16 Non-touristy Things To Do In Los Angeles [Updated 2026]

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We’ve been to Los Angeles enough times now to have done the whole famous list. The Walk of Fame. Universal. The pier. All of it, more than once, and I’d send you to most of it happily.

But there’s a point on your third or fourth trip where the famous version of a city stops being the interesting version and you start dreaming of other destinations. That’s when you’ve got to dig deeper and discover how the locals are doing it.

Here’s how I’d define non-touristy, because the word gets thrown around until it means nothing. These Los Angeles recommendations aren’t secret. Some of them are busy. What they have in common is that when you’re standing in them, most of the people around you live here.

Note: Los Angeles has had a hard few years. The Palisades Fire in January 2025 took places that were on this list, and some of them have come back different. I’ve gone through every entry and marked what changed. If something here is closed by the time you read it, tell me and I’ll fix it.

1. Go on an urban hike at Griffith Park

Most visitors head straight for Runyon Canyon, which is just off Hollywood Boulevard and therefore one of the busiest small hiking areas in the city.

Just east of it is Griffith Park, and it’s a different scale entirely. Over 50 miles of trails, including the four-mile Mt Hollywood Trail, which is the one we did and the one I’d send you on. The views from the summit go out to the Hollywood Sign one way and back over the city the other.

Also inside the park is Bronson Canyon, known to most people as the Bronson Caves. It’s a short walk in from the parking area to a man-made tunnel cut into the rock, and it has stood in for more film and television locations than almost anywhere in LA. The Batcave entrance in the 1960s Batman series is this tunnel. Once you’ve seen it you start noticing it everywhere.

Practical. Free. Go early, because there’s almost no shade on the Mt Hollywood Trail and the LA sun is unforgiving by mid-morning. Bronson Caves is a much shorter walk and works for a hot day when you don’t want the full hike. About a 20-minute drive from Downtown.

Check out this video of a few LA hikes we’ve done for more inspiration…

2. Watch a movie among the headstones at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

For most visitors, Hollywood Forever is where Judy Garland is buried and not much else. Through summer and fall it becomes an outdoor cinema.

Cinespia runs screenings on the Fairbanks Lawn, projected onto the wall of a mausoleum, and it’s one of the most reliably sold-out events in the LA summer calendar. They screen classics, the sort of thing a crowd will shout lines at, and they occasionally run concerts.

The part that makes it work is that you bring everything. Your own food, your own wine and beer, blankets, low chairs, the lot. People take it seriously and arrive with proper picnics.

Practical. Tickets go on sale in advance and the good nights sell out. Arrive well before doors, because seating on the lawn is first come and the difference between arriving early and arriving on time is the difference between a good evening and watching from the back. Check what’s screening and what the current rules are on what you can bring, since those have tightened at some venues.

3. Taste Malibu wine at the Rosenthal estate, which came back after the fire

This one has changed completely and I’d rather tell you why than quietly update the address.

For years the Rosenthal tasting room sat right on the Pacific Coast Highway, across from the water, with live music in the backyard at weekends and food trucks outside. It was the only place in LA where you could taste wine with the ocean across the road. The January 2025 Palisades Fire took it.

They’ve reopened somewhere else, up on their own estate off Kanan Dume Road, with 28 acres of vines sitting at about 1,450 feet. Weekend tastings on Saturdays and Sundays, two sittings a day, by reservation. Vineyard tours as well.

It’s a different experience to the one the internet still describes. You’re in the hills now instead of on the sand, and the wine is being poured where it’s grown, which some people will prefer.

Practical. Reserve ahead at rosenthalestatewines.com. Weekends only, so plan around it. It’s a drive up into the Santa Monica Mountains rather than a stop on a coastal run, so give it an afternoon rather than an hour. Want more wine experiences in Malibu? I found this on Airbnb Experiences: Hike a hidden vineyard to a guided wine tasting

4. Climb the secret stairs for LA views most visitors never find

Before the freeways, Los Angeles neighborhoods were stitched together by more than 400 public staircases. They were how people got to school, to the market, to the streetcar. Most of them are still there and still public, and almost nobody uses them.

The two worth your time as a visitor: the Beachwood Canyon Stairs, which give you Hollywood Sign and Lake Hollywood views without the crowds at the usual viewpoints, and the run of stairs behind the Hollywood Bowl near the Hightower Elevator Tower, which is a strange piece of 1920s architecture in its own right and gives you the city from an angle no tour bus goes near.

Practical. Free, and harder work than they look. Proper shoes. They run through residential streets, so keep the noise down, and street parking around Beachwood is tight and heavily signed. For something unique and non-touristy you may enjoy riding behind the Hollywood Sign by Horseback.

