Miami to Los Angeles

[dj toast]

I'm certain that's true; LA has a helluva reputation. I just felt (dare I say this on a forum about road trips!?) that I was caught between feeling I needed to rely on the car because of LA's gargantuan size, and finding that driving it in LA's frantic traffic took too much of my attention away from experiencing much of what was around me.

By contrast, the previous week in (the physically smaller) San Francisco, walking everywhere or taking the cable cars—with someone else "driving" them—seemed to serve up a better means of taking in the sights, sounds, smells…

I guess it's just a question of understanding the city a little better; after all my years in London I shouldn't have been so phased by a big city but I kinda developed tunnel vision and spent too much time staring at the fender in front of me, worrying that I was wasting my lamentably short time there.

[W. Larrison]

Oh yeah.. as an LA-are native, the problem with "LA" compared to a lot of other cities is how geographically large it is. The challenge for visitors is to handle the scale of a dispersed city that is 2 hours drive from side to side.

Having said that, its doable -- very much so with a car, but much harder if you stick to public transporation. The issue with public transportation is that while LA has the largest bus system in the world, and a growing light rail system, the rail system is limited in its lines, and the buses take forever to go across town (all day in some cases, it seems).

The best option I've seen was for visitors to relocate *within* the city to visit different things. For example, a few days in OC in Newport Beach/ Anaheim /Huntington Beach area to visit Disneyland, Knotts, Newport Beach/ OC Riveria/ Laguna artists community, with possible side trips to Long Beach Aquarium/ Queen Mary/ Catalina Island. Then relocate to Downtown LA/Hollywood for Olvera Street, Hollywood, Hollywood Bowl, Universal Studios Tour, Pasadena, Mt Wilson, and then to Palm SPrings for the desert, and then up to Santa Barbara/ Ventura to visit the Channel Islands and etc.

In some ways I'm always amazed to see how closely packed other cities are. LA grew up at something like 55 different cities which have since come together like a quilt. But in Los Angeles the City Hall isn't the city hall for "LA", its just a landmark for 80% of the people...

[Mark Sedenquist]

In some ways I'm always amazed to see how closely packed other cities are. LA grew up at something like 55 different cities which have since come together like a quilt.

I like the metaphor of LA as a quilt -- it certainly fits!

Mark

[Milla]

Thanks for everyone who has reply my question. I´m glad that we have time to think about the route and the time to do this trip. Still waiting for my map to come :-(
Now I´m waiting my Turkey trip and spend the summer in our summercottage. We can go deeper in our plannings after summer :-)

I´ll be back! Still gonna hang around here and continue dreaming!