How to Spend 2 Great Days in Los Angeles
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I know it’s been over 3 weeks since we got back from this trip, but I have set a personal goal of posting travel blogs from one trip before the next one takes place. We’re going to Michigan this weekend, so I’m getting this one in just under the wire. Better late than never.
As part of Memorial Day weekend, we spent 2 days in Los Angeles after our stay on Catalina Island. I want to preface this blog by saying that I grew up coming to LA every summer for most of my childhood, so I’ve been to several of the main tourist spots before (ex. Santa Monica pier, Disneyland, etc). Thomas grew up in San Diego but somehow never did any touristy things in LA, so this trip was about striking a balance between the two of our experiences and finding things we’d both find enjoyable.
Day 1
Day 1 was really the day we came back from Catalina in the evening. We picked up our rental car from the parking garage at the Long Beach ferry and drove up to Glendale, where we were staying, and picked up dinner from Din Tai Fung at the Americana Mall to eat in our hotel room.
Embassy Suites Glendale
Every time we came to LA growing up, we’d stay at the Embassy Suites in Pasadena near my grandpa’s house, so something about staying at an Embassy Suites in LA was nostalgic for me. What I learned on this trip is that the quality can vary a lot from one Embassy Suites to another. Prior to going to Catalina, we stayed at the Embassy Suites Los Angeles Airport North and not only did the room they originally gave us look like a frat party had just been held there, but they also had a very sparse continental breakfast with sub-par choices. However, the one in Glendale had a full made-to-order omelet station and a huge selection of pastries, fruit, etc. that more than made up for our bad experience at the other location.
Din Tai Fung
I know I talked about Din Tai Fung a lot in my Las Vegas blog post (including a breakdown of everything I recommend ordering), but I never pass up an excuse to eat there when I’m near one. We weren’t able to secure reservations at the Glendale location and the wait was well over an hour when we arrived (+ I was getting hangry), so we ordered takeout and at it in our hotel room. The food isn’t AS amazing to-go but personally better than no Din Tai Fung at all.
Day 2
We woke up early and had breakfast in the hotel before driving over to the Griffith Observatory.
Hollywood Hills Hike
I was really concerned that the parking lot would be totally full at the Griffith Observatory and that we’d have to walk a long way, but it was still fairly empty when we arrived after 8AM. Parking was $10/hour.
You can see the Hollywood sign from the parking lot of the observatory but we did a roughly 3-mile hike to get closer that led to some amazing views of the city. I am not a hiker, but if you are, there is a longer 8.8-mile hike all the way to the Hollywood Sign. Even on a holiday weekend, the trail wasn’t crowded and the hike wasn’t very strenuous.
Griffith Observatory
We got back to the parking lot just after the Griffith Observatory had opened for the day and we went inside and explored for about an hour. Admission is free, but as of now you have to show your Covid vaccination card & ID to enter and you have to wear a mask while inside. There are also paid shows in the planetarium, but we were a little short on time so we just explored the free part of the museum. There are also exterior balconies at the observatory with more amazing views.
I’d been to the Griffith Observatory before, but it had been a long time and I enjoyed it just as much as I had the first time.
After the hike and observatory, we didn’t have a lot of time to shower & change so we just stopped for Jamba Juice smoothies and Starbucks egg bites to hold us over until our next activity.
Warner Bros. Studio Plus Tour
While I’ve been on an unofficial Warner Bros. tour before from a family friend who works there, this was my first time doing the official tour. We sprung for the “plus” version not really knowing what that would mean. Turns out it came with snacks/drinks at the beginning of the tour and a meal at the Friends café at the end. We were also in a smaller group and I am pretty sure we got to see things the normal tour doesn’t, like the prop house.
Thomas and I both love Friends (and TV in general), so we both had a lot of fun and enjoyed learning about what goes into the creation of all these shows. The original Friends fountain is also on the lot (it was moved there from its original location) along with many other iconic props, costumes, etc. from popular TV shows and movies. Friends, Big Bang Theory, and Harry Potter are most heavily featured throughout Warner Bros. galleries and gift shops.
Marmalade Cafe
For dinner we headed to the Grove and Original Farmer’s Market and walked around before eating at Marmalade Café. I had a grilled artichoke as an appetizer and it was the best part of the meal. Having had food at the Friends café, neither Thomas or I was starving so we decided to split a chicken dish for our entrée and it was fine, but nothing to write home about. Honestly, I don’t see a reason to come back here. You only get so many meals on vacation – don’t bother with this one.
While we were walking around the Grove we did come across an Apple TV+ pop up promotion that was giving out free food, including the iconic biscuits from Ted Lasso.
