Santa Monica is my favorite part of LA. It has a gorgeous beach with the famous Santa Monica pier, great shopping, and amazing restaurants. From Santa Monica, you can also walk to Venice Beach and the canals. I highly recommend this!
I would also definitely do some kind of guided Hollywood/Beverly Hills driving tour. There are quite a few of them. Some are hop-on-hop-off and can take a full day. I did a two hour fixed tour (not hop-on-hop-off), which was a good amount of time to get a cursory look at the Kodak Theatre, Mulholland Drive for great views of the Hollywood sign, Hollywood Bowl, celeb houses, Rodeo Drive, etc. You can also walk around Hollywood by foot to see the walk of fame and other sights. I find Hollywood itself rather underwhelming, so the two hour tour was enough to satisfy my curiosity. Since your DH is a movie buff, he might appreciate a more extensive tour, such as one that goes to the studios and other parts of the city.
Post by alleinesein on Feb 17, 2014 17:00:40 GMT -5
I usually stay at the JW Marriott at LA Live if I am going to do stuff in downtown or I am going to an event at LA Live. Otherwise I stay at the Magic Castle Hotel in the Hollywood area; its a small hotel in a converted apartment building so all of the rooms have kitchens. Its 1 block north of Hollywood and Highland and its convenient to the Metro line. It has underground parking that wont bankrupt you, breakfast each morning and a snack list of munchies and beverages that are available at any time (with no charge; its part of the room rate).
The best way to start planning is to figure out what your 'must sees' are. Here are just a few things that you might be interested in:
Hollywood Walk of Fame
LACMA
Page Museum aka the La Brea Tar Pits
Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax
The Getty
Santa Monica
Griffith Park
Universal Studios
Warner Brothers Studios (they do tours and have live tapings)
Post by more adventurous on Feb 18, 2014 16:05:05 GMT -5
We also stayed in Santa Monica and absolutely loved it. There's so many awesome places to eat, shop, and wander around within walking distance. You probably also already know this, but be prepared for everything to be expensive (unless you already live in NY or another HCOL area).
Also, just my two cents but I really hated the hop-on/hop-off bus tour. We did see a lot of areas but it took up a huge chunk of the day (and the only place that we got off was the Walk of Fame area). Then again, that may be partially due to the fact that we were so far out and also because I get motion sickness. If we could do it again though I would narrow down the places that I definitely wanted to see and take taxis or public transportation to get to just those.