1. Burbank
   LAX
2. Long Beach Airport
   San Bernadino International Airport

LAX is the major airport in Los Angeles, situated a little to the south of Marina del Rey. It's the most significant transit hub in California, but like many airports, it is far from a happy place to spend much time. Still, you can get just about anywhere if you start there!

1. A cartel raised bread prices too high.
   The weather was rainy for a straight month.
2. The Oscar went to the wrong movie.
   Police beat a man.

LA resident Rodney King was pulled over by police in 1992 and beaten very badly for 15 solid minutes. He was a black man, and the officers involved were white. Unusually for the time, the incident was caught on video, and some officers watched and commented while others participated. King ended up with permanent brain damage, as well as suffering many broken bones and other injuries. This was upsetting to many in the community, understandably, and things came to a head when the officers most responsible were acquitted. Riots resulted, that spread like wildfire across the city.

1. Lakers
   Rams
2. Surfers
   Clippers

The Clippers and Lakers play basketball, and the Rams play football. There are, however, no Surfers. Los Angeles' sporting teams enjoy the benefit of a very large local market, meaning that they are well-funded and mostly do fairly well.

1. New York
   Miami
2. Seattle
   Topeka

Baseball teams often move around quite a lot, and sometimes rebrand themselves, which is how you get names like "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim". The Dodgers were a Brooklyn team originally, but moved to their current Los Angeles location in 1958. This means that NYC transplants to LA often adopt them as their new "home" team.

1. Runyon Canyon
   Griffith Park
2. Franklin Canyon
   Topanga Canyon

Griffith Observatory is home to the Samuel Oschin Planetarium, and in the middle of Griffith Park. Those who are hale and hearty may enjoy the pleasant hike to the observatory from the base of the hill, though others may prefer to drive there from the other side. You can also hike to just above Hollywood sign, though the sign itself is fenced off.

1. The Kodak Theatre
   Vine Street
2. Van Nuys
   Walk of Fame

Ten million people a year come to see the Walk of Fame, which stretches along a large portion of Hollywood Boulevard just outside the Kodak Theater where the Oscars are held. Some of the names honor stars who are no longer with us, but others are for newer stars. There has been some controversy about who gets a star and how they are maintained, and stars that belong to celebrities who have fallen out of public favor are often vandalized!

1. Soccer
   Baseball
2. Basketball
   Hocket

Soccer continues to grow in the United States, and LA Galaxy is one of its leading teams. Superstar Manchester United and Real Madrid player David Beckham even went there his stint in Spain! It was the final stop in his storied career, and he liked it so much that he is now president of a Miami soccer team.

1. Bel Air
   Reseda
2. Pasadena
   Chinatown

Bel Air is just as nice as Beverly Hills, but not as famous. It's a highly affluent neighborhood for more discreet souls who want to be more invisible to the hoi polloi, as much of it is found down twisting and narrow canyons. It's a good place to spot a celebrity who really wasn't expecting to be spotted.

1. ArcLight
   TCL (formerly Grauman's) Chinese Theatre
2. Vista Theatre
   Pacific Cinerama Dome

This movie theater opened in 1927 at 6925 Hollywood Blvd, and was originally called Grauman's Chinese. It is now called TCL Chinese, but locals still know it by the original name. Outside the theater, you can see indentations where celebrities' handprints are immortalized in wet cement.

1. Hollywood Pantages
   El Capitan
2. Fred Kavli Theatre
   Center Theater Group

Hollywood Pantages is the big daddy here, at a massive 2,700! Fred Kavli comes in next, at 1,800, while the Disney-owned El Capitan clocks in at 1,100, while Center Theatre Group's largest auditorium is a comparatively tame 317. All in, Los Angeles is home to plenty of Broadway-sized shows and some of the highest-quality theater in the world.

1. "Hello! I'm a sign!"
   Hollywoodland
2. Griffithland
   Hwood

Hollywoodland was a development of new homes, and the sign was put up in 1923 to tell people that this was a magical and desirable place to live. The film industry had kicked off just a few years earlier. The sign fell into disuse in the 1960s, but was revamped in the '70s and remains one of the city's leading tourist attractions.

1. Slippery roads
   Puddles
2. Flooding
   It's very slightly colder than 62F, thus dangerous.

LA rain comes in downpours, so it lurches from none at all to plenty, all at once! When one such downpour comes after the dry season, some of the water tends to sit on the roads for a while before draining off. It creates a slippery oil-and-water mix on the roads that is like driving on ice. This is the time to watch out for skidding cars, and be careful!

1. Century City
   Santa Monica
2. Burbank
   Echo Park

The studio lots aren't just where they make movies. They are also tourist attractions where you can take a tour and see where your favorite TV shows and movies are made. You also sometimes see all sorts of celebrities heading to and from meetings or even their own offices!

1. Hammer Museum
   The Broad
2. The Getty
   Skirball Cultural Center

The Getty Museum is a beautiful campus that shows what can be done with concrete when a truly world-class imagination is unleashed. Everything about it is peaceful and pleasant, and even though it overlooks a freeway, you can barely hear it thanks to clever design and plenty of delightful bubbling fountains. It even has a rather marvelous art collection inside!

