Archive: Travel

Trump's orders to block refugees and travelers from Muslim countries - even U.S. legal residents - caught Homeland Security by surprise. Protesters and lawyers flooded the airport.

The mega airport is such a vital and vulnerable piece of our infrastructure that it employs two anti-terrorism experts with top-secret clearances.

Bob Hope has been a dumb name for an airport for 12 years. So they are going with Hollywood Burbank (again.)

The proprietors of Traveler's Bookcase on West 3rd Street announced to customers via email that they are in the process of shutting down. The closing clearance sale begins today and...

Henry Weinstein is traveling in Vietnam and ran into the one LA media person you might hope to see in Hanoi.

Units that are really just vacation rental businesses will no longer be allowed to take in paying guests unless the resident is there too.

Joe Mathews writes that the airline that once made getting around the state so easy is becoming a big disappointment -- and making him rethink Gov. Brown's favorite rail project.

The New York Times' Fashion and Style section deems it an actual trend and pegs the coverage to Leo DiCaprio buying the old Dinah Shore estate.

Here's as sure a sign as any about the extent of the California snowfall drought.

Forty-five minutes before landing, the pilot asked the cabin to remain seated when they reached Los Angeles so the military escort could deplane first. He also warned passengers not to be alarmed by the fire trucks. The LAFD, he said, greets all fallen soldiers with a water cannon salute.

David Allen, the columnist for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, recently went on vacation in Northern California. For him, nine days on the road means stops at record stores and bookstores.

A tentative deal between the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency and its two largest unions will end the latest transit strike there after four days.

For the first time since the Rim fire was at its peak, travelers can drive between the Eastern Sierra and the heart of Yosemite National Park.

KCET columnist Elson Trinidad relates to LA's mess of an airport as an Ellis Island of the Pacific where his father first set foot on American soil in 1969, and where he and his friends regularly arrive back home from Asian travels.

You won't be able to go between the Eastern Sierra and Yosemite Valley starting at noon Wednesday. Fire suppression efforts will be going on along the high country road. The fire has now burned across 184,481 acres.

Oakland Fox affiliate KTVU has reportedly dismissed at least three veteran producers after an internal investigation into how the station's news anchor read obviously fake names on the air, calling them the pilots of the Asiana Airlines flight that crashed at San Francisco's airport this month.

Since the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport, there has been a lot of curiosity about the landing approach at SFO. You come in low over water — many times I have wondered if we were a little too close to the bay. Video inside.

We have a new example of Vin Scully showing why he's a Los Angeles treasure. Plus: LA Observed takes a trip to the ballpark in San Francisco.

CNN posted video of the Asiana crash at San Francisco Airport provided by a man who was recording the landing from about a mile across the bay. It shows the flight from Korea approaching too low with its nose in the air, then the tail hitting the ground and the plane careening out of control in a cloud of smoke. Plus: Stupid (at best) Chicago headline.

An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 arriving from Seoul with 291 people aboard crashed at San Francisco International Airport about 11:30 a.m. Most of the passengers got off the plane safely, according to tweets.

"Dear Hollywood Wax Museum," says a story in Vice. "I recently visited your Los Angeles location and was exceptionally disappointed with what I saw...It was all of your waxworks. They look like something from the nightmares of a person who has been blind since birth and has no real concept of what human beings look like."

The daughter of BoingBoing editor Mark Frauenfelder was going through security with a school group at LAX on Sunday when a male TSA officer hissed at her, "You're only 15, COVER YOURSELF!" Not cool.

The Board of Airport Commissioners is expected on Tuesday to name the Antonio R. Villaraigosa Pavilion after the mayor who appointed them. I guess it's worth a chuckle that the pavilion is late and over budget.

Parents and five girls from Sweden was found walking on Sepulveda Boulevard near LAX at 4:30 a.m. on Friday. They were out of money after changing their return flight itineraries due to a health emergency at home.

Check out street scenes of London in 1927, in a nice soft color reminiscent of an old postcard, but in five minutes of moving images. The footage was shot by British film pioneer Claude Friese-Greene.

A milestone of spring in California — the opening of the Tioga Pass road through the backcountry of Yosemite National Park — will take place on the fourth earliest date since 1980.

A National Air Cargo 747 flying for the US Mobility Command stalled and crashed soon after taking off Monday from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Seven crew members died in the crash, which was caught on video. See it inside.

You visit it and have dinner and drinks served by former Pan Am flight attendants. Of course.

Elisa Lam was last seen in or around the Skid Row-adjacent tourist hotel on Jan. 31. Surveillance video appears to show her acting strangely, and today the body of a woman was reported on the roof.

