L.A.’s The Place

“L.A.’s The Place” is the official slogan the City of Los Angeles uses to promote tourism. But any visitor will soon realize that “L.A.” isn’t a “place” in any usual sense. Rather, it’s a diverse and very exciting collection of places, scattered in all directions over a 100-kilometer radius from wherever you happen to be staying.

Even residents can’t agree on what “L.A.” actually is. The city of Los Angeles itself sprawls over 1,290 square kilometers. In the early 20th century it “annexed” dozens of formerly independent cities that traded their autonomy for access to the city’s Eastern Sierra water supply. Southern California is, after all, a desert. Hollywood is perhaps the most famous of these erstwhile cities.

But the city’s boundaries blur into a vaguely defined agglomeration called “Greater Los Angeles.” The bean-counters at the federal Office of Management and Budget have defined “Metropolitan Los Angeles” as Los Angeles County (which includes 88 incorporated cities and 10 million people) and the adjacent Orange County (home of the Disney theme parks and Mission San Juan Capistrano, among other attractions). The same agency has also defined a “Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area” that adds Ventura County to the “metropolitan” area. Unofficially, “Greater Los Angeles” or “the Southland” also includes parts of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, the “Inland Empire” from which many people make lengthy daily commutes. For that matter, it could be most accurate to define Los Angeles as the central core of a nearly continuous conurbation that stretches some 400 kilometers along the Southern California coast from Santa Barbara in the north to San Diego in the south.

However you define it, the sheer expanse of “L.A.” creates unique challenges for the visitor. If you’ve visited other major cities, you’re probably familiar with the standard guidebook recommendation to select a “home base” hotel in a central location convenient to mass transit. But that won’t work in Los Angeles! There is nothing resembling a “central location.” And since Southern California’s sprawl co-evolved with the automobile, mass transit is neither convenient nor practical for most vacationers.

Yes, Los Angeles does have a “Downtown.” On a rare day when the smog and haze temporarily abate, it’s visible as a cluster of skyscrapers sprouting from the flat “L.A. basin.” It’s a major center of finance and commerce for the Pacific Rim. Some people who haven’t done their homework choose a Downtown hotel as their base for a Los Angeles vacation. They quickly discover that they’re nowhere near most of the places they want to visit, and that after dark most of Downtown becomes deserted and often dodgy. (Downtown is now undergoing gentrification, as high-powered business executives who want to live close to their offices move into new astronomically-priced housing developments. So it could eventually become a vibrant if unaffordable enclave, though it will probably still be nothing like a conventional city center.)

Divide and Conquer

So where is a good place to stay while exploring Los Angeles? There’s no ready answer for that. It’s easy enough if you’re confining your visit to one specific area such as Hollywood or Santa Monica, or if your plans extend only to spending your summer vacation waiting in line with the kids for rides at Disneyland^® park. But if you’re looking to explore the diversity of Southern California, the inescapable fact is that no matter where you stay (or live) in the Los Angeles area, any itinerary you plan will necessarily involve a lengthy daily “commute” on the nation’s most congested freeways.

Guidebooks invariably point out that the Los Angeles area has a surprisingly extensive patchwork of mass transit systems. Then they sternly warn against relying on any of it unless your time and patience are limitless. That’s generally true, but there is an important exception. If you can plan a trip entirely on the modern and mostly reliable Metro Rail light rail system, or a short trip on a single bus, you should definitely do it. You can find out if that is possible by using the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) trip planner. Unfortunately, the Metro Rail system covers only a minuscule portion of the Southland sprawl; and it’s most notable for all the places it doesn’t go.

The MTA bus system has been the subject of continuing and costly litigation about a range of problems that include infrequent service, inadequate routes, and overcrowded and dilapidated buses. Some residential areas have no bus service within walking distance. A trip of any distance will probably involve multiple buses, which means you’ll spend far too much time standing on nondescript or possibly dodgy street corners waiting for connections that no transit officials have even thought about synchronizing. (In fairness to those officials, the very same gridlocked traffic that bedevils automobile drivers makes any bus schedule little more than a statement of intent.)

A likely reason for these problems is that according to the MTA’s own data, the median household income of bus riders in 2007 was $12,000. And many of those riders aren’t citizens. Politicians are naturally disinclined to make a priority of providing an essential service for low-income people, especially when many of them can’t vote. Although federal courts have forced some improvements in recent years, for the most part buses in Los Angeles are the transportation of choice only for those who have no other choice of transportation.

If you can’t or won’t drive, there are few other options. Taxis are quite expensive and not particularly convenient. Aggressively-enforced restrictions on where cab drivers can pick up and drop off passengers mean they don’t cruise busy streets looking for customers. You can’t just hail a cab as in New York or London, so whenever you need one you’ll have to call a dispatcher on your cellphone and wait. There are also numerous sightseeing tours of major attractions let someone else do the driving. They’ll pick you up from any of a lengthy list of hotels.

If you want more control and flexibility than you’d get from a tour bus, driving is the only practical choice. And since the automobile and gridlock are perhaps the Southland’s defining characteristics, driving is essential for any visitor who wants to experience what Los Angeles really is like. If you’re an easygoing low-stress individual, you’ll know just how to cope with stopping and creeping through the congealed traffic: Roll down the window, turn up the radio, sing along with your favorite tunes, and enjoy the sunshine. But if you aren’t blessed with the patience of a saint and the serenity of a Zen master, a carefully planned, methodical divide-and-conquer approach can reduce— but not eliminate!— traffic hassles.

