My 48 Hours In Los Angeles

Last week I got to go to LA with my friend, Kyla but the catch was that I was on the ground for exactly 48 hours. What can you do in LA with so little time? As it turns out, a whole lot. We stayed in an area of LA called Culver City. It’s a great community driving distance to the beach, 15 minutes from the airport, has great restaurants and hot spots and has 2 major working studios. The main road in Culver is beautifully walkable and with the California weather, there’s no excuse not to park the car and put on flip flops to go exploring for my 48 hours in Los Angeles.

 

 

Wheels down at 1pm: A quick car ride to the hotel at mid day means very little traffic on the infamous 405 freeway. We were at the hotel in under 20 minutes.

Hotel Check-in at 2pm: The Culver Hotel is a historic landmark in the area dating back to 1924. It’s a beautiful boutique with 46 modern yet stylish rooms that was once owned by John Wayne and boasts past guests from the cast of Gone with the Wind and the Wizard of Oz. They have nightly live music in the main room, which also serves as the dining room for the daily complimentary continental breakfast.

 

 

Recruit friends at 3pm: Once word got out that we were hitting California, it took no time at all to enlist our friend Ashley of SmashleyAshley to drive up the coast to join the fun for a night. Even though we’d never met in person, it felt like we’d been friends for ever when she knocked on the hotel room door. Never pass up a chance to hang with friends in real life! Hugs can’t be sent in a text!

 

 

Finding food at 4pm: Really, with the time change it was 5pm and if I was at home, I’d be getting dinner ready for the kids so leaving the hotel at 5 in search of food that didn’t come in a small airplane packaging seemed like a great plan of action. No need for a car, we walked up Culver Blvd and checked out the menus of several different local eateries before selecting sushi at Sake House. The food was fast and cheap during happy hour and the company was nourishing and hilarious, I couldn’t get enough.

 

 

Road tripping at 6pm: What happens when 3 gals finish an early dinner and have nothing else to do? Jump in the car and go in search of dessert! Coming off a recommendation from a #DIRTpack Periscope viewer (thanks Peter) we drove around Venice beach to find a tiny little dessert place called, Sinners and Saints Desserts. The “sinners” side meaning full of decadence and the “saints” side meaning a selection of gluten free, vegan and even paleo friendly desserts. I had the flourless chocolate cake which was more on the brownie side of flourless rather than the fudge side and I prefer the later. Everything looked divine and even with my nut allergy the owner and baker assured me that it would be safe and thankfully, it was! Zero trips to emergency is a win all around!

Hotel laughter and much needed sleep!: 3 friends, 1 hotel room, nuff said.

Be a real tourist at 10:30am: After saying good-bye to Ashley, we decided we wanted to do a full on touristy thing in LA, the walking studio tour! Sony Studios is a short 10 minute walk from the Culver Hotel with multiple tours daily and at $40USD each, we figured it was cheaper than hitting a mall. #Truth The tour is 2 hours including a 12 minute video on the history of the studio. We got to see the RV used in the show Breaking Bad and the Ghostbuster station wagon as well as the working set of Jeopardy and the current show, The Goldbergs. All in all it was a pretty cool tour but if I had the choice between Sony or Universal, I would take Universal for sure!

 

 

Feet in sand 1pm: There was absolutely no way I was going to spend even a short 48 hours in California and NOT put my feet in the sand. Once my roomie left for the airport for her crack of dawn flight and I got up from my lazy sleep in, I put on my big girl pants and made my way to the beach, alone. The hotel staff were more than helpful in directing me to the most direct and cheapest way to Venice beach, of course, public transit at $1.50 each way, won. Catching the bus one block off Culver Blvd on Venice Blvd was fast and entertaining. I must have looked like a safe tourist because a stranger immediately started asking me dating advice for the next 15 blocks! Venice beach is everything you’ve seen on TV and heard about from movies. It’s vibrant, busy, colourful and full of interesting people. I sat on the sand and watched some surfers, I walked the boardwalk and checked out some of the shops, I even saw the legendary “Muscle Beach” outdoor gym. Given how early in the day I was walking around, I felt safe being there alone, despite the warnings about the area after dark.

 

 

Good-bye LA: 48 hours isn’t nearly enough to take everything in but considering the time restriction and the great area we were in, I’d say we did pretty darn good at filling the time and seeing as much as we could. The mid day, $30USD cab ride back to the airport was slightly painful but I didn’t have the time to seek out a cheaper shuttle or bus because the beach was calling! Culver City is a wonderful and friendly community nestled between the beach and down town and only blocks away from Hollywood. I would love to go back and explore the outdoor market and some more of those restaurant patios the next time I find myself with 48 hours in Los Angeles.

 

 

I (heart) LA!