In LA... go West!

Let's face it... if it wasn't for the beach, LA could be anywhere. It's the west side of town you want to concentrate on.
Venice and Santa Monica are the world's picture of LaLa Land. Grab a bikini, rent some skates, and go get some rays while being cool and gorgeous. Or watch other people doing it.

And don't stay downtown, go for the bargains... read on.

Quick Tips:

I would recommend travelers stay at the places I mention in Inglewood, and take the free shuttles to-and-from terminals and the beach.

Best Way To Get Around:

Public transportation is cheap in LA and not as bad as people say.

Of course, once you get to the beach, it's really easy; rent a surfboard, skates, or bike, and boogie on.

It's the best deal in town!

It's a hotel composed entirely of two-room suites. At this writing, the suites are $50 a night and hostel beds are $15. To put that in perspective, you could pay $50 for a rat-hole in Hollywood that looks like a crime scene, or $24 a night for a hostel from hell in Venice.

Rooms are comfy with wet bar/refrigerators, furnished nicely, with lots dressers and chairs made of real wood. Sofas fold into queen beds, for a two-bedroom apartment at night. Big TVs feature sports and movie channels. There are actual paintings on the wall.

The staff tends to be very nice young people who are friendly and seem happy to be working there.

This is one of those rare hotels that is more like a low-cost resort, a playground for weary backpackers. You will immediately notice the heated pool. There are tables, chairs, and pop machines around the pool... but it boldly goes FAR beyond all that. Like arcade games, pool tables, a cool bar, a popcorn machine, internet booths (and free WiFi access), and a massage recliner chair.

The pool crowd is a good mix of young and fun-loving types—though not in the Spring Break Gone Wild kind of way—Pacific Rim travelers, and a sprinkling of children.

Another unique feature of the place is all the freebies and festivities during the day. Free continental breakfast with muffins, free coffee and cookies each afternoon by the pool, free champagne party with free food and cake every night, dollar beer and margaritas at the bar. You can have a lot of fun just hanging around at the bar, and pool area tends to be very convivial with instant friendships. There's even a grand piano in the bar, where you hear some spontaneous sing-alongs.

The restaurant has dinner specials each night for $6 (and vegetarian meals) and will bring your order to your room, or poolside.

It's really close to the airport... and they will take you there or pick you up for free. Better yet, they'll send a free cab for you at the train or bus station; just call them by pushing the button on the lodging call board just inside the depot. So much for out of the way. And they have free shuttles that will run you to Venice Beach, a big shopping mall, or the "fishing village" at Marina Del Rey.
 
If you want to see more of LA, California, or Baja, step right up to the reception desk. You can book tours of town—Hollywood, Disneyland, all that stuff—take limo rides, shopping trip to Tijuana.

Personally, I don't think there's anything to mull over. If you're going to be staying in LA for a night or a week, and if you you want comfortable housing or to pay the rock bottom for a rack, the Adventurer is the clear cut choice. And you get free chocolate chip cookies!

http://laadventurerhotel.com
Call (800)852-0012 in the USA, or (800)648-6363 in Canada.

You can spend twenty-something bucks to sleep in a rathole of a Venice hostel, or other LA areas, or you can spend $15 to stay in one of the coolest places in town.

One of the secrets of the Packpackers' Paradise is that it's half hotel, half hostel. It gives some amenities and atmosphere you don't normally find... like a heated pool for instance.

The hostel beds are comfortable, well maintained, and have lockers available. The staff tends to be very nice young people who are friendly and seem happy to be working there.

This is a playground for weary backpackers. There are tables, chairs, and pop machines around the pool... but it boldly goes FAR beyond all that, like a bunch of old school video arcade games, pool tables, a cool bar, a popcorn machine, internet booths (and even free WiFi access), and a massage recliner chair.

Another unique feature of the place is all the freebies and festivities during the day. Free continental breakfast with muffins, free coffee and cookies each afternoon by the pool, free champagne party with free food and cake every night, dollar beer and margaritas at the bar. There's even a grand piano for spontaneous sing-alongs.

The restaurant has dinner specials each night for $6 (and vegetarian meals) and will bring your order to your room or poolside.

It's really close to the airport... and they will take you there or pick you up for free. Better yet, they'll send a free cab for you at the train or bus station; just call them by pushing the button on the lodging call board just inside the depot. So much for out of the way. Not only that, they have a free shuttles that will run you to Venice Beach, a big shopping mall, or the "fishing village" at Marina Del Rey. No hassling with buses or shelling out for cabs is what I'm saying. A mile up Century is a real casino with shows and everything.

