My main goals when visiting any new city are culture and food. To that end, I would suggest…
Perfect Circuit. LACMA. Community parks and murals.
Tacos. Little Ethiopia. K-town.
Stay safe and pack a ton of masks!
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FU** the nay sayers 
LA is awesome. wanna check out a cool store Big City Music. Oh ya Perfect Circuit is down there. cool shop
I dunno if they are doing shows, but if there is anything going on at the Greek Theater, GO. awesome venue.
Troubador, Whiskey A Go Go.
but if that stuffs not happening. Amoeba is a great record store.
and then you GOTTA go to the beach in Venice. all kinds of people watching to do there.
muscle beach ha ha ha 
fun restaurant to check out…Yamashiro, if you like sushi. make sure you get a window table at sunset.
so the prob with LA is…[I believe] its awesome to live there, not the best to visit. everything is far apart and if you dont know where you’re going you’ll blow a lot of time. if you know someone there that can show you around…youre set.
oh ya the Ghetty museum is awes. again best to be up there around sunset.
drive Sunset Drive…really cool drive. Laurel Canyon. check out the mad houses in Beverly Hills.
Dukes for a good cliche surfer dinner ha ha ha. AWESOME mex food in SoCal.
take a surfboard out. get a long board if you’ve never gone. but yer best to drive down to Orange County, less crowds, better waves. its mellow down there. the drive… 
but its cool to visit. Laguna Beach…awesome little town. SUPER good mex…Taco Loco! Taco Surf a little further south in San Clemente. World Cafe…Sushi Roku…
LaBrea tar pits…it’s not much but its neat. LACMA is right there too…so once you breeze the tar pits you can hit the museum. some good Indian food around there. and keep yer eyes open for stars…I saw a BUNCH when I lived in Beverly Hills. Hung out with John Cusack one time and Jessica Biel another time…that was NUTS.
Anyways, there’s LOTS to do!
have a good time
i wanna move back so bad
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I just spent 5 months there. I love Venice. Gritty, punky. Santa Monica is also great people watching …they are cleaning up the homeless. Undergrounds- Darkmatter. But, Teddys Tacos man. Seriously! Man-makes me hungry just talking about it. Get the birria with the consomé sauce. Or the quesadillas and dip um in that sauce. Man I miss that place.
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In n Out burgers
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man…this got me thinking about the sightings…
- Cusack at Sushi Roku and Starbucks. Had some drinks at Roku
- Jessica Biel at James Beach Bar…she likes her beer! Talked a bit in the bar had some beers.
- sat beside Ben Stiller and his wife at the Arclight watching new Dawn of the Dead
- Famke Janssen in Westwood
- Gina Davis in Westwood
- Shawnee Smith at Baskin Robbins
- Anthony Kiedis in Santa Monica
- Pete Townsend in Santa Monica
- Jason Lee, Tim Roth and Giovanni Ribisi at the Knitting Factory. they were always there together
- Suge Knight at Dennys 3am. that was kinda messed up. we left before we got served.
- Bill Pullman at LAX…we talked to him…SUPER nice. my girl has a pic with him
- Ben Affleck and Jay Lo in my office bulling. Irving Azoff’s office was on the top floor.
- Seth Green at the Arclight
- Brandi in the elevator in my office
- Clive Barker was in our office pitching a game
- Bono in our office checking out the studio, he became an investor
- Chuck Lidell at my building
- Pam Anderson in the elevator in our building
- Scarlette Johansen in Bev Hills
- Jason Schwartzman at the office
- I was on set of Avatar by mistake…went to the wrong hangar…saw James Cameron. I was there to shoot a mocap shoot for our game…and almost got placed in Avatar as a mobcap actor ha ha ha
- Rob Schneider at the Gap Santa Monica all the time
- Rodney Mullen Santa Monica all the time
- David Spade…his girl at the times house was down the street from me
- Alfred Molina LACMA
- Robbin Williams AND Bobcat at Meltdown comic book store Hollywood. my girl has a pic with them. both SO NICE.
