21 Things To Do In Los Angeles With Teens, Tested On Ours

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Kalyra was 12 when she stood on the Hollywood Walk of Fame looking for one particular star, and I watched her face do the thing I’d been waiting years to see.

She wanted to win an Oscar and standing on that stretch of pavement, surrounded by tourists and street performers and a lot of things I’d been quietly cynical about, she wasn’t being a tourist. She was doing reconnaissance.

That’s the shift. A small child comes to Los Angeles and sees a big fun place. A kid on the edge of their teens comes to LA and starts measuring themselves against it.

We’ve done LA a lot. As a couple, then with two little girls, then with Kalyra at 12 and Savannah at 6. Savannah is 15 now, and the trip I’d build for her today looks nothing like the one we took then.

What I do have is 16 years of writing about family travel and a lot of years on the road with both girls through their teens, across Australia, the US and Europe. I know what a 15-year-old wants from a city. I know what gets them out of the car and what makes them put the headphones back in. That part I’m sure of.

So, this is the LA I’d build for a teenager now. What we learned there, and what I know about the ones living in my house. When asked Savannah said visiting LA as a teenager, she wants to go to a WNBA game, a concert, go to the beach, and do some shopping!

Fair warning on one thing. Some of what follows is on our LA with kids guide too. I’m not hiding a good attraction from you because it also suits a 7-year-old. If Griffith Park is worth your afternoon, it’s worth your afternoon. What changes here is how you do it, what it costs, and which bits a teenager will actually get out of the car for.

How LA with teens is different to LA with younger kids

Three things shift, and if you plan for them the trip gets a lot easier.

Thrill tolerance goes up, and the good stuff opens. Most of the height restrictions that lock a small child out of the serious rides sit around 48 to 54 inches. A teenager clears every one of them, which means Six Flags Magic Mountain becomes available to you. It’s what’s missing from most family LA itineraries.

The camera becomes the point. A teenager photographing a mural wall is doing the same thing I do when I write a post about a place. They’re making a record and they’re deciding who they are in it. Plan for it. Build in the places that are worth photographing and stop rushing them. I love seeing what my girls stop to photograph. It shows me that they are engaged and what interests them.

They want some control. Hand your teenager one full day to plan. Give them a budget, give them the car’s constraints, and let them build it. Ours always come back with better days than I would have made, and the sulking drops to almost nothing, because it’s very hard to complain about an itinerary you wrote.

One more thing. LA an easy city in America to give a teenager a bit of independence in, because so much of it is walkable in pockets. Abbot Kinney, Third Street Promenade, Melrose, the Grove. You can sit with a coffee and let them go and be 15 for an hour.

How many days do you need in Los Angeles with teens

More than you think, and here’s why.

Distance in LA isn’t measured in miles. It’s measured in hours. Two places 12 miles apart can be 20 minutes or 70 minutes apart depending on when you leave, and a teenager stuck in the back of a rental car on the 405 is a specific kind of misery you only need to experience once.

So plan by neighborhood and focus on one area a day. That way you can park once and walk.

• 4 days covers a beach day, a Hollywood day, one theme park and one day in Griffith Park or Downtown. Tight.
• 6 days is the sweet spot for teens. It lets you do both Universal and Magic Mountain without them running back to back, which matters because two theme park days in a row will finish everybody.
• 8 days or more and you can add Malibu, a surf lesson, a day the teenager plans themselves, and a whole day where nobody does anything except sit on the sand.

We’ve never cracked LA in one trip. Don’t expect to.

1. Ride the coasters at Six Flags Magic Mountain

If your teenager likes roller coasters, this is the day they’ll talk about on the flight home.

I’ll tell you up front that we haven’t done this one yet. It’s the thing I’d book first on our next LA trip, and I’m putting it at the top of this guide anyway, because leaving it out to protect my own credentials would be useless to you. My two love theme parks and thrill rides, and I’ve watched them on enough coasters in enough countries to know exactly how this day would go.

