Winter adventure: Los Angeles prelude

A little bit of background

We live in the southern hemisphere where it never snows and Christmas is hot and humid, like it is for a good portion of the year. I'd had a long-held dream to have a proper winter experience, complete with heavy snow and a white Christmas. I’d always wanted to visit Chicago as the lake and the city architecture fascinated me, and, like a lot of travellers, NYC was on my bucket list.

This post is the first in a series of four that documents our 2016 winter adventure. I am writing this post in 2024, but I still have very clear memories of the trip, partly because of our winter snow experience in Chicago and the iconic places we visited in NYC (and on a day trip to Washington DC).

My winter adventure companions were my husband and our daughter who was aged 16 at the time. I’ll refer to them as W (husband) and E (daughter) or collectively as WE throughout this post series.

LA warm up to proper winter

Our winter adventure began with a warm up to the main event in the form of a full day stopover in LA. We left Brisbane at 11.30am on Sunday December 18, flying with Virgin Australia to LAX, arriving at 6.30am the same day. The opportunity for the LA stopover was really just about flight schedules, but it was a nice bonus, even just to break the journey. Our flight to Chicago was due to depart at 11pm that evening so we opted to hire a car to make the most of our time.

This was our fourth visit to LA but E’s first. I've written in previous posts that LA isn't really my kind of place, and multiple visits haven't changed my impression. That said, we had a fab day!

I've summed up my LA experience at the end of the post and given my reflections on what it meant to me. There are travel tips peppered throughout the post and some additional things to note at the end.

Sunday morning Santa Monica pier

Even though W and I had been to Santa Monica Pier before (during our 2008 stopover on the way home from Orlando) we headed down there again, hoping to also see a bit of Malibu. Our first visit to the Pier had been on a busy Saturday evening, so it was lovely to walk around sans people. As our photos show, the light at that time of the morning was stunning.

My previous visits to LA had been in summer. Our experience of December in LA was a cool and crisp start to the day with stunning warm weather as the day wore on. As mentioned, the pier was quiet early on Sunday morning and we had a lovely time wandering around in the beautiful sunshine.

Sure, it's a bit kitsch at the pier, but there is some history to the place. The pier first opened in 1909. Its carousel was built in 1922. The pier is an iconic part of the LA landscape and if you Google filming locations at the pier, you'll find a long list of film and television appearances, dating right back to the 1930s.

The beach was also quiet and again, looked stunning in the early morning sunlight. The little bit you can see in my photos is part of a 5.6km stretch of beach along the Pacific Coast Highway that is dotted with parks and picnic areas. It's super flat near the pier, as you can see in my photos, and there's a significant expanse of sand, with boardwalks in places. Nice!

Thinking back to that morning, I know we attempted a drive north along the Malibu coast, hoping to see something of the famous beaches and fancy homes that feature in films and television shows set in LA. We were somewhat disappointed by our jaunt, but perhaps we weren’t looking in the right places. We gave up after a bit and headed to the Hollywood sign, our main activity for the day.

Iconic experience: The Hollywood sign

I'd seen the Hollywood sign from a distance previously, but had always wanted to walk up to it. Having been to LA three times previously and having done a lot of the "main attractions", I thought it would be a cool thing to do. The view of the front of the Sign as you walk up to it is much better than from highway sightings or from Hollywood Boulevard.

 I took this photo from Hollywood Boulevard during our 2012 LA wanderings.

There are three hiking trails to the Sign but we began our trek at the Griffith Park Observatory, parking on the road nearby. Having a car makes the LA experience a lot simpler (despite the traffic!) as the city is not designed for walking or taking public transport easily. That said, W is an expert driver and can handle the right-side of the road!

Travel tip: You can't touch the Sign itself and the up-close view is from above and behind the Sign. It's easy enough to walk up on your own, but there are some guided walks and horse rides up there. Public bus is also an option to get to the trailheads.

The views of LA as we made our way up to the Sign were spectacular. We were lucky to have a smog-free-ish day, so visibility was good. As noted above, the winter weather felt much like it does in our part of Australia – cool in the morning but beautifully warm during the day.

My research tells me that the round trip is around 10km and a 335-metre climb to 520 metres elevation. You need a few hours to make it to the top and back, depending on your walking speed. I would describe the hike as moderately challenging, as feels like quite a distance although not too steep other than the bit of climbing at the end. It's easy enough to follow the paths.

The hike cuts a path around and above the Sign. It's still super cool to be able to be to get close to such an iconic structure, despite not being able to touch it (without breaking the law, that is).

I imagine the hike is quite difficult in summer as the trail is quite dusty and exposed. It might be different now, but when we went there in 2016, there was only a small store between the Observatory and the start of the hike.

Travel tip: Make sure you have plenty of water for the hike and take food with you if you think you’ll need something to eat. We got caught out without snacks and we were so hungry by the time we made it back to the car!

Braving the pre-Christmas crowds

We drove straight to the Orange Outlet Mall after the hike, where I’d been shopping with our son during our 2012 stay in LA. This being the weekend before Christmas, the Mall was completely mad, with police officers managing the traffic in the car park. I’m surprised we even found a park! We fuelled up at the Subway (disappointing as it was, with the lack of salad options compared with home) and hit the sales. I remember that we bought some good stuff as back then, the AU dollar fared well against the US, and there were stores in the States that we didn’t yet have in Australia.

There wasn’t much left of the day after our shopping trip, so we headed back to LAX and dropped the hire car back. We had a long wait for our 11pm flight to Chicago but we were all in much need of some chill time.

Reflections on my LA experience

Our LA stopover was the first leg of our 2016 winter adventure. The trip had a special meaning for me as I had been through a major ordeal that year that resulted in permanent hearing loss in my right ear. I have posted my reflections on what the trip overall meant to me at the end of my NYC post, but here are some thoughts on the LA part of the trip.

How I feel about LA after four visits

Hiking up to the Hollywood Sign was a bucket list experience ticked off. Santa Monica Pier in the early morning winter light was gorgeous. My fourth visit to LA, however, did not change my perspective on the city. WE agree that there’s something about the vibe that doesn’t gel with us, even there are a lot of fun things to do there. The nice places are nice, but the rest of it is kind of…well…not nice (quite dirty, actually). For all the glamour, LA isn't very glamorous, and there's a sense of decay and poverty that seems at odds with the entertainment industry schtick. There’s not really much interesting architecture although the palm trees and Spanish-style houses are pretty. The city is a huge sprawl that is hard to navigate without a car, and the traffic is terrible. There's no central city area as such, so the whole place feels quite disconnected. I feel like LA is more for the iconic experiences than the place itself.

Right-o, enough about LA! Next stop on our winter adventure...Chicago!

If do you want to read more about my past LA adventures, try my post on our very first trip there in 1996, our stopover in 2008, and our LA downtime after a Colorado baseball tournament in 2012.