One Week in Los Angeles: Day-by-Day Itinerary

One week in Los Angeles covers Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Downtown, a hike above the city, Malibu and the Getty, the Walk of Fame with Chinatown and El Pueblo, and a day left loose for whatever is on. That is seven days with one neighbourhood each, which is the only way to plan a city where getting anywhere takes forty minutes.

I have been to this US city twice, both times in September, and once more for a single dinner on a road trip. This itinerary is what I actually did, put in order, with the practical details rechecked. Everything below assumes you have a car, because in Los Angeles you will want one.

One week in Los Angeles itinerary at a glance

The seven days below each cover one part of the city, ordered so you are never driving across town twice in a row.

1. Day 1, Santa Monica: the pier, Third Street Promenade and the widest beach in the county.
2. Day 2, Venice Beach: Muscle Beach, the boardwalk, the skate park and the Venice Canals.
3. Day 3, Downtown LA: L.A. Live, Angels Flight, Grand Central Market and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
4. Day 4, hiking and shopping: Runyon Canyon or Griffith Observatory in the morning, shops in the afternoon.
5. Day 5, Malibu and the Getty: the Getty Center or the Getty Villa, plus a Malibu beach.
6. Day 6, Hollywood, Chinatown and El Pueblo: the Walk of Fame, then the two oldest quarters in the city.
7. Day 7, whatever is on: a neighbourhood festival, a game, a show, or Universal Studios.

Day 1: Santa Monica

Santa Monica is the easiest first day in Los Angeles because the pier, the shopping and the beach are all within a five-minute walk of each other. Santa Monica also has the widest beach in the county, so it absorbs a crowd better than anywhere else on this list.

Go early. I arrived around 10am both times, once on Labor Day weekend, and that was early enough to walk the pier and most of Third Street Promenade before it filled up. When it did, we went to the beach. Parking on the Pier Deck lot is the closest but it is small, and rates run higher between April and October than they do in winter. The beach lots north and south of the pier charge a flat fee per entry and are usually easier.

The pier itself carries a small amusement park, an aquarium underneath it and street performers from midday until late. People fish off the end of it. Santa Monica Place sits at the foot of Third Street Promenade, which gives you an outdoor shopping street and a mall side by side.

The beach is wide enough that you will always find a spot, though it packs tight along the waterline. If sitting still is not your thing, the paved path along the sand takes walkers, runners, rollerbladers and bikes all the way south to Venice.

One oddity I noticed on my second visit: the small beach on the north side of the pier was full of families while the south side stayed comparatively empty. It may have been coincidence, but it was striking.

Day 2: Venice Beach

Venice Beach is next door to Santa Monica and you can walk or cycle between them, but it earns its own day. Venice is a different place from its neighbour, and rushing it in an afternoon means seeing only the boardwalk.

Park in one of the paid lots back from the beach. We once paid $10 a day on Pacific Avenue and saw lower prices a few streets over, so it is worth driving around a block or two if you are watching the budget.

Most people come for Muscle Beach, the outdoor gym on the sand where bodybuilders train in public. What struck me more was how many different Venices there are in one square mile. The tourist stretch of boardwalk is grungier than Santa Monica, with graffiti on everything and street performers sharing the pavement with people asking for money. The souvenir shops are darker and stranger than the ones in a European coastal town. There is a skate park right on the sand, and it is worth standing at the rail for ten minutes even if you have never been on a board.

Then walk inland to the Venice Canals, and the city changes again. Big modern houses face a grid of narrow waterways crossed by footbridges, with no through traffic and almost nobody on the street. In summer the water sits low, though we saw enough small boats moored to guess it comes up. I felt like an intruder photographing it, which is a fair sign of how residential it is.

From the canals it is a short hop to Marina del Rey, which I found disappointing. I had expected a harbour to stroll around; it is mostly boats you look at from a distance. My expectations may have been too European.

Santa Monica and Venice sit close enough together that a guided bike ride covers both in an afternoon, and it saves the parking problem at one of them.

Day 3: Downtown LA

Downtown LA is the one day of this week you can genuinely walk, and almost nobody does. We drove, parked at Olympic and Figueroa, and set off on foot from there, which is a reasonable compromise.

