Surviving the Glorious Chaos: Essential Things to Do in Los Angeles

Essential Things to Do in Los Angeles Without Losing Your Mind (or Wallet)

Approaching Los Angeles without a plan is like walking into Costco hungry—you’ll end up overwhelmed, overspent, and possibly questioning your life choices. The sheer volume of things to do in Los Angeles requires strategic thinking, especially since the city’s geography means that “nearby” attractions might actually be an hour apart in traffic. What follows is a carefully curated guide that balances tourist obligations with experiences that reveal the authentic city beneath its glossy veneer.

Cultural Landmarks Worth the Crowds

The Getty Center sits atop the Santa Monica Mountains like a modernist fortress, its white travertine gleaming in the California sun. After paying the $20 parking fee (admission is free, in that peculiarly Los Angeles way of charging you for one thing while proclaiming another is complimentary), visitors board a futuristic tram that climbs through drought-resistant landscaping. The Richard Meier-designed complex houses European paintings, decorative arts, and photography collections impressive enough to make even the most culturally apathetic visitor temporarily believe they understand the significance of 17th-century Dutch still-life. The real masterpiece, however, is the Central Garden—a botanical artwork that evolves seasonally and provides one of the few places in Los Angeles where people can feel intellectual without trying.

Downtown’s contemporary art scene centers around The Broad and MOCA ($15-20 admission), museums that house collections ranging from genuinely thought-provoking to “Is this art or did someone forget their coffee cup?” The Broad’s Infinity Mirror Rooms have become an Instagram phenomenon, with visitors waiting months for 45-second slots to experience infinity—or at least to capture proof they experienced it. Pro tip: The Broad releases same-day tickets online at 10am, providing procrastinators a chance at cultural redemption.

Griffith Observatory offers free admission with $10 parking, though budget travelers can hike up from lower lots or take public transportation. This Art Deco landmark provides panoramic views of the Los Angeles Basin, Hollywood Sign photo opportunities, and planetarium shows that remind visitors of their cosmic insignificance—a healthy counterbalance to the city’s celebrity worship. The surrounding Griffith Park spans over 4,200 acres of hiking trails where Angelenos demonstrate their unique approach to “roughing it” in full makeup and designer athleisure.

Hollywood Reality Check

The TCL Chinese Theatre and Hollywood Walk of Fame represent the greatest gap between expectation and reality in American tourism. These free attractions draw millions who arrive expecting glamour but find instead costumed performers of questionable quality demanding $5 for photos, aggressive CD hawkers, and sidewalks of dubious cleanliness. The Walk of Fame stars themselves are often covered in gum, surrounded by souvenir shops selling plastic Oscars, or—in perfect Los Angeles irony—serving as sleeping locations for the homeless. Visit quickly, take the obligatory photos, and move on before the disillusionment becomes too crushing.

Studio tours offer more authentic glimpses into Hollywood’s machinery. Warner Bros. ($69) provides the most comprehensive working studio experience, with visitors touring backlots where everything from “Casablanca” to “Friends” was filmed. Paramount ($60) offers historical gravitas as the oldest operating studio in Hollywood, while Universal ($109+) combines studio elements with theme park attractions. The best tours happen weekday mornings when actual production might be witnessed; weekend afternoons often showcase empty soundstages and tour guides reciting scripts with the enthusiasm of hostages.

The Hollywood Bowl ($25-250) redeems the neighborhood with summer concerts where Angelenos demonstrate their peculiar version of picnicking—elaborate spreads of charcuterie, fine wines, and gourmet desserts arranged on tiny folding tables. The 17,500-seat amphitheater hosts everything from classical orchestras to pop superstars, all performing under the stars in one of the few venues where Los Angeles actually lives up to its romantic billing. Parking is famously nightmarish; take the Bowl shuttle from nearby lots or risk adding divorce attorney fees to your vacation budget.

