Being a Tourist in Los Angeles

Become a paid member to listen to this article

When I travel, I spend about 70% of the time travelling with a small group of friends and another 20% of the time travelling alone. The last 10% is a mixture of travelling in large groups (sometimes 30+ people), travelling with colleagues for work, and sometimes even travelling with classmates for school. But of all the travel partners possible, it’s been a long time since I’ve travelled with my parents.

On January 1st of this year, I found myself doing exactly just that – going to Los Angeles with my mother for a 5-day vacation. For the entire week, we followed a very loose schedule, visited typical touristy sights, slept late and woke up even later. It was the first time in about 2 years that I went on a relaxing vacation instead of some sort of cultural excursion or outdoor adventure. Having gotten used to exhaustingly long days of travelling, I initially thought I’d be pretty bored just lounging around, but the trip actually reminded me of how nice it is to be a tourist sometimes and forget about chasing sunsets and getting that perfect shot.

We began our first day in LA at Griffith Observatory, with a perfect view of downtown LA and the Hollywood sign. Then, we did just about what everybody does when visiting LA – we toured Universal Studios in Hollywood. The rest of the day was spent looking at all the names on the Walk of Fame, watching the Muppets in a theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, and driving back to the hotel through the last bit of sunlight on Sunset Boulevard.

As far as interesting places go, LA does not have the same cultural appeal for me as Europe or Asia; and as far as traveling goes, I haven’t had a trip as slow as this one for a long time. But I can’t complain. After all, I got to spend quality time traveling with my mother, something I haven’t done in years, and I got to kick off the new year doing what I love to do – discovering new places.