What is the Los Angeles self-guided walking tour?
The Los Angeles self-guided walking tour is a narrated walk with your phone as the guide: the World City Trail app sets out the route and, each time you reach a stop, tells you the history, legends and odd facts behind what you see. Reckon on about 3 hours overall, including 53 minutes on foot across 3.5 km and 10 stops. The route stays in Downtown, where 19th-century squares, a Victorian court and Frank Gehry's steel are only a short walk apart.
At Walt Disney Concert Hall the narration tells how the project began with a gift from Lillian Disney in memory of her husband, and why the steel walls look like billowing sails. The Broad's white honeycomb 'veil' and MOCA's pyramid-shaped skylights follow, then Pershing Square with its purple bell tower. Behind the plain brick front of the Bradbury Building hides a Victorian court that film fans know from Blade Runner. At City Hall you hear about the sand from all 58 California counties mixed into its concrete, and at the Triforium about 1,494 glass prisms meant to light up in time with music.
- Durationabout 3 hours
- Walkingabout 53 min · 3.5 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Step by step on the walk
A chapter for each stop
Every stop has its own narrated chapter, mixing history with local legends and curious details, and each chapter can be read as well as heard.
Directions included
Google Maps plots every leg from one stop to the next; together the legs come to about 53 minutes on foot over 3.5 km.
Breaks built in
Head into a café or a museum whenever you feel like it. The app keeps your place, so you carry on later or another day.
Tips and flexibility
Along the way the app suggests local dishes and shops worth a look, and you can change the starting stop or the sequence.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of people. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Walk when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who will like this walk
First time in Los Angeles
A single walk links the main sights and explains each of them, so you get your bearings quickly.
Not a fan of group tours?
Nobody holds up a flag and nobody counts heads: stay longer wherever your curiosity is caught and move on when you want.
Families
Children get the legends, adults get the history, and anyone can pause the narration with a tap.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Groups of up to 5 work best; larger groups split up, one ticket per person.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Around the Civic Center and back to Grand Park
10 stops · about 53 min walking · start: Gloria Molina Grand Park · finish: Vietnam Veterans Memorial
The walk begins in Gloria Molina Grand Park and climbs to Grand Avenue for Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Broad and MOCA. It then drops down to Pershing Square and the Bradbury Building before heading back towards the Civic Center: City Hall Park Center lies across Spring Street from the City Hall tower, and the Triforium stands on Fletcher Bowron Square. The finish is the Los Angeles County Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Grand Park, a quiet place to end. Every stop is outdoors, and the app lets you start somewhere else.
Open the route map ↗
1Gloria Molina Grand ParkStart
This 12-acre park runs from the Music Center on Grand Avenue down to City Hall. It replaced the 1960s Civic Center Mall, reopened in 2012 with its bright pink benches and chairs, and was renamed in 2023 after the county supervisor Gloria Molina.
2Walt Disney Concert Hall
Frank Gehry's concert hall opened in 2003 as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Its curved stainless steel walls look like billowing sails, and the project began with a gift from Lillian Disney in memory of her husband Walt.
3The Broad
This contemporary art museum opened in 2015 to show the collection of the philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. The architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro wrapped it in a white honeycomb shell they called the veil, which lets filtered daylight into the galleries.
4Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Grand Avenue)
MOCA was founded in 1979, and its Grand Avenue building by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki opened in 1986. Look for the red sandstone walls and the pyramid-shaped skylights set among simple geometric shapes.
5Pershing Square
This is one of the oldest public squares in Los Angeles, set aside in 1866 and named after General John Pershing in 1918, just after the First World War. The 1994 redesign by Ricardo Legorreta and Laurie Olin added its ten-storey purple bell tower.
6Bradbury Building
Built in 1893 for the mining millionaire Lewis Bradbury, this plain brick building hides a light-filled Victorian court with open-cage elevators, marble stairs and ornate iron railings. Film fans know it from Blade Runner (1982) and many other movies.
7City Hall Park Center
This green space sits on the City Hall grounds in downtown Los Angeles. It lies across Spring Street from the City Hall tower.
8Los Angeles City Hall
Completed in 1928, the 454-foot (138 m) tower was the tallest building in Los Angeles until 1964, because of a city height limit. Its concrete was mixed with sand from all 58 California counties and water from the 21 historic missions, and TV viewers once knew it as the Daily Planet in Adventures of Superman.
9Triforium
Joseph Young's 60-foot (18 m) sculpture was dedicated in 1975 on Fletcher Bowron Square. Its 1,494 Venetian glass prisms were designed to light up in time with music, which earned it nicknames such as the Psychedelic Nickelodeon.
10Vietnam Veterans MemorialFinish
The Los Angeles County Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands in Grand Park, near the end of the route. It honours the people of Los Angeles County who served in the Vietnam War and is a quiet place to pause after the busy civic centre.
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Anonymous (verified owner) –
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