Six Flags Magic Mountain sits in Valencia, about an hour north of central LA, and it’s built for exactly this age group. The park runs 16 operating roller coasters, which is one of the highest counts of any theme park in the world, and it’s stacked with the tall, fast, upside down category rather than the gentle family category.

The ones worth queueing for: Twisted Colossus, a hybrid steel and wood coaster that races two trains against each other. Tatsu, which flies you face down, and is the most unusual ride in the park. Full Throttle, which has a loop you go through twice, once forwards and once backwards. Goliath, for the drop. And Wonder Woman Flight of Courage, a single rail coaster that feels far more exposed than it looks from the queue.

Why it suits teens specifically. Almost every major ride here sits at a 48 to 54 inch minimum, which excludes a lot of younger children and means the park skews older. Your teenager will be surrounded by people their own age, which is a bigger deal than adults tend to remember.

Practical. It’s a full day and an early start, because the drive back into LA in the evening is slow. Buy tickets online in advance, which is always cheaper than the gate. Check the calendar before you commit, because the park runs reduced days outside peak season and it’s a long drive to a closed gate. Bring more water than you think and factor in the Valencia heat, which is noticeably hotter than the coast.

2. Spend a day at Universal Studios Hollywood

Grabbing a butterbeer and going on the Forbidden Journey are the first two things we do at Universal. That hasn’t changed in years and I doubt it ever will.

Universal Studios Hollywood is smaller than the Orlando park, and people say that like it’s a criticism. For a family with teenagers it’s an advantage. You can actually finish it in a day without a military plan.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is the draw for most teens, with Forbidden Journey inside Hogwarts Castle and the Flight of the Hippogriff outside it. Super Nintendo World is the newer addition, with Mario Kart Bowser’s Challenge as its centerpiece, an augmented reality ride where you wear a visor and actually throw shells at other karts.

And then there’s the Studio Tour, which is the thing that makes this park different to every other theme park on earth. It’s a working studio lot. You ride a tram through backlot streets that have stood in for New York and small-town America in hundreds of films, past the Bates Motel and the plane crash set from War of the Worlds.

Why it suits teens. The Studio Tour lands completely differently at 14 than it does at 7. A younger child sees a fun train ride through some houses. A teenager who has watched the films recognizes the streets, and that recognition is the whole experience.

Practical. Go on a weekday in term time if you possibly can. Universal City Walk sits outside the gates and is free to enter, so it’s a decent place to send teenagers for an hour while you sit down. The park is a 45 minute to an hour drive from most of the coast, so stay on the valley side the night before if you can. Get Skip the Line tickets to save you time!

3. Take the teens to Disneyland in Anaheim

I’ll be honest, this one baffles me.

I assumed Disneyland was something they’d grow out of. They have not. It sits at the top of the list every single time we talk about where to go next, and I’ve stopped arguing about it. Teens be teens.

And when I actually think about why, it makes sense. A teenager at Disneyland gets something a 7-year-old doesn’t. They can ride everything with no height restriction in their way, they can split off from you for a few hours and meet back at a churro cart, and they get to be uncomplicatedly delighted about something in a year of their life where that’s in short supply. That last part is worth the ticket on its own.

At this age, they’d appreciate Disney’s famous Halloween Party even more. We visited with our teenage nieces who absolutely loved it!

Disneyland sits in Anaheim, about 45 minutes south of central LA without traffic and a good deal longer with it. Two parks, Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure, and a teenager will want both.

Practical. It’s a separate trip from your LA days, not an add-on to one. Stay in Anaheim the night before if you can. Buy tickets and make park reservations well ahead. We’ve written the whole thing up properly, including what a day actually costs and which rides are worth the wait: Our full Disneyland guide.

4. Learn to surf in Santa Monica or Malibu

This is the one I’d push hardest if your teenager is the sort who says they’re bored.

