In July of 2024, I spent a whole month in the City of Angels, also known as Los Angeles. I’ve never been away for so long, and I never thought I would be. But, here I am, let’s reflect on the myriad of experiences that defined my trip travelling around the West Coast of North America as someone from the UK. As a foonite, I tried to pick the best photos I had, as if I were to fit them all in it would go on forever!
Life is all about experiences, they open up your horizons to new things you would have never considered, and reignites some curiousity about the world and different cultures. This holiday in particular is one I’ll never forget, I met some wonderful individuals and got to spend time creating core memories with people I’ll never forget.
The Good
Let’s start off with the good, the American Dream if you will.
Cuisines
The culinary scene goes crazy, street food, high-end dining and almost every cuisine you can think of. The abundance of food in the U.S. is striking, almost to the point of absurdity. The reality of larger portion sizes is undeniable. When you combine oversized servings with limited walkability, a perfect storm for overindulgence is created. However, you quickly learn that one meal is the equivalent of at least two if saved for leftovers, this doesn’t always happen as your eyes can eat more than your stomach at times, especially when presented with some of your favourite foods! Although America feels unwalkable, there are nice hiking trails and theme parks you can use to balance out the foodie in you, such as the Hollywood sign and Disney Land.
As for selection, I’d go with fried chicken to be my king, more specifically, Korean bbq fried chicken. As for the losers, well, it’s difficult to find food and drink that doesn’t taste good in LA to be honest. I mean, even the bubble tea tasted ten times nicer. I had an epiphany that it’s because of the sugar tax we have in the UK, I didn’t even know you could fit 900 calories and an ice cream scoop into a bubble tea drink until I visited LA.
Activities
My second favourite thing about LA other than enjoying the various cuisines, was the activities. As with food, activities to do whilst on the West Coast of North America are endless. During the month, some of the activities I did were: Shopping at outlets and malls, Beach trip, Japan-Town, Korea-Town, Watched a Dodgers Baseball Game, attended Anime Expo 2024, rapped Central Cee at Karaoke, went to an Arcade, strolled down Santa Monica Pier, Hiked close-ish to the Hollywood sign, Watched Princess Mononoke at an AMC, Escaped an Escape Room and visited the Getty. The list goes on, you get the point. You won’t get bored, there’s pockets of communities for everyone, you just need to go out and find them.
As a tourist, I wondered what anotther concrete jungle had to offer, as London is. However, I was blown away at the amount of entertainment and culture the city has to offer, with the weather being less miserable than London’s, and the metling pot culture leading to a welcoming feeling, it’s quite a wholesome experience.
Attractions
Attractions such as Disneyland felt like a wonderland, and also part of LA culture. Growing up in the UK it was expected that you were supposed to “outgrow” Disney movies and stop watching them, so when I saw adults with Cars backpacks and mickey mouse ears I was pleasantly surprised, as it’s Hollywood culture to respect Disney movies. During my short day visit, I went on a total of 12 rides, thanks to the meticulous planning of our host, and I immersed myself in the different universes the park had to offer, I can now confidently say the appeal is real and it’s a must-do if you ever visit LA. It really brings back memories and I caught a brief escape from the hustle of life with responsibilities and work.
Being much more up-to date with the Universal movies, and seeing how Hollywood operates backstage was nothing short of spectacular (a 60 anniversary special). I prepared for this one beforehand, watching all the Harry Potter movies before setting my foot into the park and readying myself to drink butter beer! My younger brother is also a huge fan of the Jurassic Park movies, so I made sure to pick him up some original merch from the store, and send him enough media content to feel like he was watching a go-pro POV angle of my antics, and he was in awe. The thrill-rides at Universal triumphed Disney and the queues were significantly shorter. Infact, the mummy ride was so good we ended up riding it twice!
