DESTINATION LOS ANGELES

It's possible that Los Angeles is a figment of its own imagination. No other city studies itself so intently - on film, television and in glossy magazines. LA is where the American Dream is manufactured, and if you're not prepared to embrace the dream, you'll doubtless find it filthy, irritating, frightening or just plain dumb. But if you long to stand in the footsteps of stars and breathe their hallowed air, you've come to the right place. In this town, even chefs are household names and nobodies erect billboard shrines to themselves.

Map of Greater Los Angeles (18K)

Map of Los Angeles (16K)

Facts at a Glance
History
When to Go
Orientation
Attractions
Off the Beaten Track
Activities

Events
Getting There & Away
Getting Around
Recommended Reading
Lonely Planet Guides
Travelers' Reports on the USA
On-line Info

Facts at a Glance

Area: 465 sq miles (1200 sq km) in the City of Los Angeles, 4100 sq miles (10,600 sq km) in LA County
Population: 3.5 million in the City of Los Angeles; 14 million in in LA County
People: 48% Caucasian, 28% Latino, 17% black, 7% Asian and Pacific Islander (Latinos are expected to represent the clear majority in the early years of the next century)
Elevation: 105ft (30m)
State: California
Time Zone: Pacific Time (GMT/UTC minus 8 hours)
Telephone area codes: Downtown & Hollywood 213; Beverly Hills, Long Beach & Santa Monica 562; Pasadena & San Marino 626; San Fernando Valley 818; Anaheim & Newport Beach 714

History

The earliest residents of the Los Angeles area were Gabrieleño and Chumash Indians, who arrived in the desert region between 5000 and 6000 BC. The first European known to have visited the LA basin was Portuguese sailor Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who sailed the coast in 1542, but it wasn't until the late 18th century that the real influx began. In 1769, the Spanish governor of California, Don Gaspar de Portola, and Franciscan father Junipero Serra led an expedition north from San Diego, looking for likely sites to build missions to Christianize California's 'heathen' natives. Eventually, 21 California missions were established along El Camino Real (The King's Highway) under Serra's direction, two of them in what was to become Greater Los Angeles: the Mission San Gabriel Archangel (1771) and the Mission San Fernando Rey de España (1797).

In 1781, the missionaries chose 44 settlers from San Gabriel to establish a new town on the banks of a stream about 9 miles (15km) southwest of the mission. They named the settlement El Pueblo de Nuestro Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río Porciúncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River) after a saint whose feast day had just been celebrated. Los Angeles, as the pueblo became known, soon developed into a thriving farming community.

Upon Mexican independence in 1821, many of that new nation's citizens looked to California to satisfy their thirst for private land. By the mid-1830s, the missions had been secularized and a series of governors began doling out hundreds of free land grants, thus giving birth to the rancho system. The prosperous rancheros, as the new landowners were called, quickly became the social, cultural and political bigwigs of California, while immigrants from the United States became the merchant class. Joseph Chapman, a Boston millwright-cum-pirate, became the first Yankee (or Yanqui) Angeleno in 1818; he was known as El Inglés, (The Englishman). By the mid-1830s, there were still only 29 US citizens residing in Los Angeles. Most Easterners didn't know much about California until 1840, with the publication of Richard Henry Dana's popular Two Years Before the Mast, an account of his experience in the coastal hide-and-tallow trade. 'In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be,' Dana wrote of Los Angeles, then with a population of just over 1200.

As part of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States paid $15 million for all Mexican territories west of the Rio Grande and north of Arizona's Gila River, including California. A scant two years later, California was admitted as the 31st state of the nation. The big push behind this rapidfire recognition was gold; first unearthed near the San Fernando mission in 1842, that find was soon eclipsed by James Marshall's 1848 discovery on the American River, which led to the greatest gold rush the world has seen before or since. The sudden stampede of tens of thousands of argonauts into the north (80,000 in 1849 alone - thus the nickname '49ers) had an undeniable impact on LA as well. Southern California's rancheros were called upon to feed the miners, and they quickly discovered that the new wealth of the mining camps could earn them 10 times the money they were getting from the hide-and-tallow traders.