The key is to recognize that Los Angeles is more like a region, a state, or even a small country than a “city.” So plan your trip accordingly. Rather than staying in one place for your entire visit, choose several locations. Make a list of the places you want to visit, and plot them on a map. Then look for “bases” near where the plots cluster, and make your hotel bookings there. Plan an itinerary that allocates an appropriate amount of time in each “base,” according to your own tastes and preferences. After you’ve explored one area, move to the next “base” during mid-morning, mid-afternoon, or late night hours when the traffic is theoretically lightest. That may sound like a lot of work, but it can make your trip less stressful and much more enjoyable than enduring a daily “commute.” Los Angeles is a unique destination that requires a unique approach!

The Endless Summer and Other Myths

As the home of the movie industry, Southern California figures heavily in the myth and fantasy that “Hollywood” spins into its products. That’s an important reason Los Angeles is such a popular vacation spot for couples, families, and friends. Romantics can enjoy basking in the reflected glamor, while cynics will likely find much to appreciate in the reality behind the myth. But let me here debunk one pervasive myth: The weather in Los Angeles is not the endless summer meant for surfing and riding in convertibles.

Although the ocean and coastal mountains create a “Mediterranean climate” that lacks the seasonal extremes found in many other places, there are distinct seasons (and I’m not referring to the old joke that claims they’re “Flood, Fire, Smog, and Earthquake”). A visitor in late spring may be very disappointed with the continuous heavy overcast of “May gray” and “June gloom,” which can sometimes persist well into July. Near the coast, the peak travel months of July and August can be foggy or overcast. But that’s actually a blessing, since it keeps temperatures pleasant while inland areas swelter.

Contrary to the song, it does rain in Southern California— mainly in January and February, when flooding brings traffic to a halt and unleashes hillside mud that sends costly beach homes sliding into the frigid gray Pacific. But that also means the mountains that surround the Los Angeles “basin” get a good dusting of snow. Spring and autumn are the most reliable times for postcard-perfect sunshine, and are probably the best times to visit. But hot and dry Santa Ana winds in autumn promote brush fires that can fill the air with smoke. Postcards showing crystal-clear panoramas of the Los Angeles “basin” are taken in winter, on the days between the Pacific storms that (temporarily) rinse away the smog. Christmas is equally likely to be a dry 25° C as wet and blustery; and you might experience both conditions within a single week in early winter. Though some Southland beaches are as beautiful as those in Hawaii, many people find the water in this part of the Pacific Ocean unpleasantly cold for swimming or surfing.

Regarding some other pervasive myths, drive-by shootings are newsworthy because of their rarity. And visitors really need not worry about the much-publicized gangs or drug-related violence if they avoid the impoverished areas that are notorious for those problems, such as Compton and “South Central L.A.” (which aren’t tourist destinations anyway). Although violent crime can happen anywhere, by any objective measure traffic accidents are a far greater risk to life and limb. But few people ever think about that. Thefts of and from cars are too-frequent occurrences, so always take the standard common-sense precautions of locking your car and keeping anything valuable out of sight. It’s amazing how many stolen or burglarized cars were unlocked, some even with the keys left in the ignition!

As for earthquakes, if you spend a day in Southern California you are guaranteed to “experience” at least one of them. But unless you check the United States Geological Survey’s Recent Earthquakes for Los Angeles map, you’ll never know about it. Nearly all the earthquakes are so weak that only seismographs notice them. If there is an earthquake large enough to feel, you’ll have something to brag about to your friends when you get home! Yes, earthquakes are an ever-present hazard; but compared to the risk of injury or death in a traffic accident, the chance of suffering any harm from them is effectively nil.

L.A’s Not The Place For A Solo Vacation

As fascinating as Los Angeles is, I cannot recommend it as a destination for solo travelers. That’s not because of the safety issues women often worry about— it’s no more (and no less) dangerous than any other American city. Rather, the things that make Los Angeles unique also make it a less than desirable destination for people of either gender who travel alone.

As you’ve surely gathered by now, exploring Los Angeles necessarily involves spending a lot of time in a car, often going nowhere. That can be particularly stressful and exhausting if you’re doing it alone. Negotiating clotted freeways and streets is much easier if you’re with someone who can share the driving, read the map, and look out for unoccupied parking spaces.

The freeways impose a single-occupancy penalty as onerous as that of any cruise line: Cars with two or more occupants can use special carpool lanes on many freeways that often— but certainly not always!— let them zoom right past the creeping horde of solo drivers. (The “high occupancy vehicle” lanes are actually meant to encourage commuters to share rides; they only incidentally penalize the solo visitor.) And if meeting people is what makes solo travel special for you, the isolation that goes with the Southern California “car culture” will make that more difficult than in other cities. Those are just some of the reasons to defer your Los Angeles adventure until you can share it with friends or a Special Someone.

If you’re dreaming of a Southern California vacation with the exhilarating freedom that only solo travel can provide, I can recommend San Diego. The climate is the same as in Los Angeles, and its collection of attractions for every taste is much more easily accessible.