Last but not least, San Diego Zoo blew me away. I’m a big fan of zoos and aquariums, being able to view wildlife that you’ll never be able to see otherwise and really take in the variety of animals that nature has provided to the world was fantastic. Putting the ethics and moralities of (bad) zoos to one side, it felt like San Diego Zoo had a good focus on education and conservation of various animals, with a large range of endangered species. You need to see animals to appreciate them, and get a better understanding of how they behave, and ultimately we are animals too. Most important to me, is that by understanding animals we can put together the pieces of the ecosystem puzzle to get a more holistic view once we have more knowledge of Earth’s habitants. I can draw similarities on a different scale, to when I would play Monster Hunter World with my little brother throughout Covid-19 when sat in isolation at home. In the game, you get to run around and view all the large and small sized creatures in each area, that will fight, die and respawn. You come to learn that every one of these creatures, in its own way, contributed to a delicate balance in an interconnected, living and breathing ecosystem. Coexistance with different people, and animals, is what plays a vital role in creating a world of beauty that can thrive.
Las Vegas
Right next to the City of Angels, lies Sin City in Nevada, Las Vegas. Although it has an, for lack of better words, an interesting reputation, I found it to be a beautiful place with some of the most luxury experiences I’ve seen and witnessed. After a 4 hour drive and a stop at Dutch Bros, I arrived in “The City That Never Sleeps”. Staying in the Luxor Hotel on the edge of the strip, I was a quick 10 minute walk away from the Bellagio, as most of the hotels are actually connected underground and you can walk through them freely. Walking through the Bellagio, attending events at the LIV and the MGM Grand, seeing the Hershey’s and M&M stores and eating at one of the finest steakhouses made my Vegas weekend trip very much worthwhile. I talked at the beginning about Sin City, and watching people glued to slot machines was as normal in Vegas as seeing someone complaining about the weather in Britain, it’s so casual, constant and popular that you become numb to it. My advice to future Vegas attenders would be to never buy things on the strip, instead drive 10 minutes out to a local CVS, you’ll thank your wallet later!
Grand Canyon
During my trip, I also visited The Grand Canyon State, Arizona, in order to visit the Grand Canyon, AKA the GC, and grand it was. Loaded up on water, electrolytes and sunscreen, I was ready. From the moment I got there I was in admiration, the size of it was enormous and the views make it fitting of being one of the world’s seven natural wonders. Although I didn’t hike (due to the extreme heat), I drove around view points and stared into the vast expanse of the canyon. I took countless photos, but none of them do the GC justice, you have go and see it in person to capture the true essence of it all. My one regret was not spending more time there when it would have cooled down in the evening. Advice here would be to bring lots of Sunscreen, be careful hiking, and save time to visit Sedona and marvel at the red rocks, a day trip may be too short!
The Bad
Now onto the bad things, as there must be balance in all things. The obvious one is that it can get expensive, even more so than London and when you factor in tips, even lunches can hit your wallet quite hard. Where costs don’t come as a drawback is in petrol (gas) deparment, as it is cheaper overall. Also, the tap water is not drinkable, which is really a shame because who wants to go out and buy a ton of plastic bottles? It feels like such a normalised inconvenience, to drive to go and get water. Air quality sucks, at least compared to Brighton, this is no joke as it can lead to respiratory problems long term for residents. On top of that, if you try to overlook LA from the Griffith Observatory there’s a thick cloud of smog, that’s when you realise you’ve been breathing it in the whole time. The nature of no public transport means everyone takes cars everywhere, which means everyone gets stuck in traffic, there is even a fast lane for cars who don’t want traffic (paying to win?). I was also lucky enough to never witness any gun violence, however it does exist and it does impact overall safety of the city. I’d say for tourists a lot of these things are neglible, and some not so much.
Culture Shocks
Nor good or bad, are some culture shocks. For example, Tesla cars are as common as hatchbacks in the UK. This was particularly interesting as I always feel like the UK has less of an innovative culture, and more of a “safer route” type of thinking, LA is very much the opposite, which likely contributes to being heavy buyers of EVs along with some government incentives. Billboards, there are signs whilst driving on the motorway (where you are supposed to be focusing on the road?), seems counter-intuitive, the irony is that a lot of billboards are for accident insurance, is cause equal to correlation? As mentioned earlier, there’s also a fast track motorway lane, as well as car pool lanes, which seems a bit odd as initially I thought it would make more sense to push for more public transport instead, however if you live in LA you’ve been lucky enough to see a city grow and never consider public transport until it was too late.
Footnote
Thank you Los Angeles, until next time. As someone that wanted to grow up and work in the bay area for a tech company, this was the closest I’ve gotten to experiencing life in the US.