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lake tahoe
Alright, I'm going to be going to California in a few weeks, and I wanted to know what's some things to go check out while I'm there. I'm going to San Diego, San Francisco, and LA areas. What's a MUST see while I'm there? What are some good inexpensive places to eat? Anything else that could be helpful.. thanks a bunch!
lake tahoe
Malibu and a long drive north up the PCH is just a great scenic route you will never forget.
Try to find and eat at Jerry's Deli there are a few locations throughout the LA area.
The Tut exhibit at the deYoung in Golden Gate Park is pretty impressive.
Once you get there, void CA people and you'll be fine
The Watts Towers is a must.
In San Diego the aircraft carrier and the air and space museum are both pretty amazing. The air and space museum has a big SR-71 in front, which is really cool (actually, it's a slight variation of an SR-71; an early bomber version with only one seat). They have some cool MiGs too, and lots of WWI and WWII era fighters. Having been there and having been to the Smithsonian Air & Space museum in DC, I like the one in San Diego much better. The fish market next to the aircraft carrier also has a great cioppino soup (tomato soup with crab, clams, mussels, shrimp, and fish in it).Alright, I'm going to be going to California in a few weeks, and I wanted to know what's some things to go check out while I'm there. I'm going to San Diego, San Francisco, and LA areas. What's a MUST see while I'm there? What are some good inexpensive places to eat? Anything else that could be helpful.. thanks a bunch!
In LA the Getty Villa is really cool if you're into art and sculptures. However, you have to make reservations to get in (it's free though, except for parking). The Getty Center is also an awesome museum (that also has free admission) with lots of great artifacts and paintings by artists like Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, and plenty of other incredibly famous names that I cannot remember off the top of my head.
If you're an outdoors type, Mt San Jacinto next to Palm Springs (90 mile drive from LA) is a really beautiful place to spend an afternoon. You take a tram up from about 2,500 feet to 8,500 feet, and can do an easy 7 mile hike to the summit from there. The hike is really peaceful and has great views once you get up to about 9500 feet. John Muir, the man who took Teddy Roosevelt on the famous hike through Yosemite National Park to convince Teddy to create the National Parks system called the view from the summit the most beautiful view he had ever seen, and I gotta agree that it's amazing. If you're really a hardass, you could do a BRUTAL 15 mile or so hike from 500 feet to the summit (about 10,800 or so) if you have the stamina of a marathon runner. The difference in temperature from the bottom to the area where the tram goes is about 35-40 degrees in the summer, so it's a great place to beat the heat. (Funny side note: my friend who worked for a Palm Springs TV station collapsed on live TV while lugging around his 70lb camera there, because of not being acclimated to the change in al ude while doing a story about how to beat the Palm Springs heat.)
Palm Springs is famous for its golf courses too, but no sane person could want to play in 110-120 degree heat there in the summer.
The best beach is Huntington Beach (aka, Surf City USA); enormous waves and tons of hot latinas. If you're looking for a place to take the wife to the best place to watch the sunset is on the top of the big rock at Zuma Beach. Great waves there too if you're into surfing or body-boarding, but also a really strong undertow. Same at Huntington also. However, Zuma Beach and the rest of Malibu has somewhat polluted seawater. Huntington has the cleanest water in the LA area. Redondo Beach is also very nice to go swimming in if you're not into the huge waves, and it has a really nice view of Rancho Palos Verdes to the south. Pacific water is COLD, but extremely refreshing to be in after about a minute of being cold as . BTW, if you go to the beach, do not go to Santa Monica beach (the one you always see in the beach shots on ABC when the Lakers are on). The restaurants there cost an arm and a leg, the water is polluted, and there are homeless people all over (the park on the cliffs above Santa Monica beach must seriously be the main congregation point for America's homeless).
If you like oysters the fish market at Redondo Beach has an incredible selection of the best oysters I have ever had (just don't go for the cheapest or the biggest ones; they usually suck). For sushi, Noshi Sushi in Koreatown is pretty cheap and has extremely fresh fish. For Mexican, El Tepeyac Cafe in East LA has great burritos and enchiladas, and for Cali/NW-Mexico style tacos, King Taco is badass (it's a chain all over East LA). Of course, if you want the best tacos, go across the border to Tijuana and buy them from the street vendors (down there the al-pastor is slow-cooked on a spit instead of cooked quick on a grill, and the difference in quality is night and day). Canter's is a great Jewish Deli with outstanding pastrami, corned beef, lox, good soups, lots of Jewish specialties, and the best pickles of any place on Earth I have ever been to (the bakery is trash though; don't get suckered in by how good it looks in the big display cases near the entrance). I don't know how good the other ones are, but the original Cheesecake Factory is in Beverly Hills and is outstanding (not cheap though). The shrimp scampi and the white-chocolate raspberry cheesecake are excellent, but come hungry if you go because the portions are huge (even the salads). For crab and lobster my favorite place is Santa Barbara S fish Company... about an hour - hour and a half drive up the 101 from LA into Santa Barbara. They have great mussels and clams too. Santa Barbara is beautiful though, so it might be worth a day trip, especially if you're into wine (there are a lot of really good wineries in Santa Barbara where you can do tastings).
