---
node: dest_los_angeles
type: destination
slug: los_angeles
title: "Los Angeles"
lead: "Los Angeles is the sprawling capital of the American entertainment industry, a sunny Southern California city of beaches, hills and Hollywood. It spreads across a vast basin of neighbourhoods, from the ocean to the mountains."
published: 2026-08-10
updated: 2026-08-10
image_file: los_angeles.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hollywood_Sign.jpg"
image_author: "Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 3.0"
---

## Overview

Home to the film and music industries, Los Angeles is less a single downtown than a huge basin of districts and beach towns linked by freeways, under near-constant sunshine. Its fame rests on Hollywood and celebrity, but the city runs from the surf of the coast to canyon hills and a deeply diverse population and food scene. Warm and car-bound, it rewards those who pick a few neighbourhoods — the beaches, the hills, the museums — rather than trying to see it all.

## Highlights

Hollywood holds the Walk of Fame and the view of the Hollywood Sign, and the Getty and the museums of the Miracle Mile lead the art. The beaches of Santa Monica and Venice, with the pier and boardwalk, are the classic coast, and Griffith Observatory gives the view over the city. Theme parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios lie a short drive out.