With statehood, Los Angeles was incorporated (on 4 April 1850) and made the seat of broad Los Angeles County. It was an unruly city of dirt streets and adobe homes, plus the saloons, brothels and gambling houses that thrived on the fast buck. By 1854, northern California's gold rush had peaked and the state was thrust into a depression. As unemployed miners swarmed to LA, banks and businesses that had harnessed their futures to miners' fortunes closed their doors. Making matters worse for the rancheros was the land commission sent west by Congress in 1851. Everyone who had received a land grant two decades earlier was now forced to prove its legitimacy with documents and witnesses. By 1857, some 800 cases had been reviewed by tribunal, 500 in favor of the original pre-rancho landowners.

When the first transcontinental railroad, the Central Pacific (later renamed the Southern Pacific), was completed in 1869, San Francisco was California's metropolitan center. Los Angeles' isolation made it unattractive to the San Francisco power brokers who owned the Central Pacific, but a spur line finally came to LA in 1876. Coincidental with the arrival of the railroad was the establishment of an orange-growing industry in southern California. The first commercial grove proved so successful that a second crop was established in what is now Orange County. By 1889, more than 13,000 acres (5200ha) were planted in oranges, dramatically improving the previously woebegone economy.

After a hard-sell chamber of commerce ad campaign, more Easterners heeded the advice of crusading magazine and newspaper editor Horace Greeley to 'Go West, young man.' LA's population jumped from 2300 in 1860 to more than 100,000 in 1900, despite the fact that there was no natural harbor and the supply of fresh water was inadequate to support even a small town. Construction of a harbor at San Pedro, 25 miles (40km) south of city hall, began in 1899; the first wharf opened in 1914, the year the Panama Canal was completed, and - suddenly 8000 miles closer to the Atlantic seaboard - San Pedro became the busiest harbor on the West Coast.

Bringing drinkable water to the growing city required a more complex solution. In 1904, LA's water-bureau superintendent William Mulholland visited the Owens Valley, 230 miles (370km) northeast in the Sierra Nevada, and returned with a plan to build an aqueduct to carry melted snow from the mountains to the city. Voters approved the plan, and by November 1913, Owens River water was spilling into the San Fernando Valley at a rate of 26 million gallons (120 million litres) per day. [Today, the daily flow has increased to 525 million gallons (2.4 billion litres). The rest of the city's water, as well as Southern California's electricity, comes from dams on the Colorado River, 200 miles (320km) east.]

LA's population soared to one million by 1920, two by 1930, which had a lot to do with the discovery of oil. During WWI, the Lockheed brothers and Donald Douglas established aircraft manufacturing plants in the area, and by the time WWII came around, the aviation industry employed enough people to lift LA out of the Depression. A real estate boom, capitalizing on the influx of aviation employees, brought capital to the region as well as new suburbs south of Los Angeles. And then there was the movies.

Ever since the studios first found their home in Los Angeles, the city has raced to be equal to the hype created by the film industry. That image helped lure two new breeds of immigrant: the eccentric artisan, from writers and musicians to painters and architects; and the fashionable hedonist, drawn by the broad sandy beaches and the temptation of living the Hollywood lifestyle.

Despite the economic upswing, though, trouble was brewing in the city. Policy-makers had turned a blind eye to ethnic friction for decades, including during a spell of urban warfare between Anglos and Latinos in 1943. By the 1960s, South Central LA faced rising tension as the quality of life there continued to decline. It came to a boil in August 1965 in one of the nation's worst-ever race riots. The primarily black district of Watts exploded with six days of burning and looting, wherein 34 people died and more than a thousand were wounded. South Central saw subsequent riots in 1979 and 1992; the latter, a direct result of the notorious Rodney King beatings and trial, cost 51 lives and $1 billion in property damage, much of it directed at Korean shopkeepers in fringe neighborhoods and in Koreatown.

In contrast, a ray of hope came with the city's unified response to recent spate of natural disasters. Though a surprising number of earthquakes, wildfires, floods and mud slides have plagued LA in the last decade, they've brought out the best in Angelenos: looting was at a minimum, goodwill at a max.

When to Go

Despite its desert climate, most of Los Angeles is protected from extremes of temperature and humidity by the mountain ranges to its north and east. August and September are the hottest months, January and February the coolest and wettest. Offshore breezes keep the beach communities cooler in summer and warmer in winter than those further inland, particularly the San Fernando Valley, which is the hottest area in summer and the coldest in winter. The average LA temperature is around 70°F (21°C), though smog-shrouded summer days can get well over 90°F (32°C), while winter temperatures around 55°F (12°C) are not uncommon.