If you want to see more of LA, California, or Baja, just step right up to the reception desk. You can book tours of town—Hollywood, Disneyland, all that stuff—take limo rides to nightclubs, take a shopping trip to Tijuana... all at good prices. A unique advantage to the backpack set is that the Adventurer is a hub for the famous Green Tortoise buses. You're wired right into their communal sleeper buses to their hostels in San Francisco and on up the coast, to tours of Baja, to cross-country jaunts... all starting right in the parking lot. There is even a new GT trip that loops to a series of hostels in LA, SF, Vegas, and national parks.

If you're going to be staying in LA for a night, or a week, and if you you want comfortable housing or to pay the rock bottom for a rack, the Adventurer is the clear cut choice. And you get free chocolate chip cookies! (

800)852-0012 in the USA, or (800) 648-6363 in Canada.
http://backpackersparadise.com.

This is the heart of Venice beach (or the tit, or bicep, or whatever the equivalent is in a place where they film "Baywatch".) It manages to be surfy-beachy, legitimately bohemian, touristy, local, and intellectual, all at once. A big cavern of a cafe that sprawls right out onto Ocean Front Walk (aka The Boardwalk), making diners a part of the passing scene, and commanding a great view of the beach and the intervening show. You can eat a meal for $6 here, no problem. The entrees are all named after writers (try the Raymond Chandler), in keeping with the bookstore that is integrated to the cafe off to one side. This is a place where berets and thongs co-exist. A fine place to sit and soak-up the scene, while actually being PART of the scene you've seen in so many films. Or if you want to cut out, the cafe will fix you a box lunch to go. Not that you'll be going anywhere any cooler than here.

As you walk (bike, skate, scoot, etc.) south from the Santa Monica pier, you will be undulating along a wide, wavy strip of cement, laid in the sand of an archetypal Californian beach. But as you cross over the ill-defined psychic boundary into Venice, you will end up cruising The Boardwalk. This is the epicenter of LA stereotype—crammed with athletic beauties wearing little more than skates and smiles, kooks, buskers, hustlers, and SoCal types.

The inboard side of Ocean Front Walk is commerce run wild—if there is no restaurant, coffee house, or aura cleanser, there will be an open flea market stall selling T-shirts, shorts, beach-ware, the coolest in shades, and general bric-a- brac. Not bad prices, either. But it's the seaboard side that really makes this place what it is. Here you will find loonies (I once heard a squabbling couple that was living in a blanket and shopping cart in the middle of a slab of open sand: she told him, 'If you don't like it you can get the hell out of here.'), you will hear musicians ranging from future superstars to the terminally and deservedly day-jobbed, you will chuckle at comedians (Whoopie worked the strand; Michael Collins started here, doing four shows a day on weekends and taking in enough to live on—I tried to walk away from his act once while he was telling an AIDS joke and he yelled at me, "Hey Pops, you can't catch it by just HEARING about it!"). You will see sandcastle artists, mimes, jugglers, human robots, dancers, prancers, and vixens. The star of the jugglers does juggle three real,  running chainsaws. Walk away from this guy without a contribution and he screams, "Come back here you cheap bastards!" And it's not wise to ignore a man packing three chain saws. The whole affair is an ongoing sideshow of mutual benefit, splendid time guaranteed to all.

At about the foot of 18th Avenue is the real and genuine Muscle Beach (you thought it was just a state of mind, huh?), where a giant cage is full of huge heffalumps pumping iron and sweating oil. If you aren't intimidated by the sheer bulk and sheen, get in there and press a few tons. Beyond the valley of beef are more athletic opportunities. Pickleball courts draw crowds, and beach volleyball nets often feature world class players. If you think you can shoot some hoops, step right up my man. Put-up a few bucks, get on the court, and get an education, homes. (Or give one—white men don't have to jump if they've got a solid enough hook shot.) All the loopy stereotypes aside, there is something about this area that shows Angelenos at their best. People of all races (or so racially blended there's no point in discussing it) get it on democratically, just out there in the sun and sea breeze, sweating and driving, getting their recreation and exalting their bodies.

