The city
Twenty minutes in the air is the shortest expensive thing you will do all week, and the rest of the day is yours. The useful trick is to spend it on the ground under the places you have just flown over, because you will recognise all of them and the city stops being an unmapped sprawl.
Quick answer
Fly in the morning, then go to Griffith Observatory in the afternoon. You will have seen the whole basin from above, and the view from the observatory terrace suddenly reads as a map rather than a haze. It is free to enter, it is twenty minutes from Burbank, and it is the single best thing to put after a helicopter ride Los Angeles operators fly out of the valley.
Eight things to put around the flight
The recognition is the point. Everything here is somewhere the flight passes over.
Free to enter, on the ridge you flew along, with the Hollywood Sign across the canyon and the whole basin below. Park early or take the shuttle; the road fills by mid-afternoon.
You saw the white shell in its canyon from the air. From the ground it is a summer evening with a picnic on your knees.
The backlot you flew over is the thing the studio tour drives you through. The streets, the plane crash set and the tanks all read completely differently once you have seen the layout from above.
The Ferris wheel at the end of Route 66 and the last lit thing before the Pacific on a night flight. Walk out to the end and look back at the city you just crossed.
On its own ridge above the 405, free to enter, with a tram up the hill. Travertine, gardens and one of the best views of the basin from any building in the city.
On its hill at Chavez Ravine, unmistakable from the air. A game there is the most local thing on this list.
Downtown at street level, under the flat-topped towers. The Broad is free but timed — reserve ahead.
If you want to walk toward the Hollywood Sign after flying past its face. About three hours round trip, and it ends at the fence behind the letters, which is exactly why the flight exists.
Planning the day around the airfield
The airfield decides the afternoon more than the flight does.
Van Nuys or Burbank. You are in the San Fernando Valley. Universal Studios and Universal CityWalk are fifteen minutes away, Griffith Observatory twenty, and the Warner Bros studio tour is in Burbank itself. This is the easiest afternoon to build.
Long Beach. The Queen Mary is moored in the harbour you just flew over, the Aquarium of the Pacific is on the waterfront, and Belmont Shore is a short drive. Do not plan to be in Hollywood afterwards.
Torrance. The South Bay: Manhattan Beach, Hermosa, Redondo and the cliffs at Palos Verdes. The best beach afternoon available from any of these airfields.
Fullerton. Orange County. Disneyland is twenty minutes away and central Los Angeles is an hour and a quarter in traffic, so treat it as a different day out entirely.
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A morning helicopter ride Los Angeles over Hollywood, the short Sign flight, the coast, and the evening.
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One route through a single day
Fly at ten, observatory at three, and the city lit at nine.
8:30 am. Arrive at Burbank for a ten o’clock slot. Check in, weigh in, briefing.
10:00 am. Twenty minutes over the Hollywood Sign, Griffith Observatory, Universal and Beverly Hills. The marine layer has lifted and the air has not yet hazed.
11:30 am. Universal CityWalk or the Warner Bros tour, fifteen minutes away.
3:00 pm. Drive up to Griffith Observatory. Park before four. Stand on the terrace and find the Sign, the reservoir, the Bowl and Downtown — all of which you saw from the other direction this morning.
Sunset. Stay for it on the lawn. It is free, it is crowded and it is the view the whole city is named for.
Evening. If one flight was not enough, the thirty-minute night flight at $299 leaves after dark and shows you the same basin as a grid of light.
Griffith Observatory is free, and it is the same view you just had, from underneath.
When to fly→Common questions
Griffith Observatory. It is free, it is twenty minutes from Burbank, and the basin you have just flown across reads as a map from its terrace.
From a distance, yes — Griffith Observatory and Lake Hollywood Park both look at it. You cannot reach the letters themselves on foot; the trails end above and behind them.
Allow half a day around a twenty-minute flight: the drive to the airfield, forty-five minutes of check-in and weigh-in, the flight, and the drive back.
Effectively yes. All the tour airfields are on the edges of the county and the rail network does not reach most of them usefully.
If you fly from Burbank or Van Nuys, yes — it is fifteen minutes away and you will have just seen the backlot from above, which changes how the tour reads.
The Griffith Observatory lawn at sunset. It costs nothing, it is busy, and it is the view the postcards use.
Which part of the city to stay in
The valley for the Sign, the South Bay for the coast.
Hollywood, Los Feliz or Studio City. Twenty to thirty minutes from Burbank and Van Nuys, which is where almost every helicopter ride Los Angeles over the Hollywood Sign leaves from. The easiest base if the Sign is your priority.
Santa Monica or Venice. Beautiful, and an hour from the valley airfields in traffic. Fine if you book a coastal helicopter ride Los Angeles out of the South Bay instead.
Downtown. Central for everything except the airfields. Allow forty-five minutes to Burbank and do not book the first slot of the morning.
Anaheim. Fullerton is twenty minutes away and central Los Angeles is not. Treat a helicopter ride Los Angeles as its own half day rather than as something you fit around a park.
Five things worth doing that are not the obvious ones
The famous list is famous for a reason. This is what goes next to it.
Downtown, in an old bank, and the most photographed staircase in the city that is not outdoors.
Film screenings on the lawn in summer, with the Paramount water tower behind the screen.
A headland at the north end of Malibu that you fly past on a coastal helicopter ride Los Angeles and that almost no visitor drives to.
Thirty-three years of one man’s work in steel and broken tile, in South Los Angeles.
A funicular railway one block long, Downtown, that has been closed and reopened more times than anybody can remember.
Go deeper
From $159 for ten minutes, and what the hour buys.
The SignNo road, no public access. Why the air is the only front-on view.
The verdictFourteen listings, and the four worth your money.
At nightTwo listings, and a completely different city underneath.
DowntownThe towers, the stadiums and the basin they stand on.
PrivateFrom $640 for the aircraft, and when it works.
Hollywood & Beverly Hills Celebrity Helicopter Tour
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