Start at L.A. Live, the entertainment complex beside the Convention Center. Crypto.com Arena is the big one, home to the Lakers, the Clippers and the Kings, and it was called the Staples Center until the end of 2021, so older guides and half the locals still use that name. Next to it is the Peacock Theater, which spent years as the Nokia Theatre and then the Microsoft Theater and hosts award shows. The GRAMMY Museum is on the same block.

Walk north to Figueroa and 9th and you reach the Original Pantry Café, a downtown institution that opened in 1924 and ran 24 hours a day for a century, moving premises once in 1950 when the state took the old building for a freeway ramp. On moving day the staff served lunch at the old address and dinner at the new one. The Pantry closed in March 2025 after 101 years, and a reopening under new ownership and the homelessness charity Hope the Mission has been announced, so check before you plan a meal there. We walked past it without going in, which I now regret.

A short walk on is Angels Flight, the funicular that calls itself the shortest railway in the world at roughly 300 feet (91 m) up Bunker Hill. It opened in 1901 to carry residents up the hill between Olive and Hill Street, was dismantled in 1969 for the Bunker Hill redevelopment and rebuilt half a block south in 1996. The original station house, the arches and the two cars, Olivet and Sinai, are all the real thing. It runs daily from 6.45am to 10pm and the fare is $1.50 each way.

At the bottom of Angels Flight, directly across the street, is Grand Central Market, a food hall running since 1917 with about three dozen counters in it. We rode the funicular up, looked around California Plaza, came back down and only then noticed it. Do not do that. Eat there.

From California Plaza it is a few blocks to the Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 S. Grand Avenue, home of the LA Philharmonic. The stainless steel exterior will remind you of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and it should: both are by Frank Gehry. There is a public rooftop garden, which is quiet and pleasant and smaller than we expected. Across the street is The Broad, a free contemporary art museum, and up on Temple Street is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

Day 4: Hiking and shopping

Los Angeles has real hiking inside the city limits, and the two easiest routes are Runyon Canyon and the climb to Griffith Observatory. Neither is a forest walk. Both are steep, dusty and exposed, and in September heat they are no joke.

Go early in the morning. The observatory building itself only opens at noon from Tuesday to Friday and at 10am at the weekend, and it closes on Mondays, but the grounds and the view are open regardless and admission to the building, the grounds and the public telescopes is always free. The most famous hike in the city is the one up to the Hollywood Sign; we did the observatory instead, and you get a clear view of the sign from there anyway.

Wear proper shoes. Trainers or sturdy sandals, not white leather ones you care about, because these are dust paths.

The afternoon is for shopping, and this is the part of an LA trip Europeans underestimate. Both times I flew out with a half-empty suitcase and filled it there, partly because September brings sales and partly because in 2012 and 2013 the dollar was much weaker against the euro than it is now. I bought nothing on Rodeo Drive. The useful options are the big malls when you want air conditioning, the thrift and vintage shops in Silver Lake and on Melrose when you want something nobody else has, and the outlet centres if you are chasing a discount.

Day 5: Malibu and the Getty

Day five is a choice between two Gettys, and both are free. The Getty Center holds European painting, sculpture and photography from the Middle Ages onwards in a hilltop complex above the 405, and the Getty Villa holds Greek and Roman antiquities in a recreated Roman country house on the coast at Pacific Palisades. They are 13 miles (20.9 km) apart.

The Getty Center is the bigger day out and easily takes a few hours. It opens Tuesday to Friday and Sunday from 10am to 6.30pm and on Saturday from 10am to 9pm, and closes on Mondays. Our separate guide to the Getty Center covers what is in it.

The Getty Villa is the shorter visit, an hour or two, and it pairs naturally with a Malibu beach day. It opens daily from 10am to 5pm and closes on Tuesdays. The Villa closed for nearly six months after the Palisades Fire of January 2025, which burned through the surrounding area, and it reopened on 27 June 2025. The buildings and the collection came through intact; the neighbourhood around it did not, and rebuilding is still going on.

