LA in July
 

I am taking my 19 year old daughter and her friend to Los Angeles at the end of July. We want to do all the "Touristy things" and possibly take a side trip to San Diego. We will be in California for 1 week. Any ideas for good itineraries?

Also need a recommendation for hotels in both areas. Moderately priced.

Thanx for the help.

LA is huge. What area are you planning on visiting?

We will fly into lax and want to stay central to tourist "traps", i.e. Mann's theatre, universal studios, beverly hills. We will also take a drive to some of the beaches like Venice.

I would first of all adjust your thinking a bit vis-à-vis San Diego. It isn't a backwater town that you do a day trip to. It's a major West Coast city with enough going on to keep you busy for several days. With that in mind, I might suggest four days in the LA area, three in San Diego.

I would look at the LA and San Diego itineraries suggested on this very website first of all. The Beverly Hills/West Hollywood area would be central to your LA points of interest, but there are literally thousands of things to do in this area, and some really cool ones I can think of would take you far from the BH/WH neighborhoods (for two, the Arts Festival and Pageant of the Masters down in Laguna Beach). I would really recommend looking at the Fodor's guides and then coming back with concrete questions.

In my opinion a 19 year old will be more impressed by West Hollywood. That's were all the flashy "Hollywood" action is.
Some nice places to stay in the area are: The Grafton on Sunset, The Wyndam Bel Age and the Hyatt.
Hollywood has gotten a lot nicer. The Hollywood & Highland complex is really neat, it's full of shops and restaurants. My favorite place to stay in Hollywood is the Roosevelt. It just underwent a big re-model, so I don't know what it's like now.
You might want to visit the Getty museum, check out Rodeo drive or even by a map of the stars homes and drive through Beverly Hills. Another fun thing to do is take a drive all the way down Sunset Blvd. to Malibu, then take the PCH to Santa Monica.

Brentwood Bel Air Holiday Inn is in a good location, an easy drive straight up the freeway from LAX. They have a shuttle bus to the Getty and to the UCLA Westwood area which of course is geared towards 19-year-olds. Just a mile drive takes you into Bel Air and Beverly Hills, you can buy a "star map" on several corners. It's an easy drive straight up Sunset to West Hollywood, or you can take the #2 bus from Westwood if you don't feel like battling traffic and parking. The beach is also an easy drive from this location. The hotel itself is just a 3-star/average Holiday Inn but with nice views at night and a rooftop cafe.

L.A. traffic is easiest to handle on Sat & Sun so I would definitely plan those two days in L.A. San Diego is more crowded on weekends if you're headed for the zoo or Sea World etc, so head down there during the week (but after morning rush hours).

suec59, if you have time and the interest of course, the Getty Museum is fabulous! So have a fun trip.