Los Angeles Highlights
A curated tour of Los Angeles — the entertainment capital of the world, spanning sun-drenched beaches, iconic Hollywood landmarks, world-class museums, and some of the most diverse neighbourhoods in America across a sprawling 500-square-mile city.
Trip Stops
- 1
One of the most beloved landmarks in Los Angeles — a stunning Art Deco observatory perched on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park, offering the most spectacular free panoramic view of the LA basin, Hollywood Sign, and Pacific Ocean. Admission to the grounds and exhibits is entirely free. Fun fact: Griffith Observatory has appeared in more films and TV shows than almost any other building in the world — including Rebel Without a Cause (1955), La La Land (2016), and Transformers. It was donated to the city of Los Angeles in 1896 by Griffith J. Griffith, a Welsh immigrant who made his fortune in mining — two years after he shot and seriously wounded his wife at a Santa Barbara hotel and served two years in San Quentin prison. The city debated for years whether to accept a gift from a convicted criminal.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 2
The most recognisable landmark in Los Angeles and a global symbol of the entertainment industry — nine giant white letters spanning 110 metres across the Santa Monica Mountains, best viewed from Griffith Observatory or hiked to via Griffith Park trails. Fun fact: The Hollywood Sign was originally erected in 1923 as 'HOLLYWOODLAND' — a temporary real estate advertisement for a new housing development, intended to last only 18 months. The 'LAND' portion was removed in 1949 when the City of Los Angeles took over maintenance of the remaining letters. Each letter is 13.7 metres tall and made of sheet metal — maintaining them costs around $1 million per year.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 3
A 1.3-kilometre stretch of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street embedded with over 2,700 terrazzo and brass stars honouring achievements in film, television, music, radio, and live performance — the most visited tourist attraction in Los Angeles with over 10 million visitors per year. Fun fact: Not everyone is honoured with a star for free — recipients or their studios must pay a $50,000 fee to cover installation and maintenance costs. The first star ever awarded was to actress Joanne Woodward in 1960. Among the most unusual honourees: Lassie the dog, fictional character Mickey Mouse, and the Apollo 11 astronauts — awarded a collective star, not individual ones.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 4
Hollywood's most iconic cinema and one of the most photographed buildings in America — a stunning Chinese imperial architecture movie palace opened in 1927, famous worldwide for its forecourt of celebrity hand and footprints set in cement. Fun fact: The tradition of celebrity handprints began by accident in 1927 when actress Norma Talmadge allegedly stepped in wet cement during construction. The theatre's owner Sid Grauman turned the incident into a publicity ritual that has continued ever since. The concrete blocks include some unusual imprints — Jimmy Durante left a nose print, and Roy Rogers' horse Trigger left hoofprints.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 5
One of the greatest free art museums in the world — a breathtaking hilltop campus of white travertine pavilions designed by architect Richard Meier, perched in the Santa Monica Mountains with panoramic views from the Pacific Ocean to Downtown LA. Houses Van Gogh's Irises, Rembrandt's self-portraits, and one of the finest collections of European decorative arts anywhere. Admission and tram ride are entirely free. Fun fact: J. Paul Getty, who funded the museum, was at the time of his death in 1976 the richest private citizen on Earth — yet was legendally miserly. He famously installed a payphone at his English country mansion for guests to use rather than let them make free calls, and when his grandson was kidnapped in Italy in 1973, he initially refused to pay the ransom until kidnappers sent him the boy's severed ear.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 6
The most famous pier in America — a century-old double pier jutting into the Pacific Ocean at the western end of iconic Route 66, home to Pacific Park amusement rides including the world's only solar-powered Ferris wheel, a vintage carousel, restaurants, and spectacular ocean sunsets. Fun fact: The Santa Monica Pier marks the official end of Route 66 — the legendary 3,940-kilometre 'Mother Road' that runs from Chicago, Illinois all the way to this point on the Pacific Coast. A sign on the pier reads 'End of the Trail.' The pier has appeared in over 50 films and TV series including Iron Man, Forrest Gump, and The Sting.