5. Kayak down the Los Angeles River

Most people know the LA River as concrete. The drag race in Grease. The truck chase in Terminator 2.

There are stretches that aren’t concrete at all, and you can paddle them. Guided trips run through the recreation zones in the warmer months, through soft-bottom sections with herons and cormorants and enough greenery that you forget where you are until a train goes past.

The guides talk about the restoration work while you paddle, which is the actual point of the trip. There’s a long-running effort to bring the river back, and being on it is the fastest way to understand why people care.

Practical. Seasonal, and dependent on water levels, so check before you plan around it. Book ahead, as the operators run limited trips. No experience needed for the standard routes.

6. Catch an Improv Show

Los Angeles has the best improv scene in the country and it’s almost entirely invisible to visitors, who go to a big-name comedy club and pay four times as much.

The Groundlings on Melrose is the one I’d start with. It’s been running since the 1970s and the alumni list is absurd: Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, Will Ferrell, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy. They run shows most nights.

Upright Citizens Brigade still runs shows in LA, and it’s where Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Jason Sudeikis came through. Their Sunset theater has closed, so check the current venue when you book rather than turning up at the old address.

Tickets at this level of the scene run cheap, often under $20, and you’re watching people who will be on television in three years.

Practical. Book online. Weekend shows sell out, weeknights rarely do, and the weeknight shows are frequently better because the rooms are looser.

7. Go on a Brewery Crawl

San Diego takes the credit for California beer. Los Angeles quietly built a scene that you never have to drive far to find.

On the east side, Golden Road in Atwater Village and Eagle Rock Brewery are two of the longest-running. Downtown has Angel City, in a 1913 brick warehouse in the Arts District, which is worth going into for the building alone.

The South Bay has the highest concentration, and it’s where I’d actually send you. Smog City, Monkish and El Segundo Brewing are within a short drive of each other, and Monkish in particular has a following that people fly in for.

Practical. Pick one area rather than crossing the city. The South Bay cluster is the easiest to do on foot and rideshare. Most taprooms open early afternoon, and many are family friendly until the evening.

8. Visit a Bar that was Prohibition Speakeasy

Who says L.A. has no history and culture? Los Angeles is unique in that it’s home to multiple bars that are operating today that were speakeasy bars during prohibition.

Townhouse and the Del Monte Speakeasy on Windward Avenue in Venice is the real thing. The bar upstairs has been operating since 1915. The basement underneath was a working speakeasy through Prohibition, reached by a service lift, and it’s now a low-ceilinged room with live music and cocktails.

It celebrated its hundredth year in 2016, which tells you it survived the entire twentieth century in a neighborhood that has changed around it about six times.

Practical. The basement runs live music most nights, jazz and burlesque among it, often with a small cover. Get there early on weekends. It’s a two-minute walk from the Venice boardwalk, so it pairs with an afternoon down there. Here is a Hollywood Speakeasy Bar Tour you may enjoy.

9. See Greek and Roman art at the Getty Villa Museum

Everyone knows the Getty Center. Far fewer make it out to the Villa, and it’s the more unusual of the two.

The building is a recreation of the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman country house buried at Herculaneum by Vesuvius. Inside is J. Paul Getty’s collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities, including a Roman-era mummy and pieces going back thousands of years. Outside there’s a reflecting pool in a colonnaded garden with the Pacific behind it.

What changed, and you need to know this before you go. The Villa closed on 7 January 2025 because of the Palisades Fire and stayed closed for nearly six months, reopening on 27 June 2025. The collection was unharmed. The grounds were not, and more than 1,300 damaged trees were removed, so the setting looks different to every photograph you’ll find online.

Practical, and this is where people get caught out. Admission is free but you need a timed reservation, and they cap it at 500 visitors a day. It’s open Friday to Monday only, 10am to 5pm, not daily as it was before. Access is from Pacific Coast Highway only, since the Sunset Boulevard approach is closed. Parking is $25. Allow extra time for PCH traffic. If this is your thing, you may want to Tour The Getty Villa with art historian Nancy Real. It is a paid tour.

10. Sing karaoke in a private room in Koreatown

Koreatown covers about 2.7 square miles and parts of it do not close at all.

Karaoke here means a private room rather than a microphone in front of strangers. You book by the hour, you get a screen and a door that shuts, and whatever happens in there stays between you and the people who came with you. It’s the format that makes karaoke bearable for anyone who would rather die than perform in a bar.