There really aren't any seasonal restrictions on a visit to LA. If you go in summer, you'll see the beaches at their liveliest, with all the Baywatch types flexing their pecs and displaying their implants. If the thought of wall-to-wall toned bodies makes you a tad uneasy, try spring (April to May) or fall (September to November), when the crowds are smaller and the prices lower.

Orientation

Greater Los Angeles, on the southern west coast of the United States, takes in a range of geographical extremes, including a subtropical desert, 75 miles (120km) of sea coast, a pair of offshore islands and peaks that exceed 10,000ft (3000m) in elevation. But the most notable thing about Los Angeles' geography is that it straddles one of the world's major fault zones. The San Andreas Fault - which comes within 35 miles (55km) of downtown LA - and the three dozen lesser faults that run off it have been responsible for five serious quakes this century and dozens of imperceptible quakes every week.

Covering 460 sq miles (750 sq km), Los Angeles takes in 80 incorporated cities. The Santa Monica Mountains separate Hollywood and Beverly Hills from the San Fernando Valley to the north; adjacent Orange County, home of Disneyland, extends along the coast to the southeast. Santa Monica and Venice are on the coast, just west of Beverly Hills, while the international airport is south of Venice. Downtown (where you'll find Union Station, the Amtrak depot) is east of Hollywood, with Watts and Compton to its south. You'll find the main Greyhound terminal east of downtown and south of Little Tokyo. Head west from Santa Monica to get to Malibu.

Basically, LA is a monster of a city to get around. It's a tangle of freeways and sprawling suburbs, where anyone without a car is considered intellectually impaired. If you don't have an automobile and at least a basic understanding of the city's freeways, you'll be seriously disadvantaged. For some areas, even the freeway-savvy need extra help. Beverly Hills and West Hollywood can only be reached via city streets.

Attractions

Downtown Los Angeles

Just as you'd imagine, LA's downtown area is framed by freeways rather than any particular geographic boundary. The Hollywood Fwy lies to the north, the Harbor Fwy to the west, the Santa Monica Fwy to the south and a bird's nest of other freeways intertwine beyond the Los Angeles River to the east. In the thick of all this concrete and congestion, however, intrepid urbanites will find a number of pockets worth exploring.

Extending eight blocks east to west, the city's Civic Center is America's largest complex of government buildings after Washington, DC. It contains the most important of LA's city, county, state and federal office buildings, including the US Federal Courthouse, where the infamous OJ Simpson murder trial took place in 1995, and the 1928 City Hall, which served as the Daily Planet building in Superman and the police station in Dragnet. North across Temple St from City Hall is the excellent LA Children's Museum.

A few blocks east of the Civic Center, El Pueblo de Los Angeles is a 44 acre (18ha) state historic park commemorating the site where the city was founded in 1781 and preserving many of its earliest buildings. Its central attraction for most visitors is Olvera Street, a narrow, block-long passageway that was restored as an open-air Mexican marketplace in 1930. In addition to its restaurants, Olvera St teems with the shops and stalls of vendors selling all manner of Mexican crafts, from leather belts and bags to handmade candles and colorful piñatas.

Directly across from El Pueblo is Union Station, one of LA's oft-overlooked architectural treasures. Built in 1939 in Spanish Mission style with Moorish and Moderne details, it's worth a stop even if you aren't hopping a train. A few blocks north of the station, the 16 square blocks of Chinatown comprise the social and cultural nucleus of LA's 200,000 Chinese residents. Here, the businesses of traditional acupuncturists and herbalists mingle with scores of restaurants and shops whose inventories vary from cheap kitsch to exquisite silk clothing, inlaid furniture, antique porcelain and intricate religious art.

Immediately southeast of the Civic Center is Little Tokyo. First settled by early Japanese immigrants in the 1880s and thriving by the 1920s, the neighborhood was effectively decimated by the anti-Japanese hysteria of the WWII years. Thanks in part to an injection of investment from the 'old country,' Little Tokyo is again the locus for LA's Japanese population of nearly a quarter million. Among its streets and outdoor shopping centers, you'll find sushi bars, bento houses and traditional Japanese gardens. Housed in a historic Buddhist temple, the Japanese American National Museum, exhibits objects and art that relate the history of Japanese emigration to, and life in, the USA.