There is a particular thing that happens when a 14-year-old stands up on a surfboard for the first time. The performance of not being impressed, which teenagers work very hard at, falls off their face completely for about four seconds. Worth the money on its own. They may just discover a new hobby or a newfound sense of Zen.

Group lessons run along the beaches from Santa Monica down through the South Bay, and up at Malibu. Most operators supply the board and the wetsuit, and a first lesson usually runs around 90 minutes to 2 hours. Southern California water is colder than it looks in the photos, all year round. The wetsuit is not optional and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Practical. Book a morning lesson. The wind picks up through the afternoon, and the water gets choppier and harder to learn in. Malibu has the gentler, longer beginner waves. Santa Monica is easier to reach and cheaper to park at. Check Surf lesson options for Los Angeles.

5. Skate or bike the Venice Beach boardwalk

We were watching the Venice skate park a few years back when a girl of maybe 9 dropped in and absolutely slayed it, and the girls and I just stood there.

The skate park sits right on the sand and it’s free to watch, which makes it one of the best hours in LA that costs nothing. If your teenager skates, they can drop in themselves. If they don’t, it’s still worth standing at the rail for a while.

Then rent bikes. The path from Santa Monica down to Venice is about 3 miles, flat, and runs right along the water, and is the best way to see this stretch of coast. Rentals run roughly $7 an hour or $20 a day at the beach kiosks for regular bikes. Ebikes will be more. (Or rent in advance here) Rollerblades and skates are available too, and Venice has had a skating scene on that boardwalk since the 1970s.

The Santa Monica Pier sits at the other end of that bike path, and you’ll ride past it either way. I’ll be straight with you; we’re not great fans of Santa Monica. It feels touristy and manufactured to us, and we’d take the Santa Monica mountains over this beach any day. But the pier is one of the most photographed in the world, the Ferris wheel is solar powered and looks extraordinary at sunset, and a teenager who has seen it in about four hundred films is going to want to stand on it. Build in an hour before or after your ride, let them get the photo, and make up your own mind.

A warning, because you’re bringing a teenager. Venice is not a sanitized place. There’s open marijuana use, there’s a visible homeless population, and there are stretches of the boardwalk that feel edgy. We’ve never had a problem there and I’d take my teenagers again tomorrow. But go in daylight and with the expectation that they’ll see things you’ll end up talking about in the car. Decide for yourself whether that conversation is one you want to have on holiday.

This section exists because I asked Savannah what she’d want to do in LA and her first answer had nothing to do with anything already on this page.

6. Watch an LA Sparks WNBA game at Crypto.com Arena

Savannah said a WNBA game is at the top of her things to do with teens in LA list. We’ve now done WNBA games in San Francisco and New York, following her Dallas Wings team and so I was not surprised that this was her immediate response.

The Los Angeles Sparks are one of the league’s original teams, founded before the first WNBA season in 1997. They’ve won three championships, in 2001, 2002 and 2016. Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker both built their careers here, and if your teenager follows the league at all those two names carry weight.

Why this works for teens in a way an NBA game doesn’t. Crypto.com Arena holds about 13,141 for Sparks games rather than the full NBA configuration, so you’re closer to the floor for a fraction of the price. Tickets are a different universe from Lakers tickets. The crowd is younger and louder and less corporate. And for a teenage girl in particular, watching women play professional sport in a packed arena does something that no amount of me telling her she can do anything has ever done. We recommend your teenage boys also watch the women carve up the court.

Practical. The WNBA season runs through the summer, so check the schedule against your dates early. Crypto.com Arena is in Downtown LA, which means you can pair a game with Grand Central Market the same day and park once.

If your teenager isn’t into basketball, LAFC and the Galaxy are the other easy option, and the Dodgers play at one of the great old ballparks in America.

7. See a concert at the Hollywood Bowl or the Greek Theatre

We travel for concerts. Taylor Swift in Philadelphia. Ariana Grande in New York. Billie Eilish in Charlotte. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about teenagers on the road, it’s that a gig will beat almost any museum you can name.

