Los Angeles really doesn’t need any introduction – we have seen so much of it through movies and TV – some of its main sights are almost as familiar as our own home towns.
For the sake of this article LA refers to more than just the legal definition of Los Angeles as a city – we include the larger metropolitan region such as the separate counties or municipalities like Orange County where Disneyland is, Pasadena, Burbank, Santa Monica and so forth.
For those from small cities and towns, the sheer size or spread of LA is at first 
daunting and amazing. This is then reinforced when you get into traffic and have to navigate your way through, over, and under the maze of freeways that intertwine and interconnect LA and the surrounding regions such as Orange County, Hollywood, Santa Monica and so on.
So the first tip for an LA trip – take cabs! Let others have the stress of having to ‘muscle’ their way through the traffic and complexity of the road system. Well, also check out the public transport as well.
Depending on the season or time of year – a simple “Google For It” will help you find many packages and tours that will no doubt match your needs.
This article isn’t about promoting specific packages – but more to just offer some ideas to whet your appetite and encourage you to really consider visiting this amazing, maddening, fabulous city.
Do It DifferentlyIn Los Angeles
Of course, you probably have to see Disneyland, Universal Studios and Hollywood – that’s part of its magic which we have grown up with. If nothing else, it brings the kid in you back alive!
However, LA is much more than that. It is all those things we are familiar with from the cinema – and it is also a living breathing city not quite like any other.
It is an urban sprawl – that seems at once desperately degraded and worn out – 
yet having some spectacular architecture – in both the private and public domains.
The homes in Beverly Hills are out of this world (as are some of the occupants) and then there is the extraordinary Frank Gehry building for the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
LA is a city of extremes and contradictions – self-indulgence, celebrity obsession, fantastic cultural offerings, ghettoes of crime and deprivation, fashion, movies, world class universities, sophistication, smog and sun, sex, business, beaches and so much more.
Some attractions
- The Walt Disney Concert Hall (do see this!)
- Hollywood Museum
- LEGOLAND California
- Guinness World Records Museum
- The Queen Mary
- Petersen Automotive Museum
- Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens
- Getty Museum (You have to see this to believe it!)
- Venice Beach
- Kodak Theater
- Hollywood Bowl
- The home of the Dodgers and the Lakers!
Always travel safely in LA – know where you are going – before you go. Although LA has been experiencing significant decline in crime since the mid 1990s, it only a foolish person who goes off the beaten track into suburbs that are the territory of gangs and other illicit activities.
Pix courtesy Wikipedia
The article title To Live and Die In LA comes from the 1985 movie of the same name which starred CSI’s William Peterson