Both Gettys are free but both require a timed-entry reservation booked in advance, and both charge for parking, currently $25 per car with a reduced rate later in the day. Book the slot before you drive out.

Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu reopened to all traffic on 23 May 2025 after the fire closure, and Caltrans is still rebuilding sections of it, so allow more time than the map suggests. Malibu’s beaches are smaller and more sheltered than the wide open sand at Santa Monica and Venice, which is the reason to come. You may well walk into a photo shoot.

Day 6: The Walk of Fame, Chinatown and El Pueblo

Day six pairs the most famous street in Los Angeles with the two oldest quarters in it, which is a deliberately uneven trade. You cannot go to LA and skip the Walk of Fame, but you can be done with it in an hour.

I will be honest: Hollywood Boulevard was my least favourite part of the city. It is crowded, and much of it feels staged. I walked part of the Walk of Fame on both trips, did a little shopping at the Ovation Hollywood complex, which was called Hollywood & Highland until 2021, and moved on.

From there it is a short drive to Chinatown. I expected colour and got something quieter. Beyond a few Chinese-styled buildings you could almost miss that you were in it, and we were both disappointed not to find noodles on every corner. There is a reason for that, and it is the most interesting thing about the neighbourhood.

Chinese migrants started arriving in Los Angeles in 1852 and built a community that grew to several thousand people. US law barred them from citizenship and therefore from owning property, so the shops, theatres and temples of Old Chinatown were all rented from American landlords. When developers and the city turned their attention to that land in the 1930s and chose it as the site for a new rail terminal, the community had no title to defend. Peter SooHoo, a Chinese American engineer who spoke fluent Cantonese and English, became its spokesman and found a site for a replacement. This time the community financed the project and owned the buildings, and it was designed to appeal to Americans and Chinese alike, which is exactly why New Chinatown looks less Chinese than Chinatowns elsewhere. It opened in 1938.

Union Station was built on the Old Chinatown site and opened in 1939. It is not the cathedral of a station that Antwerp Central is, but the preserved ticket hall, the marble and the leather waiting-room chairs are worth ten minutes.

Cross the road from Union Station and you are at El Pueblo de Los Ángeles, where the city began in 1781. The Plaza, Olvera Street’s market stalls and Avila Adobe, the oldest standing house in Los Angeles, are all in one block.

Day 7: Festivals and festivities

Leave day seven open, because there is almost always something on somewhere in Los Angeles, and a neighbourhood festival is the fastest way to end up among locals rather than tourists.

I was in LA over Labor Day weekend twice and went to the Fiesta Hermosa festival at Hermosa Beach both times. It runs over Memorial Day weekend and again over Labor Day weekend, it is free to walk into, and it fills the streets by the pier with makers’ stalls, food and live music. Comparing it with a Belgian street festival was half the fun. I do not think we would ever sell spam at one.

TimeOut Los Angeles lists what is on across the city and is the place to check a week before you fly. If the calendar is quiet, day seven is also the natural slot for a Dodgers or Lakers game, and our guide to sport in the USA covers how tickets work. It is also the day to drive out of town if you would rather: Los Angeles to Yosemite is a long one but it can be done.

Extra: visit Universal Studios

Universal Studios Hollywood is the biggest single day out in Los Angeles and it will take the whole of one, so add it as an eighth day rather than squeezing it into seven. It is a working film studio with a theme park attached, and the Studio Tour tram through the backlot is the part you cannot get anywhere else.

Queues are the problem. Universal sells a Universal Express add-on that gives one-time express access to each ride and reserved seating at the shows, and a VIP Experience that adds unlimited express access, a guided small-group tour with access to parts of the backlot that are otherwise closed, valet parking and lunch. The VIP Experience runs about six hours, has limited places and has to be booked in advance.

We never made it, both times, which is my main regret from these trips.

The Go City Los Angeles pass

The Go Los Angeles Card is now sold as the Go City Los Angeles pass, and it is worth doing the arithmetic on before you buy. Go City sells two versions: an All-Inclusive pass covering as many of 30-plus attractions as you can fit into a set number of consecutive days, and an Explorer pass covering a fixed number of attractions used across a longer window.

