Home > Los Angeles > Areas

Areas of Los Angeles - Los Angeles Hotels .com

As the second largest city in the United States, Los Angeles (and its vast suburbs) cover a lot of ground. About 13 million people call it home, all of them alpha personalities--or so it seems when you're driving the freeways that tie it all together. Nevertheless, you'll want to join them. Spread out over the hills, there's a lot to see.

As a visitor to LA, you get to enjoy all of its neighborhoods--even those you have to be a rock star to live in. Bel Air - Beverly Hills - Brentwood, for instance, are good places to start; you can ogle the high-end shops and shoppers on Rodeo Drive, then wonder if that sushi diner two tables over really is Drew Barrymore.

For true culture, the incredible J. Paul Getty Museum looms over Brentwood, or you could take in the art and architecture at UCLA.

Hollywood -- the birthplace of glamour -- has lots of nightlife and theater options, not to mention tourist must-sees such as the Walk of Fame. Movies get made nowadays in the suburbs, but this still is and always will be where the dream was born.

West Hollywood, especially along Sunset Strip and the Cahuenga Corridor, is party central, and not just for gay, lesbian, bi, and transgendered Angelenos who claim this neighborhood (along with Silver Lake) as their own. Art and shopping are also abundant in WeHo.

Los Feliz and Echo Park are neighborhoods with recent enough bohemian pasts to support thriving art and literature (especially Los Feliz) and fashion (Echo Park) scenes. Griffith Park, next to Los Feliz, is a big family draw with its observatory, the Los Angeles Zoo, and the Greek Theatre.

Silver Lake, besides its gay and lesbian nightlife, offers an artsy vibe with cafes and bars, shops, theaters, and galleries, and Downtown boasts serious art at the MOCA and its Geffen Contemporary collection.

In South Central, besides the Watts Tower, you can find great blues clubs and Exposition Park, with its Natural History Museum and the California Science Center.

If you want to find out how movies and TV are really made today, head west from Griffith Park to the San Fernando Valley. It's hip to make fun of the birthplace of the "valley girl," but don't let that deter you from touring Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, or the NBC Studios, for example.

The San Gabriel Valley's attractions are concentrated in Pasadena, where you can see the Rose Parade or wander the Norton Simon Museum, but don't miss a peek into California's past at Mission San Gabriel Arcangel or a day playing the ponies at Santa Anita.

And of course you cannot leave LA without hitting the beaches -- from the crowded, self-consciously quirky Venice Beach to the famous sand and surf on Malibu to the bustling seaport of Long Beach. Santa Monica offers lots of oceanfront lodging, where you can sip margaritas in your room as the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean.