My recent weekend trip to LA has been in the works since I met my beloved friend, Meredith, randomly in an Australian thrift store during last summer’s travels. So when I found cheap tickets to LA on Skyscanner, I jumped on the chance to visit an old friend and see a new city.
Full disclosure: I had low expectations. For all of its seductive glamour, I’ve always had the impression that LA was sweaty, shallow, and seriously lacking in efficient public transportation. But read on and you’ll find out why I’ve never been so happy to have been proven wrong.
Assumption #1: Traffic is awful.
As Meredith pulled out of the arrivals area of LAX, I prepared to be stuck in gridlock traffic for the remainder of my visit. But while her driving was just as…enthusiastic…as I’d heard LA driving was, the road congestion wasn’t. I’m sure that rush-hour, peak travel time, standstill traffic exists, but I was lucky enough to be with hosts who knew how to avoid it. And as bad as the infrastructure is rumored to be, once we made it to our destinations in Hollywood or downtown or wherever, walking got us to where we needed to be just fine. I’ll admit that while I cast the metro a curious passing glance, I never got around to trying it. But my hosts swear that traveling by car is the way to go (and you’d better have Waze).
Assumption #2: All the highlights are in Hollywood
True, it’s a kick to walk past the iconic sights of the Hollywood strip, but there’s loads of character elsewhere in the city. West Hollywood gives you a blast from the past with all of its vintage and thrift stores, while downtown LA is bursting with quiet confidence. From converted warehouses to subtle breweries to street art, there’s a lot of love poured into those streets–and countless gems for you to find.
Assumption # 3: It’s unbearably hot.
My hosts assured me that toasty weather is the norm, but I managed to bring some PNW cloud cover with me for the weekend. Though I briefly lamented the loss of prime tanning opportunity, I found the gray skies comforting. Not all hope was lost, though! In an effort to kill some time before she dropped me at LAX, a friend and I took a detour to the beach on my last day. The clouds parted and I got a taste of that mid-70s, golden sand, beach stuff of California dreams. (I also learned that you have to take care not to step on tar unless you want to spend half an hour trying to scrape it off.)
Which brings me to…
Assumption #4: The beaches are overcrowded
The overcast weather probably had something to do with it, but there was more than enough space as we walked the pier and beach in Oceanside. Two hours south of LA, there was plenty of opportunity to soak up some ocean vibes.
Assumption #4: Coffee snobbery is next level
I didn’t expect to be able to cross a cafe threshold without somebody quizzing me on bean variety, but that wasn’t the case at all.
LA cafes take their coffee seriously, there’s no doubt about it, but I was hard pressed to find a snob. Just one look at the gleaming espresso machines and smooth movements of the hipster baristas showed me that their true love was the art of coffee, not just its appearance.
And after tasting it..suffice it to say that the cafes I went to had every reason to be snobbish. But they were just…chill.
Assumption #5: Appearance is everything
Maybe my biggest source of LA dread was the idea that as soon as I made it into the city, I’d have to start combating an intense pressure to look perfect/cool/aloof/whatever. And I’m not going to lie: the hip and stylish are in abundance. But seeing it all had the opposite effect. It was inspiring, exciting, to see all of the unique ways people found to express themselves.
And then I went to church (Mosaic, to be exact).
I wondered if it’d be how I’d imagined the rest of Hollywood–over-polished and superficial. But instead I just found a place where I got to learn about a come-as-you-are God, and do it with people who just wanted to know him more (you can hear the sermon that rocked my world here). It was beautiful, it was uplifting, and it was genuine. The perfect cure for any LA skeptic.
As I floated above the clouds back to my northwest corner, I felt even more confident about the importance of travel. For all of the articles you read or interviews you see, you can’t start to know a place until you’re in it. And I meant what I first said about LA: I’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong.
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