And there's more to LA than just bods. The center of the Boardwalk is the Sidewalk Cafe, which is half bookstore. The main feature here is basically hipness, which is as indigenous to LA as to NY or Paris (and a shade less snotty). You just feel a little cooler hanging around here. Isn't that building over there where Jim Morrison was sleeping on the roof and doing acid the summer before he formed the Doors? Wasn't that mural on a Little Feat album cover? Isn't that...? Nah, well, could be. It's an area that can be beat, hip, grungy, gnarly, and kooky all at once. Depends on which shades you're wearing. If you want a really graphic example of that (in case you haven't noticed the giant murals by the LA Graphic Arts Squad), step over to 9341 Venice Blvd. and check out the Museum of Jurassic Technology. This is NOT "Your Ass Is Parked" for the kiddies—it's part museum, part art installation, part happening, part total scam, part cult. What could be more LA than that? See the African Stink Ant, the Piercing Devil that uses sonar to fly through walls. Exhibits change, usually featuring something too bizarre to be called culture, but flaky enough to be art.

Anyway, where were we? Ah, heading south towards the Venice Pier. More beach, and more places to hang and scarf. The Venice pier is not the carnie that Santa Monica is, but serves its basic function—to get your ass way out in the ocean without getting it wet... something even the Titanic failed to pull off. Beyond the pier there are a few more blocks of Venice Beach left, the end of it being the foot of Washington. This is a party area, much less colorful and visited than the gut of the boardwalk—just a good old Californicated beach town with good restaurants and bars, and a lot of hostels and cheaper motels. Also, in the first block inland on Washington are lots of places, like Skateys, that rent bikes and skates. Get a t-shirt and blend, dewd. Actually, this is a good place to start a cruise of the entire strip. Now I tell you, huh?

Most of those old Atlantic City type of piers from the era of amusement-over-the-water burned or fell down, but this one is still around—and even still has the amusement park complete with Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, and flying submarine. Not just for kids, either. Even grown-ups get a kick out of checking out the carousel where Newman and Redford schemed up the scam in "The Sting." Or walk out to the end where Michael Douglas drove off in "Falling Down" (not to mention the dozens of other movies that took headers into the drink).

If you like movie scenes, by the way, hike up the road that arches up from pier to town, and cut north into Palisades Park, a strip of green along the clifftop with the best sunset view in town. This was the finale of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World," but so many pictures were shot here—you look down to where the road forks on the Pacific Highway and you've seen it so many times it's like deja vu.

But back to the pier, it's a Coney Island type of midway place, get'cher hot dogs, take a ride, step right up little lady. Nice for kids, but they'll also get off on the beach below for free—and there's a great little sandbox-sculpture-climbing-gym on the south side.

Just steps from one of the beach's most unique and enjoyable features. There are dozens of pieces of gym equipment, made of pipe and set up in the sand: parallel bars, high bars, uneven, flying rings, push-up props. You can amuse yourself here for hours (chalk for your hands is sold in the little hot dog stand across the boardwalk), and if you hang around you will see some pretty damn fine gymnasts doing their thing here—even gym rats like sun and sea. But the king of the beach is a set of huge arches, each with one ring suspended on a chain. You chalk your hands and climb to the little pulpit at one end. Get a good grip, and swing out to where you can catch the next one. Good so far... but how far can you go? Down and back, do a few spins, land back on the pulpit? Well goody for you, I've seen 12-year-old girls do that. It's a sport only done on this one spot, and has it's stars. Live action Donkey Kong for the masses. If you fall on your face, you just need a little training—cruise south down the boardwalk into Venice and you will find a cage full of iron and beefcake called Muscle Beach.

I really like LA's Union Station. It reminds me of why rail should be the way the world moves. In LA it's particularly important because the bus station is a drug-gang, war zone, piece-of-crap.

Union Station, on the other hand, is a grand building with a soaring roof and unique decor that's a blend of Southwest and Art Deco. There's actually a very classy restaurant called Trax located in the huge main depot, with some tables in the patio garden. It's still kind of gracious, but also businesslike. You arrive and move through in an easy, sensible way that makes airports and bus stations kind-of suck by comparison.

It's THE way to get from the San Diego/Mexico border area up to Los Angeles. A nice two-hour bowl up the coast in comfort, for a measly $28. It's the only way that makes sense to do it. It makes no sense to go to, say, Seattle, by train—three days rolling for more than a flight would cost—but this is the perfect scale for this kind of travel. You can get drinks and snacks onboard, make pay phone calls, and plug-in lap tops or other devices right in your seat. It's good transportation, a good way to spend time, and a connection the fine old era of hopping on trains to move around with a little class.