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Los Angeles started in my mind long before it appeared on the map. I built this city over the years from other people’s stories, movie scenes, conversations with a friend who lived there daily and could speak about it with such admiration that it made me want to see it with my own eyes. Beverly Hills from TV shows, Hollywood from movies, Pretty Woman, the Walk of Fame, palms silhouetted against the setting sun. A puzzle city that I assembled from pieces before I even set foot in it. And that thought that lingered somewhere in the back of my mind: does it really look like it does on TV?
View from the airplane window
I remember the moment when the plane began its descent. Somewhere in the distance, among the hills, the Hollywood sign flickered. Small, surprisingly modest from this perspective, yet it sent a thrill that’s hard to explain logically. “I’m really here.” Those three words kept swirling in my head as the plane touched the runway.
And then a very quick arrival on the ground. A huge airport, lines, car pickup, fatigue after many hours of traveling, and the first encounter with American logistics that works efficiently but demands your focus when all you dream of is lying down and closing your eyes.
And right after that, the freeway. My small rented Ford entered a road that probably had six lanes in one direction, and suddenly I felt really tiny. Huge pickups, SUVs, those American beasts surrounded me, making my little car look like a toy. Everything was speeding by, changing lanes, honking, and after several hours of travel, I was trying to manage navigation, unfamiliar road signs, and a pace no European highway had ever prepared me for. I thought then that America doesn’t give you time to acclimate; it just throws you into the deep end and says: “figure it out.”
The first overnight stay was planned in San Diego, about 200 km away, so barely had I landed when I was already leaving Los Angeles. As if the city was just a starting point, not a destination itself. As if I wasn’t ready yet to face it.
The return, or when Los Angeles really begins
Los Angeles only really began for me a few days later when I came back from San Diego and stayed here longer. And then came the first true confrontation with a place that had existed mainly in my imagination for so long.
Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Sunset Boulevard, Griffith Park. All those places I knew from the screen were suddenly right next to me, yet they looked completely different from what I had imagined. More chaotic, more touristy, sometimes downright tacky. Souvenir shops, people harassing on the streets, traffic that never ends, and the hot air over the asphalt where everything slightly trembles as if the city itself couldn’t stand still. Los Angeles can’t be explored on foot like Krakow or Rome. Here, everything requires a car, planning, and patience, which after a few hours behind the wheel simply starts to run out.
Traffic jams, searching for parking spots, neighborhoods living their own rhythm, which could actually be separate cities. Exploring in pieces, one day one part, the next day something completely different, with the feeling that you can never really grasp it all. At some point, a fatigue appeared, not so much physical as mental. As if this city had no center, no “heart” that makes you feel “inside”.
Santa Monica, the moment when something changes
And then came Santa Monica and the sunset over the Pacific, which suddenly changed everything. Not because someone told me it was worth visiting there in the evening, not because I read about it in a guidebook, but simply because I was there and saw it. The sky shifted through shades that looked painted, the ocean darkened with every minute, and around, people just stood and watched as if finally, in this noisy, bustling city, silence had settled.
It was one of the most beautiful sunsets in my life. And I say this knowingly because I’ve seen quite a few, in various corners of the world. But this one had something special, maybe because it came after days full of chaos and tourist noise, when suddenly everything calmed down. I stood on the pier, looked at the ocean, and felt the chase for attractions, for “seeing everything”, let go. At that moment, the city showed a completely different face, calmer, more spacious.
That was the first moment when Los Angeles stopped being a collection of places to tick off, and started being a true “experience”. Something you feel, not just see.
Road trip with LA behind me
After a few days of such a “relaxed” way of exploring the city, I moved on. The road trip took me through Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Francisco, later through more parts of California, all the way to Nevada and Las Vegas. Los Angeles was left behind me, unfinished, ambiguous, a bit exhausting, a bit fascinating. One of those places that you can’t sum up in one sentence because every summary would be incomplete.
Venice for farewell
And only at the very end of the journey did I return to LA once more, for a moment, just before my flight to Poland.
This time it was Venice. First the Venice Canals, silence, quiet streets, houses by the canals, bridges, people jogging in the morning, a completely different vibe than the one I remembered from Hollywood. If someone had told me this was still Los Angeles, I wouldn’t have believed it. And then Venice Beach, the pier, a random conversation with girls who stopped me out of pure curiosity about where I’m from and what I was doing so far from home. A moment when you feel that traveling is not only about places, but above all about the people you meet along the way.
And then that sunset came.
Beautiful. There’s no other word for what I saw that evening at Venice Beach. The sky in colors you would normally consider exaggerated if you saw them in a photo, but live they looked exactly like that and you couldn’t take your eyes off them. At one point, I stood there alone, just watching, when an older man walked by, looked at me, smiled, and quietly said: “Beautiful, isn’t it?”. And it was so simple, so human, that to this day I remember it better than any tourist attraction in this city.
That was the conclusion of the first trip. Without a big punchline. With an image of the ocean and the awareness that this city gives you moments when you least expect them.
The second time, a collision without filters
The second time, I came to Los Angeles with my family, at the end of another road trip. Accommodation in Hollywood, a motel, closer to the “center of events”. And again everything came back that had been exhausting before: traffic jams, difficult drives, parking, chaos. Only this time I had no filters or expectations anymore, I knew what to expect.
In the morning, a homeless person sleeping on the doormat in front of our room. A collision with reality even more vivid than the first time, because L.A. is not a city that hides its problems. They lie on the streets, literally, and if you come here from Europe, where homelessness also exists but rarely on such a scale, it’s hard to pass by this indifferently.
But along with that, the things that previously saved my perception of this city returned too. The view from Griffith Park, a space unknown to any European city, the light that at certain times of day makes everything look like a movie frame (because that’s exactly why they shoot films here). And the ocean, always the ocean. Sunsets that again paused all the city noise for a moment and reminded why people fall in love with California, despite everything.
A city that can’t be summed up in one sentence
Los Angeles is not a city that you simply like or dislike. It is at once exhausting and hypnotic, artificial and authentic, tacky and beautiful. It is geared toward tourists, yet full of moments that are absolutely real and unique.
L.A. is a city that first disappoints, then annoys, but ultimately leaves images in your mind that keep coming back. Not the Walk of Fame or Hollywood Boulevard, but the sunset over the ocean, the view of the endless panorama from Griffith, a conversation with a stranger on Venice Beach, and a sense of space that simply doesn’t exist in European cities.
And suddenly it turns out that Los Angeles is neither like in the movies nor like in the guides. It’s somewhere in between. More difficult than imagined, but also deeper. And very hard to get out of your system, because just when you think you’ve made up your mind about it, you remember that sunset, that old man on the beach and his quiet “beautiful, isn’t it?”, and you know this city isn’t done with you yet.