Milk Bar
After dinner, we wanted to wait for the sun to set before going to Urban Lights, so we stopped by Milk Bar and got a Compost Cookie and Milk Bar Pie slice for dessert (see my Vegas blog where I go into detail about Milk Bar). While the cookie was good, the pie was so delicious I wish we had just gotten 2 of those instead.
Urban Lights
At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA for short), there is an outdoor art installation called Urban Lights that is a ton of restored street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s organized into neat rows. It’s very Instagrammable and thus no surprise that there were tons of people milling around taking pictures – someone was even having a professional quinceanera portraits taken while we were there.
I thought Urban Lights was fun and worth going to, but Thomas – who doesn’t care for art or “Instagrammable spots” didn’t love it and couldn’t wait to leave. To each their own.
Day 3
Eggslut
If you aren’t catching onto the theme at this point, if I love a restaurant that doesn’t exist near me, I will absolutely seek it out next time I’m near a location, thus all the overlapping food choices from Vegas. We skipped the Embassy Suites breakfast and went to Egglslut, which is across the street from the Americana Mall and Din Tai Fung, and ordered exactly what we had in Vegas – it was just as amazing here!
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Personally, the biggest draw of going to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is that they have a full Air Force One plane and Marine One helicopter in the hanger that you can walk through. I also love American history, so going to presidential libraries is always interesting to me, regardless of political affiliation.
We purchased the audio tour, which I preferred over having to read every plaque in the museum. However, both Thomas and I thought there were a few too many stops on the audio tour, so we ended up quickly going through the last few rooms after seeing Air Force One.
It’s important to note that the library is outside of Los Angeles in Simi Valley (~45 min drive from Glendale for us), so depending on how much time you have on your trip, your priorities, and LA traffic, it may not be worth it to drive all the way out there.
Cava
If you live near a Cava location, just know that I deeply envy you. I first ate there on a trip to Austin in early May and have since become obsessed. If one opens in Chicago, my bank account is screwed. We stopped by one on the way from the library to the Academy Museum.
If you’ve never heard of Cava, think of if Chipotle & Sweetgreen had a baby in the Mediterranean. That’s Cava. It’s fresh, it’s healthy, and pretty expensive for takeout. I personally order a bowl with ½ Right Rice, ½ romaine lettuce, 2 scoops tzatziki sauce, 1 scoop hummus, ½ lamb and ½ chicken, roasted vegetables (which cost extra), pita chips, corn, avocado (also extra), and a slice of pita bread on the side. It’s definitely a lot of food and can easily be 2 meals.
The Academy Museum
The Academy Museum is a fairly new museum, having opened on September 30, 2021. We had seen a TV special where Tom Hanks and other stars led a virtual tour through the museum, but it was still really fun to see in person. Like the Griffith Observatory, vaccine cards & IDs were required to enter and you had to wear masks while inside.
You could easily spend 3-4 hours in the Academy Museum, but we had a flight to catch so we did it in ~2 hours, pausing at rooms that really interested us (like the Wizard of Oz room or a 30-minute video about the layers of sound engineering that went into Raiders of the Lost Ark) and quickly going through others. When we were there, there was almost an entire floor dedicated to the work of Hayao Miyazaki and it was clear that tons of museum goers were there just to see that. If you’re a Miyazaki fan, unfortunately that exhibit closed the next week after we visited.
Note: The Academy Museum’s parking is valet only – make sure to get it validated in the museum for a lower rate.
Food at LAX Terminal 1
I just wanted to take a moment to shoutout the dining options in Terminal 1 at LAX because they were phenomenal. Thomas wanted pizza and a beer, so he ate at California Pizza Kitchen while I had an amazing (and massive) acai bowl from Qwench Juice Bar + Chick Fil A nuggets.
We packed a lot into 2 days but really enjoyed everything we did. Los Angeles is massive and it will always be impossible to do anything on any given trip, so you just have to pick and choose your favorites.
Top Tips/Other Things to Do:
- Los Angeles is massive and you really need a car to get around (unless you want to spend insane amounts on Ubers). We always rent cars via Turo, which is like AirBnB for cars. We’ve always found it to be cheaper than traditional rental cars + you can pick up a car at any time of day, rather than being at the mercy of rental car company hours.
- Definitely just keep your vaccine card, ID, and a spare mask on you at all times, as the Covid protocols varied from place to place.
- There are really endless things to do in LA so it would be impossible to list everything else you can do, but here are a few major highlights: Disneyland, Universal Studios, Santa Monica Pier, Hollywood Walk of Fame, TCL Chinese Theatre, Echo Park, The Getty Center, La Brea Tar Pits, California Science Center.
- *I’ve personally been to all of these except Universal.
Where to next?!
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