to keep this updated every couple years or so.

If you're going to LA, buy this. It's a steal.

I bought this guide along with the Frommer's guide to LA and I must say, it's hard to say which is better. Obviously, there is less text in this version, but the essentials of a trip to LA are laid even more bare in this pocket-sized guide. And the pictures get you excited to go!

If you're interested in experiencing a typical LA tourist-style vacation, I can vouch for this guide as a must-have! Use it by itself, or supplement it with one of the larger guides.

This brand is perfect. Concise, yet without sacrificing any information. This book helped us navigate Los Angeles, and see exactly what interested us. Also this gave hints at off-the beaten-path "must-sees".

Do not buy another book, this is the one.

Being a fan of the Eyewitness Guide series, I was somewhat disappointed in this one, but it's my fault. It's not a complete guide to LA - it's exactly what it says it is: a guide to various Top Ten categories. That said, it's only partly my fault. Why should one buy a Top Ten book when you could have an ordinary city guide? But wait, Eyewitness doesn't have one for LA. They have one for California - what gives? I suppose there isn't enough in LA for its own guide. OK, New York wins again.

Pet Peeve: one of the alleged top ten restaurants named is Valentino's. Good grief. These guys have been paying off somebody. We went once 30 years when there weren't many Italian restaurants and it was good, if very overpriced. We went again last year and got a truly underwhelming meal - the special risotto of the night yet, undercooked and dry. This is unforgivable in *any* restaurant. And the prices are still stratospheric and the service cool at best. But even without this warning, one should not rely on *books* for restaurant recommendations in LA. Things change too quickly.

My recommendation - buy the California guide and limit your time in LA.

This pocket-size book is a convenient addition to whatever other travel books or notes you have. The top ten lists are helpful in that they enable you to focus your attention when you are considering a complex, sprawling metropolis like Los Angeles. Best parts were the sub-sections on things you should see in a particular part of town -- i.e., a walk around Hollywood or shopping in Beverly Hills. Interestingly, at least for Hollywood, the info in this book is actually more useful than the info provided by the Hollywood tourist info bureau, which is basically a list of stores and commercial museums.

I always read tons of travel books before traveling to my destinations... And there are only two books I carry with them after all that reading: one always belong to the TOP 10 collections.

Just drive around LA and stop at the attractions highlighted in the TOP 10 LA. Some places interesting for me were missing but all the places listed that I visited were worth my time, and become a starting point for more visits near by.

Useful, accessible, and very portable.

The street map was helpful information in booking my vacation, however I thought it was overpriced.

Just the right size but it is filled with lots of information. I like how the book is organized with the top 10 best things to see.