If you have the time, the drive up the Angeles Crest highway from around Pasadena up to Mount Wilson is not to be missed. The area around the Mount Wilson observatory is really beautiful. Another place that's worth checking out to kill an hour or two is Griffith Park. A very short and very easy hike up to the top of Mount Hollywood (I think) gives you a really cool view. Look one way and you see all of LA from it. Turn around and you see the entire San Fernando Valley (equivalent to another huge city).
I can't give you much advice on San Francisco; never been.
Last edited by baseline bum; 06-27-2009 at 11:45 PM.
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS! and see Conan!
Well anything from SD to LA im an expert on, but I'll concentrate on Diego. Alright honestly right now the weather is awesome down here, I'd go to the beach. There's tons of great beaches-you want to head to more nortch county san diego for the best. Pacific Beach is bout 10/15 minutes north of downtown-is more of a 20-30 year old vibe, lots of bars/good places to eat/people walking on the boardwalk/stuff going on. Can have a good time there, but if looking for more of a relaxed vibe to just chill head up to Del Mar or La Jolla for some awesome beach locations. Del Mar's main beach has a sweet little park, good food, good vibe. Right now the Del Mar fair is going which is a big SD thing-but i believe it will be over by the time you are here-maybe not-if so your lucky cuz then the horse races start...IMO that's a MUST, experience one of the nicest race tracks looking over the ocean-having some brews-fun day!
You can do the Sea World thing or the San Diego Zoo...both are very popular tourist attractions-i haven't been to either for years but both have cool stuff....i'd prob recommend SD zoo out of the two-it's really cool. For night life you should hit up the GasLamp District which is a site to see every weekend-a huge night life area of like 10 blocks in downtown SD. What else, legoland, lmao. Coronado is a cool little island for a few hours, straight over a bridge from Downtown SD.
As you go up north you'll go through orange county-this has Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, the spectrum, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach....IDK just depends what your looking for. Im not even going to touch LA, but you should have a ton of fun things to do if you've never been to Cali.
San Diego zoo (all day) take the sky ride, Balboa Park.
San Diego Old Town in the evening.
San Diego Praesidio for good view of the Bay.
Hotel Del (Coronado)
Point Loma
catch a giants game at att park
San Francisco:
Fisherman's Wharf
Aquarium
Presidio
Alcatraz
Golden Gate Bridge
Sausalito
Many more things too I'm sure...
If you're into theme parks, Magic Mountain (north of LA in Valencia) is by far my favorite in the state. X, Tatsu, and Goliath (not to be confused with the POS @ Fiesta Texas bearing the same name) are 3 of the 5 best coasters I have ever been on (the other two are at Cedars Point in Sandusky, OH). Just don't go on a weekend because the lines are horrible then.
Also, I gotta strongly disagree on the San Diego zoo; it was extremely underwhelming when I went. The orangutan area was really cool, but the rest of it didn't seem a whole lot different from the San Antonio Zoo.
Can you expand a bit on that? I'll probably be up there in a couple of months for a few days. Any good day-hikes up in the area?
San Francisco is really cool, lots of things to visits. Also, Napa valley, if you are into wine tasting. And as far as my experience, people in San Francisco were amazingly friendly when I was visiting.
My 2 cents.
Gotta majorly agree on that. There's a famous viewing point on PCH north of Malibu that is pretty amazing.
This one, not so much. Jerry's Famous Deli has a good pastrami sandwich, but it's like $14 and not as good as the $10 one at Canter's. It's very overpriced for what you get, and everything besides the pastrami I have ever gotten at Jerry's was somewhat disappointing.Try to find and eat at Jerry's Deli there are a few locations throughout the LA area.
http://www.bahiker.com/sfhikes/sf.html
This link lists some hikes in SF. Check it out.
Speaking of the Napa Valley, the supposed best restaurant in the US, The French Laundry, is there. Too rich for my blood, but it's one of the extremely few restaurants not in Paris to get 3 Michelin stars.
Thanks.
Yeah, when I went there I was too poor to even think of going there. Not sure I can afford it now though
In LA, Getty Museum. We spent as much time waling the grounds as we did inside, both are fantastic.
Barcelona is coming over to L.A sometime in augost....I'm gonna go watch that .
Thanks for all the suggestions.
I wish I was going with ya ... there is someone in San Jose that I would love to visit.
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