So look at what’s playing while you’re in LA. But pick your venue carefully, because this is where LA gives you something no other city can.

The Hollywood Bowl opened on 11 July 1922 and it’s the summer home of the LA Philharmonic. It seats about 17,500 in a natural amphitheater in the hills, and the list of people who’ve played it is absurd. The Beatles in 1964 and again in 1965. Jimi Hendrix in 1968. Billie Eilish in 2021, which is the one that got Savannah’s attention when I told her. Get tickets here.

The Greek Theatre was dedicated on 25 September 1930, sits inside Griffith Park, and holds about 5,900. It’s small enough that there’s no bad seat. Neil Diamond recorded Hot August Night here in 1972. The scene in A Star Is Born where Ally walks out on stage was filmed here. Get tickets here!

Years ago, we were lucky enough to be in town when Ben Harper was playing the Greek. Of course we went. I loved that venue and I’ve measured others against it since.

A valid point. A teenager can see their favorite artist in an arena in any city in the country. Seeing them under the hills at the Bowl, or in the trees at the Greek, is an LA memory rather than a concert memory. Pay the difference.

Practical. Both venues program mostly through the warmer months, so summer and early fall give you the most to choose from. Book as far ahead as you can. Parking at the Bowl is the hard part, and the park and ride buses from lots around the city are the easier option. Bring layers, because both are outdoors and the hills get cold once the sun goes down. You can bring your own food to the Hollywood Bowl and beer and wine only during LA Phil-presented events.

8. Photograph the Melrose Avenue murals + Shop

Melrose is covered in street art and this is where your teenager will be happiest with a camera in their hand.

The girls loved walking along Melrose Avenue and taking creative photos, and it’s one of the few LA activities where the teenager leads and the parent follows. The murals change constantly, because artists paint over each other, so what you find won’t be what you saw on Instagram last year. That’s the point of it.

Melrose also runs vintage and boutique shopping along the same stretch, which pairs perfectly. Photos, then browsing, then food. The shopping part is high on any teenager’s list! I like Melrose Ave for shopping as it’s more local than the big brand shopping centers you find in LA.

Practical. Parking on Melrose runs around $1 an hour in the metered stretches, which is the cheapest parking in this entire guide. Afternoon light is better for the walls. Start around Fairfax and walk east.

9. Book the Infinity Mirrored Room at The Broad

The Broad is a contemporary art museum in Downtown LA and general admission is free, permanently, for everyone.

We’re not big art or museum people. I’ve said that about the Getty and it’s still true. The Broad is the exception, and the reason is Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room, a small, mirrored chamber filled with hanging lights that you step into alone or in a tiny group for about a minute. It’s the most photographed artwork in Los Angeles and your teenager almost certainly already knows what it looks like.

The rest of the collection is strong too, with Basquiat, Warhol and Koons, and it’s a building worth walking through even if the art isn’t landing.

Practical (and what many people get wrong). General admission is free, but you need a timed ticket, and the Infinity Mirrored Room needs a separate advance reservation that goes fast. Book the moment you know your dates. The museum is closed Mondays. Walk-up tickets are released daily if you miss out, so it’s worth turning up and asking.

10. Walk Rodeo Drive and window shop in Beverly Hills

The girls loved pretending to be rich and famous here, and that is precisely what Rodeo Drive is for.

Three blocks of the most expensive retail in America, and you don’t have to spend a cent. Walk it, look at the prices in the windows, watch the cars. The Beverly Wilshire at the end of the street is the hotel from Pretty Woman. In current times, that may mean more to you than your teenagers!

Practical. Free to walk, obviously. Some of the side street parking in Beverly Hills gives you the first hour or two free, which is unusual for LA and worth looking for. Two hours is plenty here.

11. Walk the Hollywood Walk of Fame and see the TCL Chinese Theatre handprints

The Walk of Fame runs about 15 blocks along Hollywood Boulevard, it’s free, it’s a public footpath and it’s open all the time.