Just southwest of the Civic Center is the Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. It houses what is considered one of the world's most important collection of paintings, sculptures and photographs from the 1940s to the present. Just west of MOCA is The Westin Bonaventure hotel, a quintet of cylindrical glass towers that are instantly recognizable to any regular moviegoer.

South of the Civic Center, LA's Hispanic shopping district is a deliciously cluttery mix of cheap restaurants, frilly wedding dress shops and blaring Latin pop. For a shocking contrast to the bustling street scene, step inside the 1893 Bradbury Building, where a skylit, five-story atrium is surrounded by Belgian marble, Mexican tiles, ornate French wrought-iron railings, glazed brick walls, oak paneling and a pair of open-cage elevators. You've seen it in detail if you've seen the movies Blade Runner or Wolf. Across the street from the Bradbury, between Broadway and Hill St, Grand Central Market is LA's oldest (1917) and largest open-air food market.

Off the Beaten Track

Knott's Berry Farm

If lining up to have your photo taken with an acned teen in a mouse suit isn't your idea of fun, you might prefer Knott's Berry Farm, a more bucolic theme park 4 miles (6km) northwest of Disneyland. Originally a fried chicken dinner and berry eatery, the Knotts set up a little Old West display to keep the diners entertained. The place has grown a bit since then, but gunfightin' and gold pannin' are still all the rage. There's also a Mexican-themed Fiesta Village, Camp Snoopy for the littlies and plenty of chicken-regurgitating rides. You can get here by bus, hotel shuttle or by car on I-5 and Hwy 91.

Rollercoaster purists will bypass both Disneyland and Knott's for the greater glories of Six Flags Magic Mountain. Magic Mountain has more rides than Greyhound, with all the joys of spiral hairpin drops, boomerang turns, zero-gravity spins and waterfall plummets. Magic Mountain's 100 rides are in Valencia, an hour's drive northwest of downtown off of I-5.

Pasadena

Never mind that the neighboring foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains often sit shrouded in a mantle of smog; once you get over your wheezing, there are few areas of Los Angeles more redolent of LA's 'golden years' than Pasadena. Its oak-lined avenues wind past superbly maintained turn of the century homes, from Mission-style stucco squats to column-clad mansions of every persuasion - even 'stately Wayne Manor' from the original Batman TV series. Among the treasures is local architects Charles and Henry Greene's sprawling Gamble House, considered the consummate Craftsman bungalow, and even the persnickety genius of Frank Lloyd Wright has been locally preserved in the Millard House, La Miniatura.

The heart of the city, known as Old Town Pasadena, centers on Colorado Blvd at Fair Oaks Ave. This 14-block historic district underwent a major facelift around 1990, ushering in a bustling renaissance of upscale boutiques, restaurants, coffeehouses and the odd antique and rare-book dealer. On the south side of the district, the Moorish/Spanish Colonial Hotel Green rises up like an elaborate Errol Flynn movie set, while at the western end of Colorado, the Norton Simon Museum houses its a different brand of eye candy: one of the finest collections of classical art in the country. Look for Rodin's The Thinker out front.

A few miles east of Old Town, opulent San Marino is home to the Huntington Library, Museum & Botanical Gardens. Once the estate of railroad tycoon Henry E Huntington, it's now a cultural center, research institution and a damn fine place to spend a lazy afternoon. The library's collection of rare books includes a Gutenberg bible, a Chaucer manuscript and Benjamin Franklin's handwritten autobiography. The art gallery has a world-class collection of 18th century British and French paintings and two centuries' worth of American art. The botanical gardens are made up of 15 theme areas: the most popular are the Desert, Japanese and Shakespearean Gardens.

La Brea Tar Pits

The La Brea Tar Pits, just outside the downtown area, is one of the world's most important paleontological sites. These bubbling pits have trapped thousands of plants and animals over the last 40,000 years, and fossils of all sorts of prehistoric beasts are still being uncovered. You can see excavations in action at an observation pit, and the George C Page Museum displays many of the fossils pulled from the pits, including saber-tooth cats and an enormous dire wolf.

