PODCAST 17: SANTA MONICA, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

by Gary Bembridge · February 14, 2006

listen to the podcast: click here

Join me on the Baywatch Babe’s beach for a bit of hot body spotting as we head down to Santa Monica, California.

Around 30 minutes drive from Los Angeles LAX airport; it is easy to think of the city of Santa Monica as just part of the massive sprawling Los Angles metropolis. And, I guess, at just 30 minutes drive from the airport with the reputation of the terrible and slow traffic in the city that makes Santa Monica almost obscenely close by.

It is, of course, hard to really tell where Los Angeles ends and the various cities and areas that surround it start and end – although as you sweep down the very wide, very clean and very scrubbed Santa Monica boulevards you do feel you have stepped out of the gritty and real world that is Los Angeles into a slightly sanitized world – large parts of which feel like a backlot in a movie theme park.

Maybe that’s because the streets and shops have been in a multitude of films and TV shows, including the world famous and one of the most watched TV series of all time (Baywatch), or maybe it’s just because they just quite simply look like they all are temporary and been created to create a look of a gentrified, but trendy and funky emerging town populated by young, slim and the up-and-coming.

The city has developed a pedestrian area of a series of roads a few back from the sea roads that are chock full of designer stores ranging from Sephora through Abercrombie and Fitch to a dazzling Apple store. There are a large amount of trendy restaurants, all full of trendy, young things that seem to have the money to blow on the fairly high prices of drinks and food. This is a city of money, that is clear.

So just what is there to do in Santa Monica?

Here are my tips for travellers visiting Santa Monica:s

TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS TO SANTA MONICA:

1) Go for the beach scene, not for the “culture”. If you get bored of the beach you will get bored here. No real “culture”, fairly good shopping, lot of good restaurants..

2) Stay near the beach – check out tripadvisor for the hotel for you! And what is good and what is not at the moment
Top-Rated Hotels:

3) Use it as a base for a LA trip as good connections to long beach, hollywood, parks etc. It is pretty and quiet. and easy for airport

4) If you need art visit the Bergamot Arts Station
http://www.bergamotstation.com/
http://www.frommers.com/destinations/losangeles/A32051.html

5) if you need some entertainment there are 20 movie screens in town of the fun santa monica pier
http://www.santamonicapier.org/
http://www.playlandarcade.com/
http://www.healthebay.org/smpa/

6) Shopping is all around th 3rd avenue pedestrian area
http://www.thirdstreetpromenade.com/

7) You must visit the famous muscle beach

8) The Palisades Park runs between ocean drive and beach – and you will regonize it from baywatch as you will the beaches
http://santa-monica.org/osm/park_facil.htm

9) If a one off trip….. consider a long weekend break.. it’s not a long stay.

WHERE I STAYED
Fairmont Santa Monica
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g33052-d82065-Reviews-The_Fairmont_Miramar_Hotel_Santa_Monica-Santa_Monica_California.html

Video of my room; TBC
Pictures: TBC