- Julian Sands at World Cafe
- Larry King on Rodeo all the time
- Neve Campbell Santa Monica
- Jonathan Taylor Thomas Beverly Hills
- played golf with Glenn Plummer
- Nikki Six and Brandi Six in Hollywood
- Dennis Rodman Huntington Beach
theres a bunch more…its popping in bit by bit.
its fun…keep an eye out
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Woah it’s like Pokémon. Hard to imagine the mega-famous going around town without being mobbed constantly for autographs / selfies / worse. I was sat near one of the James Bonds in a restaurant, and his people turned away half a dozen fans in an hour or so. One hour of one day… Easy to see how they end up going nuts. And makes celebs who are apparently super friendly (Bill Murray, Keanu Reeves etc) even more remarkable
I didn’t see any of those people… But I would check out the basketball games at Venice. I saw some amazing players down there. Santa Monica Pier is California dreamin. There’s also a cute little Japan Town. Lot’s of crazy Japanese anime outfits. If I were going as a tourist, I’d rent a really nice car and drive around. The car is king in LA. Rolling down the road with those palm trees, listenin to some tunes on a sunny day…Yeah.
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+1 for the Getty. It’s absolutely worth the drive. Also the Hammer Museum is a treasure.
Silver Lake is super fun - including Intelligentsia coffee. Los Feliz is cute and fun.
Griffith Observatory is a fun place to see at least once. It’s cool to see it in movies and being able to recall the memories from there.
Also, Gracias Madre in Beverly Hills is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to. Super cool part of BH to walk around too.
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I thought La was all about smog and being stuck on the freeway ( or whatever you call a motorway )
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That’s what my wife and I did these past few years! Get a nice convertible, drive around town for a bit, then drive out to Joshua Tree National Park and spend a week there lol.
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Ha - as with so many things in LA, this is made much more glamourous in the movies. It can be fun, provided traffic isn’t bad.
This is way more accurate, haha! Smog isn’t as bad as it used to be. A lot of hybrids and electric cars are helping out.
Not in July! You’d be spending your days hiding from the sun.
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When is traffic not bad?
/s
Edit to add: fully tongue in cheek from a 3rd generation Angeleno
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my mother-in-law has a place in marina del rey. we’ll be there at the end of august. even though people bag on venice for various reasons, it’s a nice spot. it’s definitely touristy. the situation right now with the homeless and police crackdowns is discouraging, though. i’m usually content to hang in the venice/santa monica area just walking to restaurants and taking it easy. everything is so spread out, many cool places are closed or don’t exist any more due to covid, and driving anywhere takes potentially a long time.
the getty museum, LACMA, griffith observatory, and the tar pits are all good partial day activities. hit some taco trucks, etc. if you’re into cycling, the canyon roads are awesome.
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Not anymore. You wanna be a cool guy…drive a Prius. The wannabes drive the exotics.
LA is a lot cooler than it’s reputation would have you believe. I was definitely one of the haters for a long time, even after repeated visits. I had always gone there for a day or so with a thing to do and I think that was the problem. Once I had longer visits with no agenda and hanging out with locals it changed everything. It went from insufferable traffic and plastic glam to tacos and sunsets.
The key to visiting any new place is letting yourself go with the flow of said place, experience the city as a part of it rather than wishing it was some other way.
LA is geographically enormous and it’s just going to take a while to get around so chill and enjoy the drive. It’s a car culture town, fighting that will only frustrate you.
You could spend years there and keep finding new things to do (and I’m not an expert on it, having never lived there) but my favorite thing to do is continue my life long search for the world’s best taco truck. I don’t know if it’s in LA but I’ve found a ton of amazing ones!
Oh, and if you’ve never been to the west coast before you absolutely need to go to the beach, preferably at sunset. It might change your life.
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Go to Malibu Seafood. Best Ahi burgers. It’s on the PCH across the street from the ocean. Awesome spot for sunset seafood
And just down the street is the resto they filmed the restaurant bits of Point Break, Neptune’s Net. Stop in for some so so lobster
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Amoeba ruined Haight St
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If you were to go in winter, Id say:
- head east early AM and snowboard/ski Baldy, Mtn High, or Big Bear
- head back to the coast for surfing or boogie boarding in the afternoon
- Disneyland in the evening
Only in SoCal.
And get extra avocado on everything
The common theme of this thread is… go get something to eat while you’re there.
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This is a thread about L.A. But I bet you think they ruined Hollywood Boulevard, also.
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