Santa Catalina Island

Discovered by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, Santa Catalina is one of the largest of the Channel Islands, a chain of semi-submerged mountains between Santa Barbara and San Diego. Most of the island has been privately owned since 1811, when the Native American population was shipped off to the mainland. Tourists have been sailing in since the 1930s, but the privately owned areas remained largely untouched until 1975, when they were bought out by the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy. The island is now preserved against development, and its unique ecosystem, with 400 endemic and indigenous plants, 100 species of birds and numerous animals (including wild American bison), is protected by law.

Avalon is the only town on Santa Catalina. It's dominated by the white Spanish-Moderne Casino, built by chewing-gum heir William Wrigley Jr in 1929, when he owned the island. The casino is no longer open for gambling, but it does have a grand ballroom (Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller both played here), a huge theater, the Catalina Island Museum and an art gallery. Other highlights of the town include the Chimes Tower, which is covered in inlaid tiles; the old Wrigley Mansion, now a hotel; and the Wrigley Memorial & Botanic Gardens.

Most visitors to Santa Catalina come for the fantastic watersports, including diving, snorkeling, sea kayaking, ocean rafting and sailing. There's also some great hiking, horseback riding and bicycling trails. Catalina has plenty of hotels and resorts, as well as four campgrounds, but most are fairly expensive. You can get to Catalina on one of the regular cruises from Long Beach, San Pedro, Redondo Beach or Newport Beach, or you can take a (very pricey) helicopter from Queen Mary Seaport.

San Gorgonio Wilderness

High in the San Bernardino National Forest, south of the popular outdoors destination of Big Bear, San Gorgonio is 90 sq miles (150 sq km) of trees, lakes and barren slopes. The area takes in Mt San Bernardino and San Gorgonio Peak, both over 10,000ft (3000m) high, and a multitude of hiking and equestrian trails. At low elevations, the area is especially arid and full of rattlesnakes; at higher elevations, oak and manzanita are joined by cedar, fir and pine trees. Black bears, coyote, deer and squirrel are common, and even bald eagles fly frequently over the area's campgrounds. Jenks Lake, between Mt San Bernardino and San Gorgonio Peak, is a scenic spot for picnicking and easy hiking.

There are several campgrounds in the wilderness, with minimal facilities and sites for tents and RVs. For those not so keen on roughing it, there are also cabins with sports facilities. San Gorgonio is about 90 minutes' drive from LA. If you don't have wheels, buses run as far as nearby Big Bear, but you'll probably need to organize a ride along Hwy 38 to San Gorgonio.

Palm Springs

Once famous as a winter retreat for Hollywood stars and increasingly as a well-scrubbed retirement home for the moderately wealthy, Palm Springs is the original desert resort city in the Coachella Valley east of LA. To put things in perspective, the valley has about 250,000 people, 10,000 swimming pools, 85 golf courses and more plastic surgeons per head than anywhere else in the US. There's a growing gay scene in Palm Springs, and college kids in the thousands flock here for a riotous spring break, but even so, there's not much to do in town except lounge around the pool or play golf.

The real interest is in visiting the nearby canyons, mountains and desert. Highlights include hiking trails in the Andreas, Murray, Palm and Tahquitz canyons, which are shaded by fan palms and surrounded by towering cliffs, and taking the aerial tramway which climbs 6000ft (1800m) from the desert floor up into the San Jacinto mountains. There are a number of museums in town, including the informative Palm Springs Desert Museum, the Living Desert outdoor museum and botanical garden and the Museum of the Heart, which explains heart attacks while giving you the chance to step inside a giant aorta.

Palm Springs is a two hour drive east of LA and is accessible by Greyhound or train.

Santa Barbara

Sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara is often called the California Riviera because of its affluent population, outstanding Mediterranean architecture and gorgeous seaside location. Highlights include the delightful Spanish-Moorish revival style Santa Barbara County Courthouse, the stately Mission Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The city boasts half a dozen decent beaches, the oldest continuously operating wharf on the west coast (once owned by James Cagney), botanical gardens, zoological gardens and arguably one of the most pleasant downtown areas in Southern California. Rising abruptly and majestically to the north, the Santa Ynez foothills offer great camping and hiking opportunities.

Santa Barbara is just over an hour's drive along the coast north of Los Angeles and is accessible by Greyhound or train.