1. Skid Row
   Studio City
2. Malibu
   Pacific Palisades

The name of "Skid Row" comes from logging, where greased skids were used to help transport logs. LA's Skid Row is estimated to contain an amazing 3% of the country's entire homeless population! It was created by a combination of high rents, plus aggressive police policies including a version of "broken windows" theory, as well as simply being a product of Southern California's weather. It's also partly that LA is somewhere many people simply pass through and then have no nearby family to catch them before they slip through the cracks. It is not as dangerous as it is seen to be, as most residents are harmless folks who happen to need a little help.

1. 88F
   64F
2. 42F
   97F

Los Angeles weather is very rarely chilly, and while it is often a little too hot, it is very rarely extremely unpleasant for more than a few days. Best of all, because it is near the desert, the humidity is always low and the air cools down at night. This means it can be 100F at noon but pleasant to walk the dog by 6 p.m.!

1. McDonald's
   Carl's Jr.
2. Shake Shack
   In 'N' Out Burger

In 'N' Out Burger was founded in Los Angeles' own Baldwin Park in 1948 by the Snyders, Esther and Harry. Unlike some fast-food chains, this burger chain made a point of paying above the minimum wage and emphasizing personal relationships and actually owning the buildings into which it expanded. It's one of the chains you can visit without worrying that you're participating in the exploitation of a fellow worker!

1. Plains
   Canyons
2. Mountains
   Desert

The canyons are a wonderful feature of Los Angeles that gets little attention outside the city. You can hike into canyons like Franklin, Mandeville and Topanga, and feel like you are a hundred miles from anyone. More popular parks like Runyon Canyon are less private, but even they can give a person a sense of liberation from the city—and because it is LA, the weather is nearly always nice. However, do not get complacent. Some of the hikes in the canyons are incredibly difficult, so do check a trail before you set out!

1. Blockbuster
   Netflix
2. BetaMax
   RKO

Netflix was founded in 1997 and began as a DVD subscription service that would mail you your favorite movie overnight. The company always anticipated that eventually, the internet would have the capacity to stream content directly, however, and it soon morphed into the massive content streamer and creator it is today.

1. Quail Lake
   Lake Piru
2. Bouquet Reservoir
   Stone Canyon Reservoir

Situated in prestigious Bel Air, the Stone Canyon Reservoir is possibly the best view in all of LA. It is a beautiful blue lake between the hills, and it's even near the 405 Freeway (but just the other side of the hill, so you can't hear it). There's a reason Disney boss Bob Iger has a garden that backs onto it!

1. San Vincente
   Crescent Heights
2. La Cienega
   Melrose

Melrose Avenue is a long street that stretches the whole way across Hollywood, and much of it is filled with charming little vintage and boutique stores, offering clothing and furnishings. It is also home to Melrose Trading Post, an open-air market that pops up on Sundays and has all sorts of vendors, from clothes to jewelry, to furniture to interior decor.

1. 10
   110
2. 101
   405

The freeway system in Los Angeles is a truly labyrinthine concoction, and it is a special kind of hell that often devolves into a parking lot. Still, you don't have much choice about using it when you're there unless you are very fortunate in the location of your home and workplace. Some are slightly less bad than others, but none is a nice place to spend your time!

1. The Grove
   The Open-Air Shopping Center
2. Pan Pacific Shopping Center
   Beverly Center

Some say that the Grove is very tacky, but others say it is delightful—and many say that it is both. It only opened in 2002 but has become a very popular place to shop, see a movie, and just enjoy the surroundings (fake grass included!)

1. UCLA
   USC
2. CIT
   UCSD

University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Southern California are both in Los Angeles, of course, as is the fancy California Institute of Technology, which is in Pasadena. UCSD, of course, is in San Diego. There are a lot of students in LA, making it a great place to be a young person.

1. Girl scout cookies
   Oil
2. Graphic design
   School play tickets

Believe it or not, but there is plenty of oil within the city limits of Los Angeles. Indeed, in the 1920s, the city was extracting a significant percentage of the world's oil! The "nodding donkeys" still nod here and there around the city, meaning Beverly Hills High School isn't the only place that made money from it. The derrick has now run dry, which is bad for the school budget but probably good for student health.

1. Hollywood Dinosaur Center
   Jurassic Park
2. La Brea Tar Pits
   La Cienega Fossil Cliffs

The tar pits are a smelly, bubbly geographical phenomenon in Hancock Park. They are full of Pleistocene asphaltic fossils, from mammoths to direwolves to short-faced bears. They produce methane bubbles, so they can smell eggy and nasty, but they are certainly a fascinating place to visit, especially for the middle of a major city!

1. Trick question—it isn't!
   The tectonic plates move the cold water to the surface.
2. All the heat goes into the land.
   It comes directly from Alaska.

