Los Angeles is eighty miles wide. Book it in the right order.
Which celebrity-homes bus actually works the canyons. What a weekday on the Burbank lot costs. Whether the tram up San Jacinto beats an afternoon at the Getty. Reviews of every tour you can book across the basin and the day-trip belt around it.
Four bookings a first week in Los Angeles hangs off.
The run that gets you oriented, a working studio lot, the walk up to the letters and a morning offshore. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The whole basin, day oneFull-Day Iconic Sights of LA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Beaches and MoreHollywood, Beverly Hills, downtown and a beach in one run. Do this first and the rest of the week arranges itself.
02The lot in BurbankWarner Bros. Studio Tour HollywoodSound stages, the backlot street that has played every city in America, and the prop warehouse at the end.
03The cheap one that winsHollywood Sign 2.5-Hour Tour with Comedians and Their DogsUp the fire road to the sign with stand-ups and their dogs. Two and a half hours, less than a day of downtown parking.
04The morning offshore2-Hour Whale Watching TourOut of Newport harbour for dolphin pods, and from December the grey whales heading south.
Los Angeles sells the movie business three ways. Pick one.
The industry is why half of you came. One trip works the gates above the Strip, one goes inside a working lot in Burbank, one walks you up a fire road to the letters. What each costs to board.
Los Angeles is a base camp. These are the days out from it.
A desert two hours east, wine country ninety minutes north, an island an hour offshore and a run of beach towns down the 405. Six places worth a whole day, and the best booking in each.
The most popular days out in Los Angeles.
See the full list →The tours more travellers take than anything else across the basin, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Full-Day Iconic Sights of LA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Beaches and More
See Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Griffith Park, and more on a 7.5-hour LA sightseeing tour with lunch stop.
From · $99
Read our review →
2
Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood
from $76
3
Hollywood, Beverly Hills & Celebrity Homes Tour by Open Air Bus
from $39
4
Hollywood Sign 2.5-Hour Tour with Comedians and Their Dogs
from $15
5
Full-Day LA Tour: Santa Monica, Hollywood and Beverly Hills
from $95
6
Hollywood and Celebrity Homes Bus Tour
from $39
7
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour with Audio Guide
from $51
8
Half Day Best of Los Angeles Guided City Tour
from $69
Los Angeles keeps seventy miles of coast, and a boat leaves from most of it.
Greys run south past Palos Verdes from December, the Catalina boat crosses in an hour out of Long Beach, and the surf schools at Santa Monica and Huntington will have you standing by lunch. Take the morning departures. The wind gets up after two and the afternoon chop is nobody’s friend.
Santa Barbara: ninety minutes up the 101, and a different California.
Everything in Santa Barbara →
Whitewashed adobe under red tile, a pier you can walk to lunch on, and the Santa Ynez vines twenty minutes over the San Marcos Pass. Most people drive up for a day and go home pricing houses.
Santa Ynez, without driving
Over the pass into Ballard Canyon and the Santa Rita Hills, three or four tasting rooms with somebody else at the wheel. Pinot on the cool western end, Syrah as you go inland.
The old town once the shops shut
The Presidio, the courthouse tower and the adobes between them, told through the fires, the trials and the hauntings the chamber of commerce leaves out of the brochure.
A first stand-up at Leadbetter
Leadbetter Point breaks slow and long, which is why every beginner in the county learns there. Wetsuits year round. The water off this stretch never really warms up.
Palm Springs is two hours east and ten degrees hotter.
The tramway climbs from desert floor to pine forest in ten minutes and drops thirty degrees on the way up. Below it: midcentury architecture, date shakes, and Joshua Tree another hour out. Come between November and April, or come early and be indoors by noon.
Every Palm Springs day out →
Catalina is an hour from Long Beach and has almost no cars.
The ferry lands at Avalon, a harbour town of golf carts and a casino ballroom that never took a bet. Glass-bottom boats over the kelp, a zip line down the canyon, and bison a film crew left behind in 1924. A day trip works. The last boat back is the only deadline that matters.