Let your teenager hunt for their own star rather than you finding it for them. The searching is the activity. Give them the name, point them at the right block, and let them go.

The TCL Chinese Theatre sits in the middle of it, and the forecourt holds handprints and footprints pressed into concrete going back to 1927. The Harry Potter cast left wand imprints, which is the one our girls went looking for first.

A note on expectations. Hollywood Boulevard is grubbier than the films suggest. Costumed characters will ask you for money for photos. Around Oscars season, sections get boarded up for the ceremony build. It’s still worth doing once, and going in with the right expectation is what makes it fun rather than disappointing.

12. Do the Hollywood behind the scenes walking tour

This is the one that turned my opinion on Hollywood around, and I want to be specific about why.

We’d walked the boulevard and I’d found it tacky. Then we did a guided walking tour with a local guide who took us through the history of the buildings we’d just walked past, what happened in them, who worked there, what the industry was actually like. And the same street stopped being a tourist strip and started being a place.

For a teenager with any interest in film, this is the highest value two hours in Hollywood.

Practical. Book ahead, wear proper shoes, and go in the morning before the heat. Maybe do this before you plan for anything else, as you may no longer need to do it, or you may discover something else you want to do after.

13. Take a tour of the movie star homes

We tried the self-guided version once with a map and it was a disaster. The guided open top van version was much better.

You get up into Bel Air, along Mulholland Drive, and out over the valleys and the gated communities of Beverly Hills. It’s beautiful, and it did more to make me appreciate LA than anything else we did.

It also produced my favorite line of any trip. Kalyra decided she’d one day own a house like Beyoncé and Jay Z’s, with a guest house for her Mumma. I’m holding her to it.

Practical. Open top vans mean sun. Hats and sunscreen. About 2 hours. Here is an open van tour of the Hollywood homes. We also did a celebrity homes tour of Malibu which we also enjoyed.

14. Do the Warner Bros Studio Tour Hollywood

This is where Friends was filmed for 10 years. Not in New York. At the end of the tour you sit on the couch in the recreated Central Perk, and more than 20 years after the finale people still queue for it.

The Harry Potter archive section is the reason to bring a teenager. Original costumes, props, and the sorting hat, which sorted our two into Gryffindor, put me in Hufflepuff and landed Craig in Slytherin. Make of that what you will.

The lot is a working studio, so what’s filming changes constantly. Ask your guide what’s in production the week you visit. That’s the part you can’t get from a guidebook.

Practical. The Warner Bros Studio tour is recommended for ages 8 and up, so no issue at all with teenagers. It’s the most expensive studio tour in LA and it’s the best one. About 3 hours. Book well ahead.

15. Hike Griffith Park for the Hollywood Sign views

I fell in love with Griffith Park. It’s one of the largest urban wilderness parks in the United States, it has over 50 miles of trails, and it’s free.

We did the Mt Hollywood summit trail, a 4 mile loop, and the views from the top were spectacular. You look out over the whole basin, and on a clear day you can see all the way to the ocean.

The thing to be clear about with teenagers. You cannot walk up to the Hollywood Sign itself as there is no legal trail to the letters. What you can do is get close enough for a very good photo, and Griffith Park is where you do it. Set that expectation in the car before you start walking, because a teenager who thinks they’re going to stand next to the sign is going to be annoyed at the top of a hill in the heat.

Practical. Free. Go early, because there’s very little shade on those trails and the LA sun is unforgiving by 11am. About a 20-minute drive from Downtown. Bring more water than feels sensible.

16. Visit Griffith Observatory after dark

Go at night. This place in LA great for teens is all about the starry skies.

Griffith Observatory is free to enter, it sits on the side of Mount Hollywood below the sign, and after sunset you get the whole city laid out below you in lights, plus public telescopes you can actually look through. The Samuel Oschin Planetarium runs shows for a separate ticket.

It was closed the day we hiked past it, which I’m still annoyed about.