The All-Inclusive version pays off if you are the sort of traveller who does three ticketed things a day. The Explorer version suits a slower week. Neither pays off if your itinerary is mostly beaches, hikes and free museums, which describes most of the week above, so check the attraction list against your own plan rather than the headline saving.

How to get around in LA

You will want a rental car in Los Angeles. Public transport exists and has improved, but the city covers about 500 square miles (1,300 km²) and the network was not built for visitors.

By rental car

Driving is how Angelenos do everything, and after two trips I would not plan a week here any other way. My friend Sylvie drove the first time and I drove the second, and I have written separately about what it is like to drive in Los Angeles, which is worth reading before you collect the keys.

Book the car before you fly rather than at the counter. DiscoverCars compares hire prices across the LA depots, including the off-airport ones, which are usually cheaper than picking up inside LAX. Budget for parking as well as fuel: most hotels charge for it, downtown garages are expensive, and beach lots charge per entry.

By public transport

Metro is better than its reputation and cheap. A one-way ride costs $1.75 on a TAP card, and fares are capped so you never pay more than $5 in a day or $18 across seven days no matter how often you tap. The B and D subway lines run downtown to Hollywood and Koreatown, the E line runs from downtown to Santa Monica, and the K line now reaches the airport area.

It is still slow across long distances, and the stations are not where most visitors are staying. Use it for downtown, Hollywood and Santa Monica, and drive for the rest.

Other options

If you would rather not drive at all, three things fill the gap.

1. Hop-on hop-off buses run open-top routes with stops across Downtown, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, sold as 24, 48 and 72-hour tickets.
2. Guided bus tours cover a lot of ground fast, from half-day city tours with hotel pick-up to celebrity-home tours in open minivans and the various true-crime tours of where famous residents died.
3. Guided bike tours cover the coast between Santa Monica and Venice comfortably, and the longer full-day rides cross several neighbourhoods in one go.

How to get to LA

By plane

Almost everyone flies into LAX, which is the main airport and usually the only option from outside the United States. Trip.com compares flights to Los Angeles across airlines and dates.

Getting out of LAX has changed. The LAX/Metro Transit Center station opened in June 2025 and connects the C and K lines to the airport, with free shuttle buses running from the station to the terminals. The automated people mover, now branded SkyLink, will replace those shuttles with a train when it opens, and its date has slipped more than once. Until then, the practical options remain a rental car collected on arrival or a pre-booked private transfer, which is often no dearer than a taxi and waiting for you when you land.

Two smaller airports are worth checking if you are flying domestically: Hollywood Burbank is far more convenient than LAX for Hollywood and the Valley, and Long Beach is small and quick.

Whichever way you arrive, sort insurance before you go. American medical bills are the single largest financial risk of this trip, and SafetyWing is the policy I travel on.

By bus

Greyhound and FlixBus both run long-distance coaches into the Los Angeles area from cities across the west, with wifi, power sockets and reclining seats. Fares are low and journey times are long, so this is a budget option rather than a fast one. Check which station your service uses before you book, because they are scattered across the metro area rather than gathered in one terminal.

By train

Amtrak runs into Union Station, which is right beside Chinatown and El Pueblo and on the Metro network. The Pacific Surfliner from San Diego and Santa Barbara is the useful one for a Californian trip, and the Coast Starlight runs the length of the state from Seattle. Arriving by train puts you in the middle of day six’s itinerary before you have even checked in.

Where to stay in LA

Los Angeles is too big to have one right neighbourhood, so pick the area that matches your week rather than the cheapest room. The eight areas below cover where most visitors end up, with options at each price point. Booking.com covers all of them if you would rather compare across the whole city first.

1. Downtown

Downtown holds the concert halls, the museums, Grand Central Market, the arena and the nightlife, and it is the one part of the city you can use on foot. It is also the best-connected area for Metro.

Budget: PodShare DTLA. A co-living hostel in the Arts District with beds in mixed air-conditioned dorms, shared bathrooms, a kitchen and coffee, free wifi and breakfast included. Book a room.