Beach Culture Decoded

The Venice Beach Boardwalk offers a free outdoor anthropology lesson on Southern California counterculture. This concrete promenade features a parade of humanity that includes street performers, bodybuilders at the outdoor Muscle Beach gym, skateboarders defying physics and common sense, medical marijuana doctors offering suspiciously easy evaluations, and vendors selling everything from original artwork to plastic sunglasses. The beach itself becomes secondary to this human spectacle, which has effectively functioned as an unofficial tourist attraction since the 1960s when Jim Morrison and The Doors emerged from its bohemian scene.

Santa Monica provides a more sanitized beach experience centered around its iconic pier, where the Pacific Park Ferris wheel ($8) offers Instagram-worthy sunset views. The nearby Third Street Promenade features street performers of higher caliber than Hollywood’s, alongside chain stores found in any upscale American mall. Santa Monica represents Los Angeles at its most accessible—clean, safe, and predictable—which explains both its popularity and its derision among locals who consider it Southern California with training wheels.

For beach experiences with fewer tourists and more natural beauty, Malibu’s coastline offers dozens of distinct beaches, each with its own character. Zuma provides wide stretches of sand with excellent swimming conditions; El Matador features dramatic rock formations and sea caves perfect for proposal photos; Leo Carrillo allows dogs and offers tide pools for amateur marine biologists. Parking costs $8-15 when available, which it rarely is on summer weekends without arriving before 9am. The Pacific Coast Highway becomes a linear parking lot on sunny Saturdays, prompting the wise to visit on weekdays or during winter, when temperatures still reach the mid-60s and locals consider the beaches practically abandoned.

Culinary Adventures Beyond Stereotypes

Grand Central Market in Downtown Los Angeles has evolved from a century-old food hall to a culinary destination where traditional vendors selling spices and produce now share space with artisanal coffee shops and gourmet taco stands. The market represents one of the most authentic things to do in Los Angeles for food lovers, with meals ranging from $8-20. Standouts include Eggslut’s decadent breakfast sandwiches, Sarita’s pupusas, and the perfectly executed Thai comfort food at Sticky Rice. Arrive hungry but not famished—the sensory overload requires clear decision-making capabilities.

Los Angeles’ ethnic neighborhoods offer culinary tours worthy of serious exploration. Koreatown serves the largest Korean population outside Korea, with barbecue restaurants like Park’s and Genwa offering tabletop grilling experiences alongside late-night karaoke venues. Little Tokyo contains both century-old institutions like Fugetsu-Do (making mochi since 1903) and modern ramen shops with perpetual lines. Thai Town in East Hollywood serves regional specialties rarely found elsewhere in America, particularly at Jitlada, where the Southern Thai cuisine approaches weapons-grade spiciness. These neighborhoods reward visitors willing to venture beyond familiar dishes and ask for “what the locals order.”

The farmers market obsession reveals Los Angeles at its most simultaneously pretentious and admirable. The Hollywood Farmers Market (Sundays) and Santa Monica Farmers Market (Wednesdays and Saturdays) have become celebrities in their own right, with chefs from notable restaurants selecting produce alongside actors preparing for superhero roles. The markets reflect the city’s year-round growing season, with winter strawberries and summer stone fruits that make visitors from colder climates question their life choices. Beyond produce, these markets feature artisanal everything—$15 loaves of sourdough, single-origin honey, lavender lemonade—proving that even simple foods can achieve Hollywood levels of aspiration with the right marketing.

Outdoor Escapes

Hiking in Los Angeles reveals the fascinating socioeconomics of exercise. Runyon Canyon attracts a beautiful crowd in expensive athleisure who appear to be hiking for the scenery—both natural and human. The free trails offer legitimate workouts with panoramic city views, though the experience feels more like an outdoor social club than wilderness immersion. Griffith Park provides more serious hiking options with over 50 miles of trails ranging from gentle walks to challenging ascents, all within city limits. The Wisdom Tree and Hollywood Sign hikes reward effort with iconic views, though reaching them requires navigating conflicting information about trail access and parking restrictions.

For manicured nature experiences, Descanso Gardens ($15) and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens ($25-29) offer meticulously maintained botanical collections. The Huntington’s 120 acres feature specialized gardens including a magnificent Japanese garden, a California garden showcasing native plants, and a Desert Garden with 2,000 species of succulents and cacti. These institutions provide tranquil retreats from urban intensity, with seasonal events like Descanso’s Enchanted Forest of Light (November-January) or The Huntington’s camellia celebrations (February) highlighting natural cycles often overlooked in a city obsessed with perpetual reinvention.

