La La Land

LA, the city of Angels or La La Land. All various names for this famous city. This was actually my second time visiting the city, as I have a childhood friend who moved there when we were little, and yet, I feel like I find yet more to see!
No trip to LA would be complete without seeing the Hollywood Sign or Hollywood Blv. They're great, but not the best areas if I'm completely honest and there is so much more to see. 

My favourite areas were definitely around Beverly Hills, I think we all saw that coming, didn't we. But I love it. Obviously, it's not friendly towards a student budget but is the place for the ultimate window shop. There are also several Alfred Tea Rooms around the area (aka the famous cafe that you keep seeing on Instagram, known for their tagline "but first, coffee"). They do great coffee, and the cafe is super cute and not really that expensive. We felt it was actually a bit cheaper than a Starbucks! 

We also took a trip down to Santa Monica, somewhere I really liked. The whole chilled out, beachy vibe really clicked with me. It's definitely quirky and cool, like Venice (somewhere we didn't manage to get to). It's great fun to take a stroll down the beachfront towards the pier, and the famous wheel. Maybe even stop off at one of the cool cafes for an iced coffee. It's definitely an Instagram hotspot. 

Another thing I would definitely recommend doing is a studio tour. We booked one for Warner Bros and it was so much fun. You get to wander around the studio on a normal shoot day, which means you may actually see them filming scenes! We saw a little snippet of them filming for Shameless which was cool. You get to see the sets of classics like Friends, Gilmore Girls and even ones they're still shooting like The Big Bang Theory! There's also a big archive of DC comics and Harry Potter outfits which is really worth a trip if you're a fan like me. 

Towards the end of our few days here we found a beautiful racecourse in Santa Anita which was free to enter on weekdays. It's great fun if you like horses or horse races, and is quite nice to just spend a couple of hours sat outside (in the shade) watching it! 

Again, we only spent a few days here. I know there's so much you can do in this city. SO make sure to let me know if you've been, what you thought of it and what you would recommend seeing!