Midrange: American Hotel. A walk-up above a pie shop at 303 S Hewitt Street in the Arts District, trading since 1905 and one of the oldest hotels in the city. Rooms are spacious and air-conditioned with flatscreen TVs and free wifi, and bathrooms are shared. Book a room.

Luxury: Hotel Per La. The historic 1922 Giannini Building, built as the Bank of Italy at 7th and Olive, has been Hotel Per La since the NoMad Los Angeles closed. It keeps the rooftop pool and bar, the gym and the dining room, and Autograph Collection is Marriott’s independent-hotel label. Book a room.

2. Hollywood

Hollywood is the centre of the film industry and where the Walk of Fame, the Hollywood Bowl and the Dolby Theatre are. It is the obvious base for a first trip and the noisiest.

Budget: Samesun Hollywood. The hostel at 6820 Hollywood Boulevard, directly on the Walk of Fame, with dorms and private rooms, a guest kitchen, laundry and a common room overlooking the boulevard. It traded as USA Hostels Hollywood until it joined the Samesun group. Book a room.

Boutique: Elaine’s Hollywood Bed & Breakfast. A house with a front patio, a terrace and a garden, running two suites with private bathrooms, free wifi and breakfast included. Book a room.

Luxury: Kimpton Everly Hotel. A rooftop pool looking at the Hollywood Sign, a restaurant, the Ever Bar, a gym and loan bikes. Wifi is free, breakfast is not. Book a room.

3. The southern beach cities and LAX

Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo run LA life at a slower speed, and they are the closest good beaches to the airport, which makes them a sensible first or last night.

Budget: ITH Hermosa Beach Surf Hostel. The hostel at 26 Pier Avenue, less than a block from the sand, with private rooms and mixed dorms, free linen, towels, breakfast and wifi, a shared kitchen and bike and surfboard hire. It traded as Surf City Hostel before joining ITH. Book a room.

Midrange: Hotel Hermosa. Air-conditioned rooms with private balconies, coffee makers and fridges on Pacific Coast Highway, with a heated outdoor pool and hot tub open year-round, a fire pit on the back patio and a yoga room. Book a room.

Luxury: The Beach House at Hermosa. All-suite, right on the strand, with balconies or patios, spa baths, fireplaces and kitchenettes, a gym, a hot tub and continental breakfast included. Book a room.

4. Santa Monica

Santa Monica gives you a beach town and a proper city at once: the pier, Third Street Promenade, restaurants, and the E line running straight downtown, which is the one part of LA where you could manage without a car.

Budget: HI Los Angeles Santa Monica Hostel. At 1436 2nd Street, a couple of blocks from the beach and on Third Street Promenade, with a choice of dorm grades, free wifi, breakfast and a guest kitchen. Book a room.

Midrange: Santa Monica Hotel. A 33-room property in the Ocean Park and Pico area, seven blocks back from the beach and around the corner from a bus stop, with free wifi, free parking and morning coffee. It was called the Santa Monica Motel. Book a room.

Luxury: Hotel Casa del Mar. On the sand, five minutes from Third Street Promenade, with an ocean-facing pool, a hot tub, two restaurants and a gym. Rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows. Book a room.

5. Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills is Rodeo Drive, a hundred-odd designer stores, expensive hotels and the restaurants that go with them. Museum Row on Wilshire and Culver City’s arts district are both close.

Boutique: Hotel Beverly Terrace. On North Doheny Drive on the Beverly Hills and West Hollywood line, with air-conditioned rooms, an on-site Italian restaurant and a private garden patio. Wifi and breakfast are included. Book a room.

Luxury: L’Ermitage Beverly Hills. An all-suite hotel on a residential street within walking distance of Rodeo Drive, with a rooftop pool, a spa, a gym, a lounge bar and a restaurant. It carried the Viceroy name for years and no longer does. Book a room.

6. West Hollywood

West Hollywood is the edgier option: the Sunset Strip, vintage shops, a long-standing LGBTQ scene and the best concentration of bars and music venues in the city.

