Get Some Fun PCH Gifts Here

Los Angeles Travel Guide

With San Diego and Southern California

This Los Angeles Travel Guide from Lonely Planet also covers the most popular places in Southern California. The coverage ranges from Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park in the east through San Diego, Disneyland, and north along the California coast to take in Santa Barbara too.

Los Angeles at Night

If you’re planning to drive the Pacific Coast Highway then this guidebook will give you travel advice from San Diego and La Jolla at the southern end, through places like Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, then through Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Malibu, and as far north as Santa Barbara. That’s the place we always recommend as the ideal first night’s stop if you’re driving PCH north from Los Angeles.

And we have to admit we liked this book from the start, as right at the front the authors listed Driving the Pacific Coast Highway as one of the 25 Top Experiences covered in the guide.

Who Are Your Los Angeles Travel Guides?

So, if you are going to be driving this southern stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, and maybe taking in Disneyland or a side trip to Palm Springs, who will be your guides? It helps to know who’s holding your hand if you’re going on what might be the trip of a lifetime. Fortunately this guide is written by a bunch of knowledgeable people:

Adam Skolnick, a third-generation Los Angeleno who still lives in Santa Monica.
Sara Benson, who has written for The Los Angeles Times and contributed to several other Lonely Planet California guides.
Andrew Bender, who moved to LA twenty years ago, and stayed, and who has also written for The Los Angeles Times and other Lonely Planet California guidebooks.

Travel Advice

There was a time when guides like Lonely Planet and Rough Guides were aimed squarely at the budget traveler, and you could expect them to be snarky about unashamedly touristy places like Disneyland. Not any more. After all, tourists buy guidebooks!

This guide has a good Disneyland section, with almost twenty pages, which should be more than enough if Disneyland is on your itinerary, although if Disneyland is your main reason for visiting California, you’ll want to get a special guide like the excellent and thorough Unofficial Guide to Disneyland.

Hotels and Restaurants

So how good will this guide be when you’re both planning and making your trip? Well, both hotels and restaurants are thoroughly covered and when we checked their reviews of places we’ve stayed at or eaten in ourselves, we found them spot-on. We didn’t always agree with their verdicts, but we could certainly tell that they’d been to the places and were giving their own opinions.

The reviews were brief, but informative and useful. You could certainly rely on the book for advice when you’re choosing where to stay and where to eat.

Is It Worth Buying?

Definitely worth buying, if you’re traveling around in the areas covered but don’t want to buy a hefty guide to the whole of California and only use 25% of it. If you’re only planning to see LA, get a dedicated LA guide.

If you’re visiting LA and Disneyland, say, then buy two dedicated guides. But if you’re doing more sightseeing than that in Southern California, this will be a very useful companion both before and during your trip.

Other books pages

Santa Barbara Guidebook
The Santa Barbara Guidebook from Moon Handbooks also covers California’s Central Coast with Ventura, San Luis Obispo, wine country, and Hearst Castle.
California Backroads
Some of the best California Backroads are included in Backroads of the California Coast, with 24 highly recommended driving tours off the Pacific Coast Highway.
John Steinbeck California Guide
This John Steinbeck California Guide, A Journey into Steinbeck's California, shows readers how towns like Monterey, Carmel and Salinas influenced the author.
Frommer's Guide to Seattle
The Frommer's Guide to Seattle has good information about the city and side excursions to the Olympic National Park and elsewhere, plus free city and area map.
Cannery Row in Monterey
To John Steinbeck Monterey's Cannery Row was a place of sardine canneries, bums and honky tonks, but today the Monterey Aquarium attracts visitors.
Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip Guide
Pacific Coast Highway Travel reviews the Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip Guide book covering the drive from Vancouver to San Diego.
California Bed and Breakfast Inns
The guide to California Bed and Breakfast Inns lists over 250 boutique hotels, wine country cottages and more.
West Coast RV Parks
One of the best guides to West Coast RV Parks, covering campgrounds in California, Oregon, and Washington, is West Coast RV Camping from Moon Guides.
Napa and Sonoma Guidebook
The Napa and Sonoma Guidebook to California Wine Country is from the Moon Handbooks’ travel guide series with reviews of wineries,vineyards, and wine tastings.
Epic Drives of the World
Epic Drives of the World from Lonely Planet describes 50 of the world's most exciting road trips, including, of course, the Pacific Coast Highway.
Olympic Peninsula Travel Guide
Pacific Coast Highway Travel reviews an Olympic Peninsula Travel Guide published by the Beautiful Pacific Northwest website.
Books About the Pacific Coast Highway
Books About the Pacific Coast Highway in California, Oregon and Washington including travel guidebooks, route guides, restaurant guides, and many more.
Gardens Of the Pacific Coast Highway
Plant lovers can visit hundreds of gardens along or near the Pacific Coast Highway,ranging from lush gardens in the Pacific North-West to southern California.
California Camping Book Review
Pacific Coast Highway Travel's California Camping book review rates the 20th anniversary edition of Moon's complete guide to over 1400 tent and RV campgrounds.
Soul of Los Angeles
Soul of Los Angeles from French publishers Jonglez is a travel guide to 30 Exceptional Experiences in California's largest city.
Pacific Coast Highway Road Trips: Lonely Planet Guidebook Review
Review of the Pacific Coast Highway Road Trips book from Lonely Planet, which includes a California Driving Guide, by the Pacific Coast Highway Travel website.
Free San Francisco Kindle Guide to Free Attractions
101 free San Francisco attractions and things to do are in the Kindle guide, 101 Free Things to Do in San Francisco, in the Travel Free eGuidebooks series.
Greetings from California
Greetings from California is a beautiful coffee-table book which describes the legends, landmarks and lore of California, including the Pacific Coast Highway.
Culture Trails
Pacific Coast Highway Travel reviews the book Culture Trails by Lonely Planet, which has a section on Vintage Hollywood alongside 51 other perfect weekends.
California Coast Guide
One of the best California coast guides is the California Coastal Access Guide, describing the coast’s beaches, National Parks, State Parks, with many maps.
California Living and Eating
California Living and Eating by Eleanor Maidment is a handsome coffee table book celebrating the food and lifestyle of the Golden State with 80 tasty recipes.
Cycling the USA West Coast
Lonely Planet's Guide to Cycling the USA West Coast is a bicycling guidebook for anyone touring California, Oregon and Washington by bike.
Pacific Coast Highway Guides. Book and ebook hotel guides to PCH
Pacific Coast Highway guides include our own printed book and ebook guides to the best hotels along the PCH, available in paperback, PDF and Kindle formats.
Washington State Travel Guide
The Washington State travel guide from Frommer's covers hotels in Seattle, driving the Pacific Coast Highway, Olympic National Park, where to eat and more.
Green Guide USA West
The Green Guide to the USA West from Michelin covers California, the Pacific North West, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and even Kansas and Alaska.