Travel Los Angeles

Los Angeles is a city of dreams, fashion, and Hollywood. It is the quintessential 21st century American city with attractions and activities that can only be found in Los Angeles. Los Angeles restaurants, Los Angeles hotels, and all Los Angeles activities are in a class all their own. The city embraces and absorbs everything in its path - from culture to food to people – and makes it its own. It reflects and (to some) warps it back in a manner that is uniquely Los Angeles

Flip through the pages of just any popular Los Angeles travel guide and the word "dream" will be appear over and over and over again. Yes, Los Angeles is America's Dream Factory and the creating of that fantasy rubs off on the citizens who actually live here. Take the base of the American spirit that anything is possible, add in the belief that life is like a movie, and add lots of sunshine – you can reinvent yourself and anything really is possible. No matter your nationality, you too can travel halfway around the world to win an Oscar, live in Beverly Hills, or come penniless from a small Austrian village and become governor of the state.

The city has everything, whether you're jet setting, roughing it, or anything in between. Los Angeles is cosmopolitan, quaint, crazy, quiet, sophisticated, down-home, and everything in between. There is wealth as well as poverty, sometimes only blocks away. You can have and see it all.

Geographically, Los Angeles County really encompasses hundreds of suburbs and other cities. The city of Los Angeles itself encompasses the "downtown" area, much of the urban vicinity to the west and northwest, and a narrow corridor extending south of the center. However, many famous locations such as Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are actually independent cities on their own and not legally part of L.A. But of course, outside of city politics, no one really makes that distinction. So, while we’re really crossing legal boundaries, we just call most of it all Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is all about the neighborhoods (some, as mentioned, are technically cities) – many are world famous – BEVERLY HILLS, HOLLYWOOD, UNIVERSAL CITY, MALIBU, SANTA MONICA, VENICE, BURBANK, SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, PASADENA, CENTURY CITY, SOUTH CENTRAL (now SOUTH LOS ANGELES), as well as MARINA DEL REY, SOUTH BAY, WESTCHESTER, & EL SEGUNDO. Also included are the equally famous streets, such as SUNSET BLVD, MELROSE AVE, OLVERA ST, RODEO DRIVE, SANTA MONICA BLVD, and MULHOLLAND DRIVE. And these are just the well known ones – there are literally hundreds of other cities, places, and streets equally interesting.

The question is where to begin?

BURBANK/SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

The obvious place to start is with the entertainment related locales. Popular Los Angeles activities for tourists such as tapings and studio tours are plentiful in these areas. Let’s begin in the northeast and work our way south. 10 miles north of downtown is GLENDALE & BURBANK. Not as well know but that’s where the inside work of entertainment is. Glendale is home to DreamWorks Animation and Nickelodeon Animation studios (no tours) and hundreds of small production studios, special effects and prop houses. As we move to Burbank, NBC’s West Coast HQ’s & Disney’s main HQ’s are there (both on Olive St.). A block away is Disney Animation and Disney Channel’s building. The Disney HQ features the 7 dwarves “holding up” the roof – the lot also houses a small studio. It is closed to the public but you can photograph from the street. The Tonight Show is taped at the NBC studios. There is a queue out front on taping days starting by early afternoon.

If you look up to the mountain range, you'll see the back part of Griffith Park, where the Griffith Observatory and the Gibson Amphitheater (an outdoor event venue) are located. A few blocks further west is the WARNER BROS. STUDIO – you can’t miss the mammoth advertising – it is also a working studio and there are tours. I believe you have to call ahead to reserve (unlike Universal Studios). As you continue along Ventura Blvd., there are other studios (mostly TV) that are discreet in appearance such as the CBS STUDIO CENTER where there are always dozens of sitcoms being taped there (Seinfeld was there). You can get free tickets – sitcoms usually tape Friday nights. At that point, you can swing south and no more than a few miles away is UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. No great detail needed here, as it’s internationally known

CENTURY CITY

About 10 miles west is Century City. It used to all belong to Fox but they had to sell it – allegedly to pay off debts from the production of Cleopatra. You can see glimpses of the Fox lot (no tour) and on the AVENUE of THE STARS is the famous “Nakatomi” building from DIE HARD (now known as the Fox Plaza). AVENUE of the STARS is also the west coast headquarters for most cable companies and ABC (no tours). Nearby in Culver City is Sony & MGM (no tours and not much of a back lot).

Now, you can overlay the next-level tourist destinations while you’re visiting some of the entertainment related sites.

Source and more info: http://www.world66.com; http://www.wikitravel.org