Lynn Harrell, the international cello master who lives in Santa Monica, always buys a separate seat for his instrument on Delta flights. He's been accruing frequent flier miles for "Mr....

Writer Jeff Gordinier used to summer around Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, and spent some time there this summer for a New York Times Travel piece that ran this weekend.

Yongda Huang Harris caught the attention of Homeland Security agents at LAX — after his flight. I wonder if it was the bulletproof vest and flame retardant pants underneath his trench coat?

Before Santa Monica's 3rd Street shopping district hit the skids and was re-imagined as a pedestrian mall, it was the busy center of town. This photo was posted Sunday at the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page.

A New York Post real estate editor and travel writer have written a very readable travel piece on the "new" Los Angeles that transcends enthusiasm. It's actually savvy about some of the shifting cultural currents here.

The Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre's latest work, "Kiss n' Ride," will be performed inside the city's Van Nuys FlyAway Bus Terminal on Woodley Avenue.

The Santa Monica jury found that the Art Deco hotel on Ocean Avenue and its Muslim owner violated the rights of attendees at a Jewish gathering two years ago. Guests...

The former Marriott hotel on Figueroa and 3rd Street is now the "L.A. Hotel," and the former Kyoto Grand has become the DoubleTree by Hilton.

"Global L.A." debuts July 24 at 8 p.m. on KCET and will be "examining the region’s ties to a number of destinations and cultures around the world," the station says. Zay Harding will host.

The Los Angeles City Council today blocked the airport's plans to offer free wireless at LAX, complaining that the deal reached by airport officials did not pass the smell test. Not that it was really going to be like other cities' free wireless — you would likely have to watch an ad — but it sounded better than the $9.95 that T-Mobile charges LAX inmates now.

Free wireless service could be available to travelers at Los Angeles International Airport as soon as this summer. There's a catch, but it's still a big improvement over the current $10 T-Mobile fee.

Here are pictures of snow last night in historic Bodie, the preserved mining town in the Eastern Sierra near Bridgeport. The Tioga Road into Yosemite National Park reopened today after a weather closure.

Vanity Fair and "60 Minutes" conducted a little poll of Americans' answers to an eclectic set of questions you may not have known were pressing. The answers are fun to see.

The New York Times Travel section on Sunday offered a tour, with online slide show, of locations in the Los Angeles area that the late Julius Shulman photographed. "Shulman captured Los Angeles and its surroundings in the middle of the 20th century as the city was shedding its small-town roots and becoming an international capital."

The New York Times Travel section does Long Beach.

Caltrans work narrowed the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 in Banning Pass on Sunday afternoon and evening, creating a monster backup.

Oh sorry, it was just two British tourists on holiday. Were they sent home because of tweets?

Guest spot on 'Weekend Update' as the pilot that threw him off his AA flight at LAX.

I was told by City Hall late tonight that Villaraigosa's group did fly out to Chongqing without incident. Plus a fashion report on Lu Parker.

The state has taken the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve off the parks closure list.

Two SoCal nonprofits that campaign against plastic pollution are leading an expedition to the debris area, but it will cost you $13,000.

Mary Grady, the LAPD spokesperson for ten years until this past June, has been named Director of Public and Media Relations at Los Angeles World Airports.

The short news items on Sunday about an airliner being escorted into Detroit by Air Force fighters on the anniversary of 9/11 — "false alarm" — didn't do justice to...

The proposed Gayley at Wilshire would be wedged into an irregular-shaped-lot at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Gayley Avenue formerly occupied by a video store and gas station.

How LAX is planning for the worst weekend ever. Isn't it weird how the best job of covering the 405 freeway construction disruption so far hasn't been by any traditional media at all, but by the websites of Metro and of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky?

Limit travel and avoid mass gatherings " in areas where events could cause anti-American violence," the State Department strongly urges.

Author Anna Stothard, in the center of the photo, writes in the UK Guardian's Observer that "Los Angeles is more spectacular, and more unnerving, than its cliché suggests." She picks...

Not included in the Sofitel Hotel's pool shots: the big ol' shopping center right across the street.

Australia passed the United Kingdom and Japan to become the No. 1 feeder of overseas tourists to Los Angeles in 2010.

It figures that on the last day to get back in town for many Angelenos, Interstate 5 is closed by snow over The Grapevine.

Lee Linderman, a student at the USC Gould School of Law, writes a nice piece for Zocalo about searching for silence on a Thanksgiving visit to the Minnesota farmhouse where he grew up.

Mexican authorities advised Americans and anyone else going home to visit relatives for the holidays to drive in convoys — and only during daylight hours.