Activities

If skimpy bikinis and fast-food picnics aren't to your taste, the northern end of Santa Monica Bay is a welcome sanctuary from LA's babewatch scene. Beach-lovers can indulge in coastal hikes, tide-pool gazing, swimming, surfing, diving, fishing and (clothing optional) sunbathing. Rock climbers test themselves on the cliffs at Point Dume, while Escondido Beach has the best diving in the bay.

There's a whale-watching platform at nearby Westward Beach and a nature trail that leads to Zuma Beach County Park, a couple of miles to the north. Zuma is the largest and sandiest of LA's county-owned beaches, with rough surf and plenty of oily hardbodies.

LA's southern beaches include Manhattan Beach, jampacked on summer days with surfers, volleyball players and the American-as-apple-pie local residents - it's arguably the nearest thing you'll find to the 'California Dream'. Just south of Manhattan Beach, Redondo is one of LA's more intriguing beaches. At its northern end is King Harbor, a small-boat marina and fishermen's haven. Huntington Beach, just southeast of Long Beach and northwest of Newport, is favorite of the surfer set.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: LA is a city where you can surf at the beach in the morning and ski in the snowfields in the afternoon - as long as you get up early and have a warm wetsuit. The main area for downhill skiing is Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains, a 90-minute drive east of LA. The season lasts from mid-December until March or April and, contrary to the cliché, the skiing is generally only good in the morning. Groomed runs and moguls are excellent, but don't expect much powder. The best part about Big Bear is the weather - sunshine 90% of the time and T-shirt temperatures in spring.

Shopping, star-spotting and rollercoaster screaming are LA's prime activities, but if you're keen for something a little more outdoorsy, LA has plenty to offer. Urban hiking is your best bet, but if you need to get space and a bit of greenery, LA's surrounding mountains are good day-hike destinations. Try the rugged Santa Monica Mountains or the Topanga State Park, both inland from Malibu, or Griffith Park, a few miles northwest of downtown.

Although smoggy LA is not particularly inviting to cyclists, the county has more than 200 miles (320km) of bike trails. Best of the bunch is the South Bay Bicycle Trail, stretching 20 miles (35km) from Santa Monica to Torrance Beach.

Prefer sitting on your butt and watching other people exert themselves? The LA Dodgers baseball team plays from April to October at Dodger Stadium, just north of downtown. To check out basketball greats the LA Lakers, head to the Great Western Forum in Inglewood on the southern fringe of downtown during the winter months. UCLA's college basketball team, the Bruins, is one of the best in the country and well worth a look.

Events

Angelenos love to show off, and the city has no shortage of opportunities for them to do so. Every New Year's Day the Tournament of Roses Parade - marching bands, celebrities and flower-coated floats - makes its way down Pasadena's Colorado Blvd. The Rose Bowl college football championship is played later the same day. A parody of the Tournament of Roses - the Doo Dah Parade - makes its way down Colorado Blvd in November.

February is African American History Month, with films, lectures, exhibits and performances across the county. LA's night of nights, the Academy Awards, is held in March. Cinco de Mayo, marking Mexico's victory over the French army at the Battle of Puebla, is celebrated on 5 May with plenty of south-of-the-border style festivities.

In June, Gay Pride Week is marked with a flamboyant parade down Santa Monica Blvd. The Summer Pops Festival runs from July through September at the Hollywood Bowl, and the International Surf Festival hits the waves of Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo Beaches in August.

Los Angeles County Fair, held in Pomona in September, is the largest county fair in the world, with music, sideshows, rides and other country-style delights. For those who prefer not to get their glad rags grubby, October's AFI-LA International Film Festival is one of the country's biggest, with more than 75 features from around the world.

For a bit of contrast, check out the Hollywood Christmas Parade, where movie and TV stars join Santa in a typically flashy parade, then join in Las Posadas, candle-lit processions that relive Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem and honor the Christ child Latin-style.