Luxury: The London West Hollywood. An all-suite hotel on North San Vicente Boulevard by the Sunset Strip, with a rooftop pool and cabanas, a gym, a salon and two restaurants. Suites have separate living space and walk-in showers, and continental breakfast is included. Book a room.

7. The San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys

The Valley holds the film studios, the conference hotels and Six Flags Magic Mountain up at Valencia. North Hollywood, with its arts and theatre district, is the part of it worth basing yourself in.

Budget: Valley Village // Sherman Oaks // North Hollywood Hostel. A small hostel about 22 km (13.7 mi) from central LA, with four-person dorms, a garden terrace, a shared lounge, kitchen and dining area. Book a room.

Midrange: Lexen Hotel North Hollywood. At 5268 N Tujunga Avenue in the NoHo Arts District, across from a park and close to Universal Studios, with a gym, a shared lounge and an outdoor bar. Rooms have king beds, fridges and safes, and breakfast is included. Book a room.

Luxury: Hyatt Regency Valencia. About 3.2 km (2 mi) from Six Flags Magic Mountain, with an outdoor pool, a restaurant, a bar, a gym and a business centre, and breakfast included. Book a room.

8. Pasadena

Pasadena feels like a town rather than a district, with Old Town’s shops and restaurants, the Norton Simon Museum and the Huntington gardens close by. It is the calm option, and it is a long way from the beach.

Serviced apartment: Residence Inn by Marriott Los Angeles Pasadena/Old Town. Suites with kitchens, dishwashers and separate seating areas, plus a pool, a gym, barbecue facilities and a terrace. Continental breakfast is included. Book a room.

Luxury: The Langham Huntington, Pasadena. A resort in 23 acres of gardens, with a gym, an outdoor pool, tennis courts and a spa, several restaurants, afternoon tea in the lobby lounge and Italian marble bathrooms. Book a room.

Where to eat in Los Angeles

Eating well in Los Angeles does not require a restaurant budget, which is how I kept both trips affordable. Our hostel ran free dinners, and we stayed near the Original Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, a Trader Joe’s and a Whole Foods, so a lot of nights were street food or something cooked in the hostel kitchen.

Lunch was whatever was nearby, and in September heat a salad was usually enough. We did stop at In-N-Out more than once, which is the correct thing for a first-time visitor to do.

If you want structure, three approaches work. Grand Central Market downtown puts three dozen counters under one roof, from a century-old deli to modern taco and noodle stalls, and it is the single easiest introduction to how the city eats. The Original Farmers Market does the same thing in the Fairfax district with an older, calmer crowd. And a guided food tour of one neighbourhood will get you further into Southern Californian cooking in an afternoon than a week of picking restaurants at random. If you are wondering what to leave on the table, our guide to tipping in North America covers it.

Nightlife in Los Angeles

Los Angeles closes earlier than most European cities: bars and clubs stop serving at 2am, and that shapes the whole night. There are after-parties, but you have to know somebody to find them.

I went out less than I expected. One night the hostel organised a trip to Boulevard 3 on Sunset, a club with a Roman theme, a rectangular dance floor ringed by galleries on three levels and a large swing hanging from the ceiling. It looked spectacular. It filled up around midnight and the crowd was up for it, but the DJ played one narrow strand of hip-hop all night and after an hour it felt like a single very long song.

The better night was at The Federal in North Hollywood, a club above a bar that runs nineties and hip-hop nights with dance crews performing. LA pulls in dancers from everywhere for classes, and it shows on that dance floor.

If you would rather sit down, the city is thick with stand-up comedy rooms, small theatres and dance venues. We saw a dance convention at the Ford amphitheatre and a stand-up show in North Hollywood, and both were more fun than the club.

Stay connected while visiting LA

Getting data in the United States as a visitor is the one bit of admin worth doing before you fly. Roaming from outside the country is expensive, and you will be leaning on Google Maps constantly in a city this spread out.

A Airalo eSIM is what I use, on either a day pass or a monthly plan. The code HARRY5578 takes €3 off a first order. It gives you 4G for several devices at once, which matters if you are travelling with someone. I use the day passes outside the EU and also as a backup at home when I think I will run over my data allowance.

