Fun and Free Things to do in Los Angeles

With the economy spiraling around the proverbial toilet bowl, we can all use some fun, interesting diversions to fill the voids in our otherwise useless lives that don’t cost a bundle—or better yet, anything at all. If you live in Los Angeles, you probably know all about these places, especially if you’re a tightwad like me. If you’re visiting LA and blew all your money getting here and paying for your overpriced accommodations, take heart, for there are things to do that won’t destroy you economically.

  The J. Paul Getty Center is my favorite jewel of Los Angeles. Perched within the 405 Freeway corridor between the San Fernando Valley and the LA Basin, it’s worth visiting the Getty Center if only for the views it affords. In addition to the four main art galleries displaying priceless works of art from around the world, the lavish grounds feature a large open picnic area (yes, you can bring your own food and drinks, and they’ll even hold your picnic basket and/or cooler in the Visitor Center until you’re ready to eat) and one of the most impressively landscaped gardens in Southern California: a circular, tiered construct with a floating island in the central pond, fed via cascade waterfall by a gorgeous stone and brick artificial stream featuring several ornate bridges. Entry is free, but you’ll have to either pay for parking (make a reservation; the parking lot fills up early) or for a bus ride from the overflow parking lot at the Holiday Inn at the bottom of the hill. Either way, the electric tram ride from the parking lot up to the Center is a blast, if painfully slow.

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 The Griffith Observatory is one of LA’s most famous landmarks. Closed from 2002 to 2006 to undergo an expansive (and expensive!) renovation, the observatory now boasts a large partially subterranean exhibit featuring models of the planets and meteorites that smashed dirt, cars, houses and occasionally people during the sudden end of their interplanetary journeys. From the roof of the observatory, you can take in a panoramic view of the Basin, provided it isn’t too smoggy; but don’t bother using the new state-of-the-art coin-operated telescopes mounted every fifteen or so feet; they’ll leave you muttering, “What the heck am I looking at?” In the nether regions of the facility, you will also find a cafeteria serving overpriced food that will leave you wanting, because you probably won’t want to eat it and will still be hungry. Do yourself a favor: leave Griffith Park and find a nice hole-in-the-wall restaurant in nearby Los Feliz; you won’t regret it. While the parking is as free as the observatory, finding a space is a nightmare if you don’t have a handicapped placard; you’re better off parking outside of the park and taking one of the Observatory Shuttles up to the facility.  If you do have a placard, you’ll want to skip all the way into the building because there are many spaces and they’re right next to the observatory. However, control yourself: if the wrong person sees you skipping, he may question your eligibility for a handicapped placard.

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 The California Science Center is my favorite thing in Exposition Park for two reasons: it’s free, and I’m a geek and therefore think that science is “neat”. The large building contains many hands-on science-related gizmos and doodads, plenty of diversions to keep your kids engrossed for hours.

 Part of the same complex and included in the price of admission (meaning it’s free, too) is the Air and Space museum, displayed in the SKETCH Foundation Gallery. Within you will find almost everything that can fly in the forms of models, mockups and actual vehicles, including a space capsule. Outside the SKETCH Gallery are a mockup of an F-104 Starfighter and an actual Beoing DC-8. The newest item to join this collection is Space Shuttle Endeavour, which is the crowning jewel of the exhibit, even though it is located on the opposite side of the Science Center from the SKETCH Gallery.

 The grounds also feature an IMAX theater, but that’ll cost you. Parking is easy, as long as you don’t mind a long hike from and to your car, but you’ll have to pay for that, too, though it isn’t much, especially if you carpool.

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 Venice Beach Boardwalk has always been a favorite hangout of mine, and remains so, though I go less frequently because parking is a pain in the… well, you know. If you can find parking on the street, power to you! Some street spaces are metered (most of them, actually), so you’ll have to keep an eye on your watch. The pay-parking lots serving the boardwalk fill up quickly, so either get there early, or get there late enough that the morning crowd is clearing out.

 The boardwalk is lined on one side with shops, booths and solitary street merchants trying desperately to sell you their junk, from CDs, to sunglasses, to tattoos, to clothing. Most of it is retro-hippy garb forty years out of style, but so is the entire boardwalk. Several snack stands and restaurants crowd into the interstices between the vendors and merchants; some are quite good. My best advice is to follow your nose, and if you see sausages, buy them! The beach side of the boardwalk is crowded with more solo merchants too poor to afford booths—their wares lined up on blankets—street musicians, fortune tellers, crazed conspiracy theorists and local artists. However, when I go on weekends the one thing I look out for the most is the Cosmic Crusader, a white robe clad, turbaned musician on roller skates who serenades visitors while accompanying himself with his Fender Strat powered by a tiny Pig Nose battery-operated amplifier. He’s been a fixture there since the sixties, and unless you’ve spent your life in a cave, you’ve undoubtedly seen him in movies more than once.

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 La Brea Tar Pits, one of LA’s more famous attractions, might keep you diverted for about ten minutes. Here are the facts, Jack: They are pits filled with boiling tar that stinks. Sure, there are some replicas of prehistoric beasts scattered in and around the pits that you may ooh and ah at for a few minutes, but then you’ll get bored and want to do something else—and to either side of the pits are museums. That’s the catch: they lure you in with the tar pits, then entice you into either the LA County Museum of Art (which, while it’s okay as far as museums go, can’t compare to the Getty Center—and it costs $15 per person to get in) or the Page Museum (which is much smaller than LACMA, takes a quarter of the time to see and costs almost as much), chalk full of dry old mammoth and saber tooth tiger bones; ooh, ah!  That’ll keep you occupied for another fifteen minutes, then comes the buyer’s remorse. The one good thing I’ll say about the La Brea Tar Pits is that there’s plenty of grass if you want to have a picnic and don’t mind the stench, which makes everything taste like tar, and it’s usually possible to find free parking on the street if you don’t mind driving in circles for a while.

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 Olvera Street lies between Chinatown and Downtown, making it easy to get to via public transportation, which is good because street parking ain’t easy, though there are a number of pay parking lots within an easy walk of the place. This eclectic little lane is supposedly the very first street in the original El Pueblo de Los Angeles; that’s what they say, but I’m not buying it. I think it looks too much like the “Spanish” section of Knott’s Berry Farm to be authentic. However, you’ll find interesting cheap crap to buy in the many booths, fascinating odds and ends and the doodads… oh, the doodads can’t be beat. Also, you can buy yourself a mighty tasty Mexican meal there and visit a couple art galleries featuring Mexican style art. If you want to avoid the indigestion or you just aren’t crazy about Latino food (which makes you insane in my book; I love the stuff), you can waddle down into Chinatown and take your chances on finding one of the good restaurants. Good luck.