Los Angeles Attractions

If one of the objects of your visit is get a feel for how the other half lives, then a drive through the palm tree lined streets of Beverly Hills is a must. Located off of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, about halfway between downtown Los Angeles and the beach, Beverly Hills lives up to its reputation, featuring a series of pristine mansions sitting on impeccably groomed lawns along broad avenues where graceful palm trees sway in the sunshine. Chances are you've seen these streets so many times on the big screen, as well as small screen shows like Beverly Hills 90210, that it will all feel quite familiar.

This 3.5 mile stretch of sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard is a wonderful way to take a stroll through entertainment history. Now bearing more than 2,000 stars honoring not just movie actors but radio, television and stage personalities as well as directors and singers, the Walk of Fame mixes up names sure to be lost on the younger members of the family (anyone heard of Gene Autry?) alongside more contemporary celebrities like Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. If you have good timing, your visit might coincide with a new star unveiling, which is a great way to see some real live stars, since those being honored are required to show up at the event.

Located on famed Hollywood Boulevard, the Hollywood Wax Museum is dedicated to icons of Hollywood. Maybe your kids won't run into their favorite movie stars during a trip to Los Angeles, but with a visit to the wax museum, they can come face to face with "The Pirates of the Caribbean's" Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, "The Wizard of Oz's" Dorothy (Judy Garland) and many more of their favorite TV and movie stars. The museum is open 10 a.m. to midnight 365 days a year.

For something a litter further off the beaten path but well worth the drive, Huntington Gardens just outside of Pasadena to the east of downtown L.A. features 120 acres of botanical gardens that are truly breathtaking. With a desert garden, a Japanese garden, an herb garden, a jungle garden a palm garden and a rose garden, the grounds here are a real celebration of nature in all its forms and offer a way to add some refinement to your trip. Founded in 1919 by businessman Henry E. Huntington, the gardens are actually part of a larger museum featuring works of art and rare books, but the gardens themselves are the highlight. Enjoy finger sandwiches and fresh fruit at the Rose Garden Tea Room.

Much more than just an art museum, the Getty Center is a place you can spend all day relaxing in a series of Roman gardens high on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, without ever looking at a painting. When the museum first opened in 1997 it drew crowds of out-of-towners seeking to view its extensive collection of painting, sculpture and photography. When I returned there during a recent visit to Los Angeles, I discovered it had become a place where locals (they're called Angelenos) would head for an afternoon of relaxation in an urban haven that is so civilized it hands out parasols for visitors to shade themselves as they wander through the gardens, including some made to replicate ancient Rome. The art collection here is impressive as well: large and diverse, spread around a series of open air buildings that make use of the natural setting rather than enclosing you behind four walls. Located just off the 405 freeway in West Los Angeles, the Getty is free to all visitors, though it does charge $8 for parking in a street level garage, from where you embark on a tram to take you on a scenic ride to the top of the hill. It sounds cumbersome, but the process of getting up the hill is remarkably efficient and very friendly to strollers and wheelchairs. Getty is open 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

While Universal Studios features man-made dinosaurs to simulate another era, La Brea Tar Pits really takes you back. This one-of-a-kind, unusually child-friendly museum located near downtown Los Angeles offers a rich collection of fossilized animals and plants that were trapped tens of thousands of years ago in pools of sticky tar that dot the region - everything from common berries to teeth from the famed sabertoothed tiger. Featuring a number of tours that touch on the evolution of various species, the Tar Pits museum can help you make your vacation a little bit educational. Open 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

Drive north from Santa Monica on Pacific Coast highway and a few miles up the road, you'll enter Malibu, a city where Hollywood celebrities mix easily with old hippies, and beachside trailer parks sit a short distance from movie stars' homes. An area where coastal hills end just a few hundred yards before the beach, Malibu is really just a thin strip of land, with spectacular scenery on all sides. Malibu is a good choice for a driving tour, since you can enjoy the beach and the mountain scenery without ever leaving your car. And if you do want to get out and stretch, there are several public beaches and beachside restaurants. I'd recommend Zuma Beach, 25 miles to the north of Santa Monica, where the waves crash up on massive rock boulders that over the years have been hollowed out and are fun to explore in low tide.

This amusement park features a Ferris wheel, a carousel, an aquarium, an arcade, souvenir shops and several restaurants, and is set right on the beach in Santa Monica. Walk to the far end that juts out over the Pacific Ocean and enjoy sweeping views in every direction, from the westerly horizon that offers spectacular sunsets, to the hills of Malibu to the north and Los Angeles itself to the east. The pier is a good place to enjoy a meal of fish and chips in the balmy coastal weather. It's also the site of many outdoor concerts. The hours of some of the pier's attractions like the carousel are restricted, but the pier itself is open 365 days a year and it is free, although you might have to pay to park your car in a nearby lot.

In L.A. you'll find some of the best street life on the beach, and this five-mile long path that extends from the northernmost tip of Santa Monica to the southernmost tip of Venice serves up a cross section of the city, from the remote beaches on one end to a spectacle of dancers and various performers, most of them scantily clad, in Venice. Originally designed for bicycles, the path has evolved over the years into a sort of packed freeway for everything from bikes, to roller blades, skate boards and kite boards. There are multiple places to rent skates or bikes right on the beach in Santa Monica and Venice, but families looking to the bike path for a relaxing outing should consider their timing carefully. The path gets packed on weekends, lending to traffic jams and occasional collisions, but tends to be more wide open on weekdays and evenings.

Universal Studios is a great way for kids to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the movie business. Start with a backlot tour, where you can visit a multitude of sets from Wisteria Lane of Desperate Housewives to the Norman Bates house from the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho. From there, head to Universal's theme park and enjoy movie-inspired rides like the Jurassic Park raft adventure where massive and very real-looking dinosaurs beckon from the shore. Families traveling with small children should know that while the park is open to visitors of all ages from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. except on major holidays, some of the rides have minimum height requirements of 40, or 48 inches. One part of Universal Studios that the whole family can definitely enjoy, however, is Universal City Walk, a promenade of stores, restaurants and movie theatres that's open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. on weekend nights. One day admission to Universal Studios is $64 for adults, $54 for children shorter than 48 inches and three for young children under three. Universal City Walk is free.

Most people think of Venice Beach when they think of Venice, California, but this city which sits just to the south of Santa Monica really was modeled after Venice Italy, and to this day features a grid of manmade canals that I always recommend visitors check out. You could say the canals are one of the best kept secrets of Los Angeles, for while plenty of locals know about them, they don't attract a lot of visitors. Still, they are easy enough to access, right in the heart of this small beachside town, and they offer a great window into the laid back lifestyle here, where homes are less manicured than those of Beverly Hills, but luxurious in a totally different way, opening out onto waterways that some people still navigate by canoe. The canals are all connected by a series of paths that run alongside them and bridges that cross over them. And because they don't attract many outside visitors, no one is bothered by the presence of an occasional tourist. So wander around a bit, take your time and enjoy!