The beach cities bike path offers 22 miles of mostly flat riding from Torrance to Pacific Palisades, passing through the distinctive beach communities of Redondo, Hermosa, Manhattan, Venice, and Santa Monica. Bike rentals ($20-40 per day) are available at numerous points along the route, allowing for sections rather than the entire trail. The path provides an efficient survey of Los Angeles beach culture, from the family-friendly South Bay to the eccentric Venice Boardwalk, all while bypassing the notorious traffic that makes these areas otherwise challenging to compare in a single day.

Hidden Gems and Local Haunts

The Last Bookstore in Downtown Los Angeles defies both the death of physical bookstores and conventional retail design. Housed in a former bank, this labyrinthine space features tunnels crafted from books, reading nooks in former vault spaces, and an extensive vinyl collection. The store has become so Instagram-famous that signs now remind visitors, “The Last Bookstore is a bookstore, not a photography studio”—a perfectly Los Angeles problem where a place designed for reading now accommodates influencers who rarely open the books they pose with.

The secret stairs of Silver Lake and Los Feliz provide both exercise and architectural voyeurism. These concrete staircases, built in the 1920s for hillside residents to reach streetcar stops, now serve as vertical public parks connecting neighborhoods. The Beachwood Canyon stairs offer glimpses of original Hollywoodland buildings, while the Music Box Steps achieved fame in the Laurel and Hardy film of the same name. Free maps available online outline various routes, allowing visitors to create self-guided tours ranging from 1-3 hours through neighborhoods rarely seen by tourists.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology ($12) defies simple explanation, functioning as a meta-commentary on museums themselves. Its dimly lit galleries present exhibitions that blur reality and fiction—microscopic sculptures carved through needle eyes, elaborate theories about bats passing through solid objects, collections of trailer park art—all presented with the authoritative gravitas of the Smithsonian. Visitors emerge bemused, questioning both what they’ve seen and the nature of museums themselves. This intellectual fun house represents Los Angeles at its most cerebral and playful, rewarding those willing to venture beyond obvious attractions.

Practical Logistics

Transportation in Los Angeles requires strategic decision-making. Rental cars provide freedom but demand parking budgets ($10-30 daily at hotels, $5-20 at attractions) and tolerance for traffic conditions. Rideshare services solve parking problems while creating expense issues, with cross-city journeys easily exceeding $40 during peak times. The much-maligned public transit system has improved dramatically, with the Metro rail network now connecting Downtown to Santa Monica, North Hollywood, and LAX. Budget travelers comfortable with longer travel times can navigate primary attractions for $1.75 per ride or $7 daily passes, though reaching certain locations still requires complex bus transfers or significant walking.

Accommodations require balancing location against budget. Santa Monica offers walkable beaches and dining but commands $300+ nightly for basic hotels. West Hollywood provides central access to major attractions with trendy hotels in the $250-350 range. Downtown has transformed from business district to cultural center with adaptive reuse projects turning historic buildings into boutique hotels ($200-300). Budget travelers should consider Silver Lake or Echo Park ($150-250), neighborhoods offering local character and central locations without beachfront premiums. Vacation rentals provide value for longer stays or groups, though they’ve become controversial in many neighborhoods where housing shortages have led to restrictions.

Safety considerations in Los Angeles reflect its economic disparities. Tourist areas maintain high police presence, but visible homelessness creates uncomfortable juxtapositions throughout the city. Skid Row in Downtown should be avoided, particularly after dark, while Hollywood’s glamorous attractions sit adjacent to areas requiring urban awareness. Common tourist pitfalls include holiday park-and-rob schemes (never leave valuables visible in vehicles) and the Hollywood Boulevard CD scam (never accept “free” music from strangers who later demand payment). Most visits occur without incident, but the city rewards those who maintain standard urban vigilance while exploring its many things to do in Los Angeles.