Practical. Free admission. Closed Mondays. Open until 10pm Tuesday through Sunday, which is what makes the night visit possible. Parking nearby is paid and fills up, so go on a weeknight rather than a Saturday if you have the choice.

17. Hike Runyon Canyon

Short, paved, steep in places, and one of the most accessible hikes in LA. It’s also one of the busiest, full of runners and dogs and people who look like they’re on the way to an audition.

We came in from the Mulholland Drive side and walked to a couple of different viewpoints, spending a decent amount of time spying on Katy Perry’s swimming pool. We knew which house was hers thanks to the celebrity homes tour we’d done the week before, which felt like cheating and we did it anyway.

Practical. An hour or two. No shade to speak of. Street parking around the Fuller Avenue entrance is difficult, so allow time.

18. Hike in Malibu Creek State Park

The absolute highlight of our week in LA, and one of my favorite state parks anywhere.

It’s over 8,000 acres, it was owned by 20th Century Fox for decades, and MASH was filmed here. You can walk out to the old set site, where some of the rusted vehicles are still sitting in the grass. For a teenager, that combination of a proper hike and an actual film location does the job that neither would do alone.

There were two other people in the park the day we went.

Practical. Pair it with the Pacific Coast Highway drive back down into Santa Monica, which is one of the great drives in America. Take food, because there isn’t much out there.

19. Eat your way through Grand Central Market

The Grand Central Market is in Downtown LA and has been open since 1917. About 40 food stalls under one roof.

This is where you hand your teenager some cash and let them go and choose. It’s an easy independence exercise in LA, because they can’t get lost, everything is in one hall, and there’s Thai and Mexican and Salvadoran and ramen and a stall that’s been making egg sandwiches since the building opened. (They’re also very good!)

A food tour is worth considering here too. Several operators run guided tours of the market and the surrounding Downtown blocks, and a guide who can tell your teenager which stall has been there since 1917 and why turns lunch into the activity rather than the gap between activities. Here is one option for a food tour at the markets and this food tour also includes a stop at the Last Bookstore.

Practical. Go for an early lunch. It’s packed by 1pm. The Angels Flight funicular runs right across the street and costs $1 each way for a 298-foot ride, which is the shortest railway in the world and takes about a minute. Do it, it’s silly and it’s a dollar. If your teen is a book lover, I highly recommend visit to the Last Bookstore in Downtown LA. Our girls both loved it, as did I! Get your photo in the book hole! You can see more in our guide to Downtown LA.

20. Do a food tour at the Original Farmers Market and shop The Grove

The Original Farmers Market has been at 3rd and Fairfax since 1934 and it’s one of the few old pieces of Los Angeles still doing its original job. Over 100 grocers, restaurants and stalls under open-sided roofs, and a sign that just says “Meet Me at 3rd & Fairfax”, which tells you how long it’s been a meeting point.

I’ll be straight about my own reaction. I didn’t love it as much the second time, and I think that’s because I’ve since been to a lot of farmers markets around the world and it stopped feeling rare to me. That’s my problem, not the market’s. For a teenager who hasn’t done that, it lands.

The reason it’s in a LA with teens guide. There are guided food tours that run through the market, and a food tour is one of the few structured activities a teenager will actually engage with, because it’s eating and walking rather than looking and listening. Savannah loves food tours and asks for them by name. She was disappointed I did not include one on our recent San Francisco trip. On Craig’s trip with her to NYC they incorporated a lot of food experiences she had saved from Tik Tok.

And The Grove is right next door, which is the other half of why this pairs well. Open-air shopping, a fountain that does a show, and a trolley running between the two. You can hand your teenager an hour and a budget and go sit down. You may even spot a celebrity here and at the farmers market.

Practical. Free to walk into. The market is busiest at lunch. Book a food tour ahead rather than turning up hoping. Here is a food tour of the markets and West Hollywood (that also incorporates history) Parking is validated in the area but the terms change, so check on the day.