Afterwards, Korean fried chicken, and street vendors selling kimbap and other snacks late into the night.

Practical. Book ahead at weekends. Rooms are charged by the hour and by size. Many venues are all ages earlier in the evening and over-21 later, so check when you book if you have teenagers with you. This made our list of things to do in LA with teens.

11. Walk the botanical gardens at the Huntington

The Huntington is one of the largest independent research libraries in the country, and unless you’re a scholar, you’d have no reason to go.

Then you find out about the gardens. 130 acres, roughly 83,000 plants across 16 themed gardens, including a Japanese garden with a moon bridge, a desert garden that looks like another planet, and a Chinese garden built around a lake.

It’s in San Marino, out past Pasadena, which is exactly why it stays quiet.

Practical. Ticketed, and timed tickets are the norm. Give it half a day minimum, because the grounds are much bigger than people expect and rushing them defeats the point. There’s a tea room that books out well ahead.

12. Paddle a Swan Boat on Echo Park Lake

Echo Park has been a public park since 1895, which makes it one of the oldest in Los Angeles, and the pedal-powered swan boats on the lake are the thing people photograph.

You get Downtown skyline views from the water, lotus beds that flower in summer, and a park that’s busy with locals and almost empty of visitors. The Lotus Festival runs here every year.

Practical. Rent by the half hour or hour and book ahead at weekends. Best late afternoon, when the light comes off the Downtown towers behind the lake. Book your swan boat rental in advance here and if you love fishing, you may enjoy this fishing lesson with a licensed guide.

13. Visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Another free museum to check out in LA is the LA County Museum of Art, which is the largest art museum in the western United States.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art holds around 152,000 objects spanning some 6,000 years, which makes it the largest art museum in the western United States.

Most people photograph Urban Light out the front, the field of 202 restored street lamps, and leave without going in. Worth going in.

Practical. Closed Wednesdays. Timed tickets, and advance booking is recommended because slots sell out. The campus is in the middle of a major building project, so check what’s open before you go.

14. Rollerskate the Venice Beach Boardwalk

I’ll concede this one straight away. Venice is not non-touristy and hasn’t been for years, and the Barbie film put the boardwalk skating scene in front of a few hundred million more people.

It’s here anyway, because skating it is a completely different experience to walking it. You can rent skates on the boardwalk. There’s Muscle Beach, the outdoor gym that’s been there since the 1930s, acroyoga groups, the skate park on the sand, and a stretch of people-watching that has no equal in the city.

We stood at the skate park rail on our last visit watching a girl of about 9 who was better than everyone else there, and I could have stayed an hour.

Practical. Daylight. Venice has an edge to it and an evening crowd that’s a different proposition. Rentals are along the boardwalk and cheap. You can rent rollerskates from this place. Exploring the boardwalk is a sure way to get a feel for local life in LA.

15. Cross the Sixth Street Viaduct

The old Sixth Street bridge came down in 2016 after the concrete started failing. What replaced it, opened in July 2022, is the most ambitious piece of public architecture Los Angeles has built this century: a series of paired arches over the river and the rail yards, lit at night, connecting Boyle Heights to the Arts District.

Angelenos adopted it instantly and argued about it just as fast. It’s become a place people go rather than a way to get somewhere.

Practical. There’s a pedestrian walkway, so walk it rather than drive it. Best at dusk when the arch lighting comes on and the Downtown skyline is behind you. Park on the Arts District side.

16. Eat your way through Smorgasburg on a Sunday

Sundays at ROW DTLA, and it’s the closest thing Los Angeles has to a weekly gathering of its own food scene.

Dozens of independent vendors, heavy on the things LA actually does best, which means Mexican, Filipino, Thai, Salvadoran and whatever somebody has just invented. Many of the stalls are people testing an idea before they open somewhere permanent, so what you eat there this year turns up in a restaurant review next year.

Practical. Sundays only, daytime. Go hungry and go early, because the queues at the good stalls are long by midday. Bring cash as a backup. ROW DTLA has parking and it fills.

Where to go next in LA

If you want the famous version as well, and you should do it at least once, we’ve written the full guide to things to do in Los Angeles. For families, things to do in LA with kids and things to do in LA with teens. And Downtown LA has enough in it now for its own day. We’ve curated a list of Where To Stay In Los Angeles: The Best Neighborhoods & Hotels and compiled a 3 Day Los Angeles Itinerary.

Tell me which of these you get to. And if you find one that’s closed, tell me that too. Keeping a page like this honest is a job that never finishes.

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Do you have any more non-touristy tips for Los Angeles? Let’s see your ideas in the comments!