The Pacific has many delightful and warm beaches adjacent to shockingly cold water. Los Angeles is one such example, as the current has brought the water down from Alaska, and thus, it's much chillier than you'd expect. On a hot day, it's delightful, but swimming there in February is surprisingly unpleasant. Also watch out for the undertow at Santa Monica Beach, as it is quite strong!

1. Soho House
   Chateau Marmont
2. The Playboy Mansion
   The Magic Castle

The Magic Castle is a Los Angeles club for magicians. You can pay to visit it or go to see a show there, and enjoy a relatively intimate setting with the world's finest wizards. Only if you are a member can you see the hidden treasures and learn the secrets of the craft!

1. Filled them with people
   Heated them to 140F
2. Reflected diamond pattern light onto them
   Projected words on them

This shiny metal hall is a very comfortable temperature on the inside, but when it was first put up, its silver walls reflected so much light and heat that they overheated nearby pavements! Residents across the street also complained that the hall was blinding to look at. The building is still there, and still melting things.

1. Rodeo Drive
   The Sunset Strip
2. Pico-Robertson
   Thousand Oaks

The Sunset Strip is a short segment of the otherwise very long Sunset Boulevard, which actually goes all the way to the ocean some miles to the west. The Strip is home to a number of great restaurants, as well as night clubs and boutique stores.

1. Laugh Factory
   HaHa Comedy Club
2. Hollywood Improv
   Upright Citizens Brigade

The Upright Citizens Brigade began in New York, when a number of the biggest comedians in the world—Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, Matt Besser and Ian Roberts—got together to start their own comedy theater. It has an LA venue now and is one of the leading feeder schools into the comedy industry. Los Angeles' live comedy scene is particularly vibrant, and not one to miss!

1. Aerospace
   Tourism
2. Biosciences
   Shipping

The port of Los Angeles is the largest on the West Coast, and simply enormous. It covers 7,500 acres, just under a half of which is land. It's the single most important port on the Pacific seaboard, and it claims that almost 10 million containers a year pass through it!

1. Hollywood Bowl
   Staples Center
2. The Greek Theater
   The Echo

This venue is the property of the city of LA, though it is operated by entertainment company SMG. It was founded in 1930 and has hosted some of the biggest celebrities of the last century, from comedians to rock stars to everything in between.

1. Take it out of the county
   Juggle with it
2. Bully it
   Lick it

These frogs have a poisonous skin, but unlike some amphibians that will only kill you or make you feel sick, their poison also tends to make you hallucinate. Of course, once people found out about this, licking these poor toads became much more popular. However, they can actually make you very ill, from heart palpitations to muscle weakness. Plus, it's not polite to lick a toad without its permission, so don't!

1. Dec. 1, 1801
   Sept. 4, 1781
2. Jan. 31, 1900
   May 7, 1874

Los Angeles was born as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula", meaning "the town of our lady, Queen of Angels, on the Porciúncula River". It didn't become a very large city until the last hundred years. The Porciúncula is now known as the Los Angeles River, and is mostly channelized along its lengths.

1. Oil companies
   TV/film agencies
2. Movie studios
   Famous directors

The Big Four are ICM, UTA, CAA and WME. The latter comes from the merger of William Morris and Endeavor Agency. These four represent many of your favorite stars, as well as directors, designers and producers you've never heard of, but whose work you may know. The big agencies are like octopi at the center of the industry, handling contracts and "packaging" talent together to make movie magic possible!

1. A small Russian republic
   Secret nuclear bunker
2. Soviet spy safehouse
   Nike Missile Base

The Nike Missile Base was part of a chain of similar bases, put there to spot incoming Soviet missiles, in order to shoot them down. Fortunately, we never had to find out whether it would work, but it probably wouldn't. These days, there is a very nice hike along Mandeville Canyon that culminates at a defunct base, and you can climb up to the top for a splendid view!

1. For fun!
   To protect a sewage pipe
2. As a movie set
   To prevent beach erosion

Today, the pier is a small amusement park that often hosts a variety of concerts. It was not always thus, however. It was originally put there in 1909 to make sure that sewage pipes getting rid of treated sewage deposited it beyond the breakers. That way, it didn't end up on the beach! The pier was thus a great way of putting lipstick on a pig.

1. Griffith Observatory
   Mount Lukens
2. Mount Baldy
   Cahuenga Peak

There are plenty of hills and even mountains within the city limits, from the Santa Monica Mountains to the San Gabriel Mountains. The highest of them all is the 5,075-foot Mount Lukens, which is on the edge of the San Gabriel Mountains overlooking Pasadena. It's a beautiful place and not too difficult a hike to the top—if you're in good shape, you can probably do it.

1. Japan
   Hawaii
2. Nauru
   Channel Islands National Park

We hope you didn't go halfway or indeed all the way across the ocean for this one! There are a few outlying islands off Los Angeles that are a protected wildlife preserve called the Channel Islands National Park. You can visit, but only to camp there briefly. If you go due west, keeping the Malibu coast on your right, these are the first landmass you'll reach.