Hidden Southern California: Including Los Angeles, Hollywood, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Palm Springs (Hidden Travel)

By Ray Riegert

Book Overview

Hidden guides combine unique travel choices, outdoor adventures and little-known locales into a guide where vacations meet adventures. Each guide includes detailed maps, complete internet information for each listing, highlighted author favorites, suggested itineraries and walking and driving tours. With so many famous places and hyped attractions, it's all too easy to get caught running (well, driving, actually) all over Southern California from one spot to the next. This guide tells how to get off the freeway and explore the boulevards and side streets of Los Angeles and San Diego as well the coast roads and inland desert highways. Hidden Southern California combines traditional attractions, including seven historic missions and eight theme parks, with outdoor adventures, including 123 beaches and parks, 270 hiking trails and 105 surfing spots. It provides selective recommendations for lodging in the city, along the coast and even in desert and mountain parks, including 15 beach cottages, 77 coastal inns and 13,193 campsites at 350 campgrounds. The author offers opinionated reviews of local restaurants including 14 Mexican, 14 Italian, 13 American diners, 8 California, 8 French, 7 bar and grills, 6 Japanese, 6 Chinese, 5 hamburger joints, 4 Thai, 4 Continental, 3 Indian and 2 Jewish delis, as well as Vietnamese, Caribbean, Columbian, Korean, Greek, Salvadoran, West African, Cajun, soul food, fresh seafood, Mediterranean, Argentine, Persian, Belgian and vegetarian (and that's just the first chapter on Los Angeles). The guide also contains special features on Los Angeles' historic Mexican public markets, Hollywood film making in action, the ultimate side trip south of the border and old-time Hollywood, including 15 historic theaters and a driving tour of old mansions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1569754039
• ISBN13: 9781569754030
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Ulysses Press
• Length: 616 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.9" x 1.3" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

Don't leave home without it...

I checked out several tour books before we left for our southern California vacation, but chose the Ray Riegert book for it's unique suggestions for food, lodging, and tourist site recommendations. The book is well organized. We followed the chapters from San Diego through the beach towns all the way to Los Angeles. We were delighted with all of the "hidden" restaurants that we tried. It helped that all of the information was current too. Riegert's suggestions for interesting routes and parks led us through some of the most beautiful country imaginable - places we would never have seen if it were not for this book. Hidden Southern California is a great resource that we will use again and again.

Good for the tourist or a new resident

This guide book covers all the bases, and even includes interesting historical digests of various districts in the Los Angeles area, the high desert and the low desert. The information is organized to assist tourists on short or longer visits, includes lots of "hidden" opportunities to eat, sightsee, or shop away from the beaten path, and is even helpful for a new resident to the L.A. area, who may not be sure where to start digesting this incredible city or the landscape around it. Highly recommended.

Excellent Guide to Southern California

This guide gave me all of the information I needed to have a wonderful vacation. The information was candid, and thoughtfully presented. There were many tidbits of information/ sights I would never had thought to see if it wasn't for this book. My vacation consisted of renting a car at LAX touring along the coast (stopping at places recommended in the guide) Heading down to San Diego and then returning to LAX by traveling inland and seeing Temecula etc. It was a fun filled 10 days and all I used was this guide. If you just want the basic tourist jargon, buy a Frommers guide, not a hidden one... :-)