📍 Santa Monica, California, United States
- 7
LA's most eccentric and vibrant beachfront neighbourhood — a 3-kilometre oceanfront boardwalk lined with street performers, bodybuilders at the famous Muscle Beach outdoor gym, skateboarders at the original concrete skatepark, psychics, artists, and food vendors, backed by the picturesque Venice Canals. Fun fact: Venice was created entirely from scratch in 1905 by tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney, who dredged 24 km of canals modelled on Venice, Italy, and imported gondoliers from Venice to pole tourists around. After the canals fell into disrepair most were paved over in 1929 — but six blocks of the original canals survive today as a tranquil, hidden residential neighbourhood just two blocks from the boardwalk.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 8
The largest art museum in the western United States, housing over 150,000 works spanning 6,000 years across multiple pavilions on Wilshire Boulevard's 'Museum Row.' Famous for Chris Burden's Urban Light installation — 202 restored cast-iron street lamps from across LA arranged in a glowing forest at the entrance, one of the most photographed artworks in America. Fun fact: Urban Light's 202 lamps were sourced individually from neighbourhoods across Los Angeles, many of them dating to the 1920s–30s. Each lamp was found, acquired, and painstakingly restored to working condition by artist Chris Burden and his team — a project that took years and is now one of the most visited public artworks in the United States.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 9
Downtown LA's premier contemporary art museum, opened in 2015 in a striking honeycomb-veiled building on Grand Avenue, housing one of the most important collections of postwar and contemporary art in the world — with works by Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst. Admission is free. Fun fact: The Broad's most popular work is Jeff Koons' 'Tulips' (1995–2004) — a cluster of giant shiny balloon flowers valued at over $33 million. The museum's building was designed with a 'veil and vault' concept: a porous white concrete exterior shell (the veil) wraps around a solid inner concrete box (the vault) that stores 2,000 works not currently on display, making the storage itself a visible part of the architecture.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 10
One of the most visually striking buildings in the world — Frank Gehry's masterpiece of billowing stainless steel curves rising from Downtown LA's Grand Avenue, home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and widely considered to have some of the finest acoustics of any concert hall ever built. Fun fact: When the building first opened in 2003, nearby condo residents complained that the polished stainless steel panels were reflecting sunlight so intensely onto their apartments that it was heating them up to 60°C (140°F) and creating dangerous glare on nearby streets. In 2005, sections of the metal panels had to be sanded down to a matte finish to solve the problem — at a cost of $20,000.
📍 Los Angeles, California, United States
- 11
The world's most famous luxury shopping street — a three-block stretch in the heart of Beverly Hills lined with Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and virtually every major haute couture house, flanked by manicured palm trees and impossibly elegant window displays. Global symbol of Hollywood wealth. Fun fact: Rodeo Drive became famous worldwide overnight thanks to one scene in Pretty Woman (1990), in which Julia Roberts is snubbed by snobbish shop assistants — prompting a $500 million surge in tourism to the street that has never stopped. In reality, the shops on Rodeo Drive are among the most welcoming in the world to tourists regardless of budget, having learned that lesson well from the film's global impact.
📍 Beverly Hills, California, United States
- 12
The world's oldest major Hollywood studio — a working film and TV production facility that has been making movies since 1912, now also one of the most visited theme parks in the world. The Studio Tour tram takes visitors through active back lots, past original sets from Psycho, Jaws, and War of the Worlds. Fun fact: Universal Studios sits on land bought in 1912 by Carl Laemmle for $165,000. At the time, Los Angeles had no film industry to speak of — Laemmle moved west to escape the Edison Trust's stranglehold on East Coast film production. For the first two years, Laemmle charged the public 25 cents to watch movies being filmed — making Universal Studios the first studio tour in Hollywood history, over a century before it became an official theme park.
📍 Universal City, California, United States
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