Getting There & Away

A major travel hub for the Pacific Rim region, Los Angeles International Airport - usually called by its three-letter code, LAX - is the third busiest airport in the world. It's located about 20 miles (30km) southwest of downtown LA. If you can, try to avoid LAX gridlock by flying into one of the region's domestic airports: Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (BUR) is about 15 miles (25km) northwest of downtown, Long Beach Airport is about 25 miles (40km) south, John Wayne Airport/Orange County (SNA) is about 40 miles (65km) southeast in Santa Ana, and Ontario International Airport (ONT) is about 40 miles (65km) east. With all these options, finding a flight or connection to just about anywhere on the continent is never a problem.

Greyhound bus lines serve Los Angeles from cities all over North America. The main LA depot is in a seedy district east of downtown, south of Little Tokyo. The area is rough, but the station itself is safe inside. Other LA-area stations are found in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Anaheim. The alternative to Greyhound for West Coast travelers harks back to the 'Magic Bus' of the 1960s: Green Tortoise Adventure Travel. Weekly Tortoise trips cruise up and down the West Coast, and there are summer jaunts to Alaska and the East Coast, winter tours to Mexico and Baja California and a Mardi Gras road trip between LA and New Orleans. Buses stop at several LA-area destinations.

Amtrak, the national rail system, operates up and down the California coast. In Los Angeles, trains arrive and depart from Union Station, an impressive Art Deco depot one block from El Pueblo in downtown LA. From Seattle and San Francisco, the Coast Starlight operates several times weekly in each direction, running inland as far as San Luis Obispo, where it follows US 101 down the coast. There is also regular service from Los Angeles to Phoenix, New Orleans and points beyond, as well as several trains daily to and from San Diego.

The LA area is a web of highways and byways, so if you have your own wheels, there are always several routes to choose from. From the San Francisco Bay Area, Interstate 5 runs south through the scenic void of the San Joaquin Valley. A somewhat curvier and far more picturesque alternative, US 101 follows the coast much of the way down and joins I-5 in the LA city center. For travelers with time to kill, the prettiest choice is the Pacific Coast Hwy (PCH), or Hwy 1, which clings to the cliffs in the Big Sur area and follows the coast down to San Luis Obispo, where it joins US 101. While the views are spectacular, curvy PCH is subject to fog, landslides and other potential delays. From San Francisco, plan on 6 hours to drive I-5, 8 hours via US 101 and at least 12 via Hwy 1.

Driving from San Diego and Mexico, I-5 is the obvious choice. At Irvine, I-405 (San Diego Fwy) branches off I-5 and heads west to Long Beach and Santa Monica, avoiding downtown LA entirely and rejoining I-5 near San Fernando. If you're coming from Las Vegas or the Grand Canyon, take I-15, which veers south at Riverside and continues on to San Diego; it hits I-10 near Ontario, which connects to downtown LA and Santa Monica.

Freeway speed limits are normally 55mph (90kph) in greater LA, 65mph (105kph) on the open road. Most drivers push their speed 10mph (15kph) higher than the posted limits; more than that, they can expect to be pulled over by the ever-vigilant officers of the California Highway Patrol (CHP). As in the rest of the US, driving is done on the right.

Getting Around

Public transport from LAX can be unbearably slow, but at least it's cheap. A free bus runs between the terminals and deposits you at the LAX Transit Center, where you can swap to a city bus. Free shuttles also run to the Metro Green Line Aviation Station, where you can catch a train headed in the direction of Redondo or Norwalk.

If you're not the public transport type, private shuttle buses will drop you at your hotel door: it's quicker than the bus and cheaper than a taxi. You can also try one of the many car rental agencies at the airport, where rates are the most competitive in town. Taxis are convenient but expensive. Shuttles, limos and taxis serve the area's other airports. In addition, the Burbank Airport has Metro and Amtrak connections. You can find several major car rental agencies at all the region's airports.

Although LA is definitely built for cars, it is possible to get around on public transport. The city has four public bus operators: MTA, which goes most places; Big Blue Bus, which serves the West Los Angeles area; Culver City Bus, which does Culver City and the Westside; and DASH, a minibus system that runs four routes through downtown. Metro Rail trains run between downtown and Long Beach, Union Station and Western Ave, and Norwalk and Redondo Beach.

The city of LA sprawls over such a huge area that, unless time is no factor or money is extremely tight, you're going to want to spend some time behind the wheel of your own car. Despite the sheer volume of traffic, the city isn't hard to navigate if you stick as much as possible to the major arterials. If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty LA streets, grab a copy of the Thomas Guides map books.