I lived in Santa Monica and worked in Downtown Los Angeles for 3 months and started to like Los Angeles County and the surrounding areas a lot!

There are so many things to see and to do – my time there wasn´t quite enough to experience it all.

But I was able to enjoy some highlights, that I wanted to share with you. You should really not miss out on these things, when you are travelling to Los Angeles 🙂

Go to the beaches and relax!

• There are of course several beaches on the ocean side of Los Angeles county. I love the Santa Monica Beach & Venice Beach. They are both very, very wide and covered with light sand. They are absoultely incomparable to the beaches I have seen in Europe 😉 Europe beaches look more like the beaches in Malibu. So when everybody kept telling me to head to Malibu, because of the pretty beaches, I was kind of “disappointed”, because I just expected more of these wide beaches 😉

Beach time 😉

Drive up north to Malibu.

• They have so many nice restaurants and the beaches are beautiful (yet a bit more european as I sad).  Secret beach advise: “Pirates cove Beach”. You can access this beach only by climbing over some rocks from Zuma Beach. There are not many people and you can enjoy the view a lot better than on a crowded beach.

Pirates Cove Beach

I also enjoyed Malibu Farm a lot – it´s a nice restaurant located on the Malibu Pier and serves great Sangria 🙂 You can watch the surfers on the beach and enjoy the sunset.

Malibu Farm

Try to get an accomodation in Santa Monica.

• Santa Monica is my favourite part of Los Angeles County! The people living there are laid back and really friendly. The beach lifestyle is certainly doing a big part in the attitude of the people living here – it´s soooo refreshing in comparison to the city life 😉 Above this, Santa Monica offers great restaurants and a big shopping street and you can watch a beautiful sunset down at the Pier – you just have to love this city!
  • If you travel to Santa Monica in the summer months check out the Twilight concerts – you could sit on the beach, take a blanket and something to eat and enjoy a free concert 🙂

Santa Monica Pier

Take a surf lesson!

• Nothing better to experience the California lifestyle than taking a surf lesson. It´s soooo much fun… I enjoyed it so very much, that I rented a surf board a few days after the course and went out there on my own because I just couldn´t get enough of it 🙂 I could honestly do this every single day!

Surfing in Santa Monica

Hike up to the Griffith Observatory!

• You will have the best view over Los Angeles and will be surprised on how calm and green it is so close to the city.

Visit “The Broad”!

• This is such a cool museum. And it is for free! You just have to make an online reservation (is sometimes booked out 1 months prior to the actual date – so look it up fast!). You can easily walk through the museum in 1 or 2 hours. There are some paintings, sculptures and some light installations. What brings me to the best part of this museum: The Infinity Room! AWESOME! So cool! You will need to line up again after getting inside the museum. There will be a tablet to “line up” – you will receive a text before your number is up – and then it´s your turn 😉 You will be in the Infinity Room for exactly 30 seconds – and it will leave you speechless!

The Broad – Infinity Room

Watch a college football game!

• I love football and I always wanted to experience the mood in a college football game – so this was just perfect for me! It is so much fun & they have so many good food trucks outside 🙂

USC Trojans Game

Enjoy the sunset at Venice Beach.

• This is my favourite spot for the sunset in Los Angeles county. Venice Beach offers some palms – and there is no more beautiful way to capture a sunset than than one with palms in the picture in my opinion…

Sunset at Venice Beach

Venice is also worth visiting in the daytime 😉

• Not evertyhing is about the muscle beach down there. There a a lot of souvenir shops located next to the beach and the canals are just beautiful. There you can see, where Venice got the name from 😉

Venice

Feel like a little child again at Disneyland in Anaheim!

• I went alone & still enjoyed it so very much 🙂 There are always people that will help you to take a picture – and just so that you know: I was far away of being the only adult lining up to take a picture with the disney characters 😉 One lady infront of me was nearly having a mental breakdown when she finally said hello to Minnie & Mickey Mouse – it was so cute to watch this moment! It´s a really special place and so much fun.

• After my trip to Disneyland my Dad surprised me with this comparison – I visited Disneyland 20 years prior to this trip together with my parents 🙂

If you are a Harry Potter fan you NEED to visit Universal Studios of Hollywood! 🙂

• They have huge Wizzarding World over there – and it´s like a dream come true, if you are a true fan! One tip: When you enter the Universal Studios go to the Studio Tour first – otherwise the line might just be very, very long.

Go whale watching!

• If it´s the time of the year to see them you should hop on a boat and try to see some whales. It´s an incredible feeling. I have been doing whale watching 3 times so far and have seen whales on 2 of the cruises. So the chances to see them, are good in my experience 🙂

Visit a brewery in Downtown Los Angeles

There are so many cool brewery´s in Downtown Los Angeles – especially in the Art District. If you like to drink good beer you should definetely check it out!