Six Wonderful Days in Southern California - Part 1: Los Angeles & Santa Monica

Santa Monica Pier

As I'm sure I've mentioned, we have 4 children (now ages 11-20). As each child graduates from 8th grade, it has become our tradition to have one parent take them on a vacation of their choice, by themselves. I took Hannah to Disney World, Tom took Will to Key West, and a few weeks ago Annika and I went to Southern California (Ally is already busy planning her trip!). We had 6 days and 5 nights exploring some of what this amazing part of our country has to offer, and I want to hit the highlights for you here. We went to LA/Santa Monica, Disneyland and Palm Springs, and had a wonderful time!

We started our trip in Los Angeles, and decided to stay in Santa Monica, which was a great choice. It is a very pleasant area to be (although a bit chilly and gloomy in June), with unlimited options for food and shopping, and it is very easy to get from Santa Monica to some of the most interesting areas of Los Angeles. We stayed at The Shore Hotel, and I highly recommend it for anyone staying in the area. It is a brand-new, LEED-certified, very comfortable and trendy hotel, and we really enjoyed it. Here are some photos from our stay:

The first thing we did after some lunch and getting settled in our hotel was go on the Hollywood/Beverly Hills Tour at Amazing LA Tours. We were picked up right in front our our hotel at 1:30, were able to check off many of the top sites in LA and get oriented, and were dropped off back at our hotel before 5:00. Our tour guide was terrific (sadly I don't remember his name), and it was a fun and relaxing way to see the city. We saw the Hollywood sign, had a half hour to explore Hollywood Blvd (Grauman's Chinese Theater and the Walk of Fame), did a drive through West Hollywood and then through Beverly Hills. We also had a stop at Rodeo Drive, but other than the awesome brownies we picked up there, that was really boring! The highlight was seeing the handprints and footprints at Grauman's Theater - that was inspiring and fun to explore. Don't miss it! Highlights from our tour:

Our main activities in Santa Monica were shopping and dining - there is plenty of both! We were just 2 blocks from the Third Street Promenade, a pedestrian-only outdoor shopping area - heaven for a 14-year old girl. We had a couple of really great meals there, and Annika really enjoyed all the shopping options.

The next morning we had reservations at IFly Hollywood, for "indoor skydiving." Wow! What an experience! It is an indoor vertical wind tunnel that mimics the experience of skydiving without actually having to jump out of a plane. It is actually much more challenging than it looks, and somewhat athletic (our shoulders ached for the next day or two). After 2 sessions we got the hang of it, and boy what a rush! Totally worth doing!

IFly is located at Universal Studios CityWalk, so we decided to head into Universal Studios for a couple of hours. This was the only real disappointment of our trip. We really enjoyed the brand-new Transformers ride (totally amazing!), but other than that the park was not that interesting. There is a huge difference between Universal rides and what we experienced at Disneyland later in the week - they just didn't seem to work that hard to engage the rider in what was happening. Both Jurassic Park and the Mummy ride just sort of petered out at the end. I would have enjoyed doing the studio tour (and maybe that would have changed our feeling about the park), but Annika was not into it and we still wanted to do more shopping and see the Santa Monica pier. So we left after a few hours and headed back.

A quick note about driving in the LA area. I was actually somewhat nervous about tackling the freeways out there, and dealing with the traffic and drivers. But once I got a bit oriented (the tour the first day was very helpful for that, and I spent some time studying maps), it was actually pretty easy to get around. And we were VERY lucky with traffic. On a few occasions we saw a huge traffic jam going the other way on the freeway, but we never got stuck in one ourselves.

Anyway, we headed back to Santa Monica and spent some time on the beach and the pier. It was too cold for swimming - they aren't kidding when natives talk about June Gloom in Southern California!

Then more shopping, and the best meal we had in Santa Monica, at The Border Grill. I've decided that Margaritas are definitely my drink! We soaked in the hot tub at the hotel for a bit, and then headed to bed, because in the morning we were going to Disneyland!

There were a number of things that I would have liked to have done that we didn't get to, in particular:

• visit the Getty Museum (we thought we might do that on our last day, but that didn't work out as you will see)
• see Venice Beach - we drove through that area and it looked really interesting
• drive up to Malibu

I always say that when you don't do everything that gives you a reason to go back, and we definitely feel that way about the LA area!

Next blog post: Disneyland and California Adventure!