Where to stay in Los Angeles: eight areas, who each suits, and where our hotels sit

Santa Monica is a city of its own and the easiest first base in Los Angeles: the beach at the end of the street, a downtown you can walk, and the rest of the city a drive inland. The pier stays open while its 1939 bridge is replaced, until late 2027, and Third Street Promenade has been closed to cars since 1965.

From Ocean Avenue at Colorado Avenue, by the pier, the Promenade is 7 minutes on foot and Downtown Santa Monica station 6, where the E Line starts its 47-minute run to 7th Street/Metro Center Downtown. Venice is the southern end of the same beach, with Ocean Front Walk, its canals and Abbot Kinney Boulevard, 47 minutes' walk or 7 by car off-peak; none of our ten is there.

Shutters on the Beach's front building stands on the sand at 1 Pico Boulevard: from about $740 a night on an early December Tuesday, plus a $60 resort fee and $90 valet, for a beach-first trip. Santa Monica Proper fills a 1928 city landmark and a new building with Kelly Wearstler interiors and a rooftop pool, 17 to 19 minutes' walk from the sand: from about $585, plus a $55 destination fee, for design lovers. Add 15% tax and $7.25 a room a night ($11.25 at Shutters). LAX is 19 minutes by car, off-peak.

Hollywood is the Los Angeles of the films: more than 2,700 Walk of Fame stars along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, the TCL Chinese Theatre's forecourt and the Dolby Theatre, home of the Oscars. Further west, the Sunset Strip is the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) stretch of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood from Crescent Heights Boulevard to Doheny Drive: music venues, comedy clubs and restaurants.

From the TCL forecourt, Hollywood/Highland station is 3 minutes on foot, Musso & Frank 8 and the Hollywood Bowl's entrance 20, uphill. The B Line reaches Universal City/Studio City in 4 minutes and 7th Street/Metro Center in 17. By car off-peak, the Comedy Store on the Strip is 7 minutes and Santa Monica Pier 24.

The Hollywood Roosevelt faces the TCL across the boulevard: from $235 on an early December Tuesday, the lowest rate of our ten, plus a $37 destination fee and $79 valet, with a pool that is a scene and a boulevard busy into the night. Sunset Tower, the 1931 Art Deco tower on the Strip, is 3 minutes' walk from the Comedy Store, with no station within walking distance: from about $595, plus a $52.43 amenity fee and $75 valet, for old Hollywood and cocktail evenings. LAX is 30 and 27 minutes by car, Hollywood Burbank 17 and 22, all off-peak.

Beverly Hills is a city of its own, known the world over for the shops of Rodeo Drive and its palm-lined streets of big houses. Beverly Gardens Park, 18 acres with a rose garden and the Beverly Hills sign, runs along Santa Monica Boulevard.

From Rodeo Drive at Wilshire Boulevard, the sign is 11 minutes on foot and The Beverly Hills Hotel 29. Everything else is a drive, here off-peak: the Walk of Fame 12 minutes, the Getty Center 13 and Santa Monica Pier 15. The D Line has reached Wilshire/La Cienega, on the city's eastern edge, since May 2026, but that is 32 minutes' walk from Rodeo Drive.

The Beverly Hills Hotel, on Sunset Boulevard, opened in 1912 and has been pink since 1948, and in 2012 it became the City of Beverly Hills's first historic landmark; the Polo Lounge and a pool of striped loungers and pink cabanas are the reason to come. Rooms start at about $1,090 on an early December Tuesday, with no resort fee but roughly 15.5 to 16% tax and $70 a day to park; a house car runs guests within three miles at set hours. It suits a first trip, an anniversary or a family that wants a pool with a story. LAX is 26 minutes by car, off-peak.

Downtown is the hub of the city's rail system: six square miles with Grand Central Market, open since 1917, the museums and concert halls of Bunker Hill, and L.A. Live and Crypto.com Arena in South Park. Discover Los Angeles, the tourism board, says there is no need to rent a car here.

From 7th Street/Metro Center, Crypto.com Arena is 13 minutes on foot, Grand Central Market 15, and The Broad and Walt Disney Concert Hall 18 each. The A, B, D and E Lines all stop here: the B reaches Hollywood/Highland in 17 minutes and Universal City/Studio City in 21, and the E runs to Downtown Santa Monica in 47.

Hotel Figueroa, opened in 1926 as a YWCA hotel for women travelling alone and restored in its Spanish Colonial Revival style, is two minutes' walk from the Grammy Museum and nine from 7th Street/Metro Center. Rooms start at about $260 on an early December Tuesday, plus a $35 amenity fee; guests must be 21 to check in, and the courtyard pool runs from 4 to 8 feet deep. It suits concert nights, Convention Center weeks and a first trip on Metro. The cost is event nights, when Figueroa Street fills and rates climb, as for the Grammys on 7 February 2027. LAX is 26 minutes by car, off-peak.