- 1Private Guided Golf Cart Tour of Avalon
- 2Yellow Semi-Submarine Tour of Catalina Island From Avalonfrom $53
- 3Catalina Food Tourfrom $154
What a day out in Los Angeles actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. Plenty of the best days in this city come in under what you would spend on parking and dinner.
Open-air bus runs, the walk up to the sign, harbour cruises and museum entry.
The full-day standards: studio lots, whale boats, the aerial tram and a day in the vines.
Helicopters over the basin, private drivers, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three wine regions, all inside a two-hour drive of Los Angeles.
Santa Ynez north of Santa Barbara, Temecula south past the 15, and a handful of ranch vineyards up the canyons behind Malibu. Book the tour rather than the car. Every one of these ends with tasting and the drive home is the whole reason a guide is worth it.
Three things that only happen in Los Angeles.
Good weather and a long beach exist all over the world. A working film lot you can walk through, a bus that idles outside a comedian’s front gate, and nine letters on a hillside do not.
The Working Backlot
Warner Bros has been shooting on the same Burbank lot since 1928 and the tour runs between takes. You cross New York Street, which has played every city in America, look into a sound stage that may be dressed for a taping that night, and finish in the prop warehouse. Universal went the other way and built a theme park around theirs.
- 1Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,246 reviews
- 2Universal Studios Hollywood General Admission Ticket, California★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 1,489 reviews
- 3The VIP Experience at Universal Studios Hollywood in California★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 551 reviews
The Open-Air Bus
It began with printed maps sold on Sunset in the 1930s and turned into an industry. An open-top bus works the canyons above the Strip while a guide with a microphone narrates who lived where, what it sold for and which hedge went up after which divorce. Mostly you see gates. The gates are the point.
- 1Hollywood, Beverly Hills & Celebrity Homes Tour by Open Air Bus★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,557 reviews
- 2Hollywood and Celebrity Homes Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,074 reviews
- 3Hollywood & Celebrity Homes Open-Air Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 1,624 reviews
The Walk Up to the Letters
The sign went up in 1923 to advertise a housing tract and was supposed to come down in eighteen months. You cannot reach it, and every route ends above or beside it, on fire roads out of Griffith Park or Beachwood Canyon. The good ones start in the first hour of light, before the ridge bakes.
- 1Hollywood Sign 2.5-Hour Tour with Comedians and Their Dogs★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,496 reviews
- 2The Original 2.5-Hour Hollywood Sign Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,468 reviews
- 3Hollywood Sign Tour with Comedians, Dogs, & Epic Photos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,193 reviews
Four Los Angeles bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted the night before from a hotel bar. These four run on entry slots, ferry timetables and studio calendars that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Warner Bros. Studio Tour HollywoodThe Burbank lot runs a fixed number of tours a day and the weekend slots go weeks out. Weekday mornings are the ones that stay open.
- 02Universal Studios Hollywood General Admission Ticket, CaliforniaAdmission is dated. Turning up on a holiday weekend without a ticket means the gate price and the long queue, if it is selling at all.
- 03Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Admission TicketThe tram sells timed cars and clears them out on winter weekends by mid-morning. There is one road up the mountain and no alternative to it.
- 04Yellow Semi-Submarine Tour of Catalina Island From AvalonThe crossing is a timetable, not a service. Miss the last boat back to Long Beach and you are booking a room in Avalon.
When the coast stays grey until two and the valleys do not.
From late May into July a marine layer sits on the beach cities most mornings and burns off somewhere between noon and never. The fix is geography, not patience. The further inland you go the earlier the sun arrives, so the studios, downtown, Griffith and the desert are all in the clear while Santa Monica is still under cloud.
By place, from the beach cities to the desert
By kind of day, on foot, on a bus or on the water
Hollywood, the beach cities, Catalina and the desert: the loop most people do first.
The newest Los Angeles tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
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Expo Park Space & Dinosaurs Tour with Cal Science Center
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Private Hollywood Sign Hiking Tour with Select Hotel Pickup
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Explore Malibu’s Coast: PCH & Beyond – Self Guided Audio Tour
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Hollywood Sign and Coast 35-Minute Helicopter Tour in Los Angeles
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Gaviota Coast Near Santa Barbara: Kayak Tour (3.5 Hours)
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