21. Sing karaoke in Koreatown

Koreatown covers about 2.7 square miles and some of it doesn’t sleep. Private karaoke rooms are the standard here rather than singing in front of strangers, which is exactly right for a teenager who would rather die than perform in a bar.

You book a room by the hour, you get a screen and microphones and your own door that shuts, and your family embarrasses itself in private. Korean fried chicken afterwards.

Practical. Book ahead on a weekend. Rooms are charged by the hour and by room size. Many venues are all ages until later in the evening, so go early with teens and check the policy when you book.

Is Los Angeles good for teenagers?

I found LA overrated on our early trips and I said so. What changed my mind was going enough times to stop trying to see the city and start seeing the neighborhoods. LA isn’t one place. It’s 88 incorporated cities pretending to be one, and once you stop expecting it to behave like a city with a center, it gets a lot better.

For teenagers specifically, it’s one of the best destinations in America. Some may think the thrill rides are the best in the country. The film industry connection makes abstract ambition feel real in a way no other city manages. And there’s enough variety that a family with a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old can both find their trip in the same week. And if you have younger kids mixed in with the older, they’ll also be entertained in LA.

Where to stay in LA with teens

Universal City or Burbank if theme parks are your focus. You’re close to Universal, closer to Magic Mountain, and out of the worst of the coastal traffic. See options for Universal City here. and Airbnb rental options here.

Manhattan Beach or Hermosa Beach if beaches and surfing are the focus. This is where we go now. It’s 10 to 15 minutes from LAX, the promenade is walkable, and there’s enough going on that teenagers can have some freedom. Hotel choice is limited, so a rental may work better. See options for hotels here and Manhattan Beach Airbnb rental options here

Hollywood if this is a first trip and the film stuff is the priority. Walkable to the boulevard, close to Griffith Park, and a reasonable base for everything else. See Hollywood hotel options here and Airbnb rental options here.

Downtown LA if you want the Broad, Grand Central Market, and a proper city feel. It’s improved a lot and the food is the best in the city. We have a review on the Hotel Indigo in Downtown LA (a chain we love) See more Downtown LA hotel options here and here are Airbnb options for Downtown LA.

Read more: Where To Stay In Los Angeles: The Best Neighborhoods & Hotels!

How to get around Los Angeles with teens

Rent a car. LA is a driving city and everything in this guide assumes you have one.

Rough drive times from LAX and add half again in rush hour: Manhattan and Hermosa Beach 10 to 15 minutes. Santa Monica and Venice 25 to 35. Downtown 30 to 45. Hollywood 35 to 50. Universal City and Burbank 45 minutes to an hour. Six Flags Magic Mountain is about an hour and a half from the coast.

Parking runs roughly $6 to $18 at the beaches, cheaper around Melrose, and paid at Griffith Observatory.

Metro Bike Share runs about $1.75 for 30 minutes or $5 for a day pass, which is a reasonable way to let older teenagers cover a neighborhood on their own.

NOTE: Prices can change, so do your due diligence in case they have increased since publishing this post. We stay on top of it as best we can, but nothing is guaranteed.

How to save money on LA attractions with teens

The biggest saving on attractions in LA is the Go City attraction discount pass, which bundles a large number of the attractions in this guide. It works out well if you’re doing three or more paid things.

Beyond that: the Broad is free. Griffith Park is free. Griffith Observatory is free. Runyon Canyon is free. The Walk of Fame is free. Venice skate park is free. Melrose murals are free. LA sunsets are free. You could build four very good days in LA with teenagers without paying for a single attraction, which is not true of most American cities.

Buy theme park tickets online in advance, always. Gate prices are the worst price.

If you go, come back and tell me what your teenager made of Magic Mountain. Mine would have lost their minds, and I’d like to know whether yours did.

Here are a few more tips for a visit to LA: A3 Day Los Angeles Itinerary, Unmissable Things to Do in Los Angeles, Non-Touristy Things to Do in Los Angeles, and Exciting Road Trips from Los Angeles: Maps & Itineraries