Over the hills from Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley, Studio City takes its name from CBS Studio Center, and its restaurants line Ventura Boulevard. Next door, Universal City is Universal Studios Hollywood, a working film studio and theme park, with the shops and restaurants of CityWalk at its gate.

From Universal City/Studio City station, on the B Line, the park's entrance is 12 minutes on foot; Hollywood/Highland is 4 minutes down the line and 7th Street/Metro Center 21. By car off-peak, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour is 7 minutes, the Hollywood Bowl 8 and the TCL Chinese Theatre 9.

The Garland stands on seven tree-shaded acres on Vineland Avenue, 17 minutes' walk from the station: a 1972 hotel of six- and seven-storey wings with a pool, bunk-bed family suites and a free trolley to Universal Studios Hollywood and CityWalk, on the hour from 8am to 10pm except at 1pm and 3pm. Rooms start at about $275 on an early December Tuesday; add a $37.20 hotel worker protection fee, a $1.75 environmental fee and parking from $50. The 101 freeway runs along one edge of the grounds, and some rooms hear it. It suits a family going to Universal. Hollywood Burbank Airport is 12 minutes away by car and LAX 34, both off-peak.

Silver Lake takes its name from its twin reservoirs. Walt Disney had his first large studio here from 1925 to 1939, and the neighbourhood is now known for its art and music scenes, its restaurants and its bars and boutiques. Its cafés, bars and independent shops cluster around Sunset Junction, where Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards meet.

From Sunset Junction, Silver Lake Pool & Inn is 4 minutes on foot, Vermont/Santa Monica station 16 and the recreation centre at the south end of the reservoir 24. The B Line from Vermont/Santa Monica reaches Hollywood/Highland in 9 minutes and 7th Street/Metro Center in 9. By car off-peak, Grand Central Market Downtown is 10 minutes and Griffith Observatory 11.

Silver Lake Pool & Inn is a 1980s motel reworked into a 54-room hotel, with a small pool on a flagstone deck a floor above the street and the Marco Polo trattoria a flight of stairs below. Rooms start at about $425 on a December weeknight; allow for a $30 nightly resort fee plus tax, and $35 valet plus tax. The walls are thin, and street-side rooms hear Santa Monica Boulevard into the night. It suits couples and friends who want to eat, drink and walk, and second trips. LAX is 32 minutes away by car and Hollywood Burbank 19, both off-peak.

Malibu is a beach town strung along Pacific Coast Highway, and its state beaches, Point Dume's tide pools and the boutiques of the Malibu Country Mart are what people come for. Waking up here means the sea, and little else on foot.

From the foot of Malibu Pier, the Adamson House is 7 minutes on foot, Nobu Malibu 11 and the Country Mart 18. Everything else is a drive: off-peak, the Getty Villa, free with a timed reservation and closed on Tuesdays, is 15 minutes, and Santa Monica Pier 21. Allow longer: since the 2025 fire, Caltrans has run the highway from Sunset Boulevard to Carbon Beach Terrace as a 25 mph work zone, with single-lane closures possible from 9am to 3pm on weekdays, and no Metro train comes this far.

Malibu Beach Inn is 47 rooms on Carbon Beach, four minutes' walk east of the pier, each with a balcony and all but a handful looking straight out to the Pacific; the sea-facing rooms are sunrise rooms. There is no pool and no spa, and the highway runs behind the building, where some guests hear the traffic. Rooms start at about $755 before Malibu's 15% hotel tax, with valet at $40, for an anniversary or two quiet nights. LAX is 38 minutes by car, off-peak.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula closes Santa Monica Bay to the south, a coast of bluffs and nature preserve. From the Point Vicente Interpretive Center, the city's museum on the bluffs, the grey whale migration can be seen from December to April, and the museum opens daily from 10am to 5pm; the 1926 Point Vicente Lighthouse beside it opens its grounds on the second Saturday of each month.

From the Interpretive Center, the lighthouse is 7 minutes on foot and Terranea's lobby 24. Everything else is a drive, here off-peak: Redondo Beach Pier 19 minutes, 7th Street/Metro Center Downtown 46, Santa Monica Pier 48 and the Walk of Fame 57. No Metro train reaches the peninsula.

Terranea spreads 582 rooms, suites, casitas and villas over 102 acres of the Long Point headland, with four pools, one of them adults-only for over-21s, a spa, a nine-hole par-3 course and a guided Saturday hike to the lighthouse. Rooms start at about $725 on an early December Tuesday, plus a $75 resort fee and $75 valet; Rancho Palos Verdes adds 10% tax, and on 3 November 2026 its voters decide on Measure RS, which would make it 13%. It suits a resort week with a car, for families or couples. LAX is 35 minutes away by car, off-peak.