I'll be out of pocket most of the day. My posting will be lighter through the week. * Update: Went through LAX Terminal 3 this morning virtually without breaking stride,...

The mayor will be at Terminal 6 about noon to go through the scanner, as part of a photo op aimed at heading off chaos at the airport during the crazy Thanksgiving travel period.

The news site that's merging with Newsweek has rated LAX the fourth-best big U.S. airport, after Phoenix, Seattle and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. Best, not worst.

The New York Times Travel section checks in on the Bay City with an update on what's interesting since Santa Monica Place reopened.

Adam Baer, the Los Angeles-based founding editor-at-large and travel guru of the website The Faster Times, is a two-time cancer survivor who has written about his brain surgery and adventures in the U.S. medical system.

The new warning authorizes the dependents of U.S. employees to leave Tijuana and the other border cities of Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros.

Todd Ruiz, the former politics reporter at the Pasadena Star-News and hand at other newspapers hereabouts, has landed in Bangkok. He's blogging about the political turmoil there and calls his blog Reporter in Exile.

Airfares from LAX to New York are heading higher — and delays will be more numerous — because of four months of repair work on the long runway at JFK.

Channel 4's suggestions for a weekend getaway are so exclusive, you won't find them on an any map.

Furnishings removed from the under-renovation Hotel Bel-Air go on sale to the public Thursday at 10 a.m. at the old Circuit City store at 1251 4th Street in Santa Monica....

Yosemite National Park says the historic Ahwahnee Hotel will stay closed until Friday at 4 p.m. while geologists puzzle over whether any more rocks are likely to crash down from...

The Ahwahnee Hotel has been evacuated due to a rock fall in the Royal Arches section. About 300 guests are affected. No one has been hurt, although some cars have...

After the U.S. waived the visa requirement for South Korean tourists, and Seoul loosened controls on foreign investment, Koreatown was expected to take off. Instead, the Los Angeles Business Journal...

Terranea, which opened last week on the old Marineland site in Rancho Palos Verdes, and the Resort at Pelican Hill near Newport Beach may be the last big resort compounds...

Former Gridskipper contributor Katherine Spiers, who has a new food blog, alleges that the dates on Gridskipper posts for travelers to Los Angeles are bogus. Lots of people think I...

Due to Jet Blue debuting at Los Angeles International on June 17, summer fares to New York and Boston have dropped as low as $105 one-way — or $231 roundtrip...

Here's the best thing I read all day. The New York Times has a marvelous Travel section story with Ry Cooder visiting spots in the Mojave Desert, accompanied by an...

This winter skiers and snowboarders will be able to fly to Mammoth for the first time in years. Tickets go on sale Monday for new Horizon Airlines service from LAX...

I had no idea you could do this. Author Aimee Bender reserved the Mount Wilson Observatory's historic 60-inch telescope for the evening and took along two dozen writer friends and...

Jet Blue to launch service at LAX Three daily nonstops to Kennedy and one to Logan begin in May. More flights also at Long Beach and Burbank. "This isn't necessarily...

With United Airlines announcing a systemwide fare sale, it seems like a good idea to mention some of the deals available from LAX. You have to purchase by Jan. 10,...

Author and journalist Ann Louise Bardach writes in today's Washington Post that a friend advised her to stay off US Airways — "It's the worst airline in the history of...

This is one of the Airbus A380's that took off in Europe this morning and are scheduled to land in the U.S. about 9:30 am. As we mentioned over the...

LAX lost the instrument landing system on runway 25R again this morning. The system was out for about forty minutes, forcing landings to move to the north runways and reducing...

If you were thinking of a little holiday on the Coast Starlight that runs from Los Angeles to Oakland and beyond to Seattle, be aware that things aren't going too...

This time the instrument landing system for runway 25R — the long one on the south side — failed after 9 o'clock this morning. That forced arrivals to squeeze onto...

When you are promoting a new business, I guess you can write anything you wish. In the promo material on the web for Tripmates, an online service that launched here...

It's a lazy Friday in July so why not post a little travel writing, even if it is about home. Notes from the Road calls itself "a project in experimental...

The TSA's security director at Los Angeles International Airport told city officials that the long waits in line outside terminals 1 and 4 are a thing of the past. Under...

Thanks to everyone who joined Saturday night's anniversary Neon Cruise with LA Observed. The bus was full and boisterous, and a fun time was had by all. Part of the...

Scratch the 1,100-room Hilton hotel from the L.A. Live project now in development downtown. Looks like a Marriot Marquis (with a more elite Ritz-Carlton on the upper floors) will bloom...