Don’t forget travel insurance

Travel insurance matters more in the United States than almost anywhere else, because American healthcare will bankrupt an uninsured visitor over something minor. It also covers cancellation, theft and, on some policies, broken electronics.

I have carried continuous travel insurance since I started travelling. Check out SafetyWing if you do not have any: their plans are flexible, you can start one after your trip has already begun, and they were the first travel insurer to cover COVID. When I caught it, they reimbursed everything without an argument.

One week in Los Angeles FAQ

Is one week enough for Los Angeles?

One week is enough for Los Angeles if you accept one area per day. The city covers about 500 square miles (1,300 km²) and the distances between its neighbourhoods are the constraint, not the number of things to see, so a week gets you the coast, downtown, Hollywood and a hike without rushing. Two weeks would add the day trips: Yosemite, San Diego, Joshua Tree, Santa Barbara.

Do you need a car for a week in Los Angeles?

Yes, for a week covering this much of the city. Metro is cheap and improving, with a $1.75 fare capped at $5 a day, and it works well for downtown, Hollywood and Santa Monica. It does not work for Malibu, the Getty Villa, Griffith Park or the Valley, and a week that skips those is not really a week in LA.

What is the best time of year to visit Los Angeles?

September and October are the value months, with warm sea, summer weather and smaller crowds than July and August. Spring is mild and green. Winter is the wet season and the cheapest, and January to March is when the beaches are empty. Wildfire risk runs highest in the dry months from late summer into autumn, so check conditions before a coastal drive.

How much does a week in Los Angeles cost?

Accommodation takes the largest share of the budget, and the gap between a hostel bed and a beachfront hotel is wider here than the gap in anything else you will spend on. After that come the rental car and its parking. The saving grace is that a lot of what makes the week is free: both Gettys, The Broad, Griffith Observatory, Runyon Canyon, every beach and the whole of day one and day two.

What should you skip in Los Angeles?

Rodeo Drive if you are not shopping, and Hollywood Boulevard beyond an hour. Both are on every itinerary and neither rewards a long visit. Marina del Rey was the one part of my own week I would drop entirely.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from two September weeks in Los Angeles and from rechecking every opening time and access rule on this page in September 2026.

1. Book the Getty timed-entry slot before you leave the hotel. Both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa are free, and both need a reservation made in advance, so a spontaneous arrival gets you as far as the car park. Parking costs $25 per car, the Center closes on Mondays and the Villa on Tuesdays, and Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu is still being rebuilt in sections after the January 2025 fire, so give the Villa day more driving time than the map suggests.
2. Climb to Griffith Observatory in the morning and see the building later. The building opens at noon from Tuesday to Friday and at 10am at weekends, and it closes on Mondays, but the grounds, the view and the admission are free at any hour. The heat is what makes the climb hard, not the gradient. We skipped the Hollywood Sign hike entirely and took the observatory instead, because the sign is perfectly visible from up there.
3. Be at Santa Monica Pier by 10am. I did that on both trips, one of them on Labor Day weekend, and it was early enough to walk the pier and most of Third Street Promenade before either filled up, then move to the sand when they did. The Pier Deck lot is closest but small and dearer between April and October, and the beach lots north and south of it charge a flat fee per entry and take longer to fill.
4. Ride Angels Flight down and then walk straight into Grand Central Market. The market is directly across the street at the bottom of the funicular, has been running since 1917 and holds around three dozen food counters. We rode up, looked around California Plaza, came back down and only noticed it as we were leaving, which is the one downtown mistake I would take back.
5. Drive a couple of blocks before you park at Venice Beach. I paid $10 a day on Pacific Avenue and passed cheaper lots within a short walk of it, so the first sign you see is rarely the cheapest. Venice also deserves its own day rather than an afternoon tacked onto Santa Monica, because the boardwalk is the least interesting part of it.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand account in this post comes from her two September trips to Los Angeles, both made by rental car and both based partly in hostels. The team covers the United States for independent travellers, including the hotels, hostels, tours, car hire, flights and travel insurance worth booking for a week in LA, and rechecked every attraction, opening time and hotel on this page in September 2026.