Tours in East Los Angeles

Red Line Tours specializes in one thing: Hollywood. Its signature tour, the Hollywood Behind the Scenes walking tour, explores Hollywood with the intimacy of a native Angeleno, diving into famous landmarks that are generally closed to the public. In just three blocks, the tour explores sites such as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre, and the Walk of Fame. Guides also lead groups to the El Capitan Theatre, Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, and the Roosevelt Hotel, imparting intimate knowledge about Hollywood lore, such as how the Hollywood sign got its name and how the baby from Baby's Day Out became LA's first mayor. Red Line Tours' special live-audio system ensures that every visitor can hear the guide, even at a distance. While Red Line Tours specializes in the Behind the Scenes tour, it also partners with other local tour agencies to offer packages that include tours of sites including Universal Studios and neighborhoods of celebrity homes.

Contestants use more brainpower than brawn to master CityRace Urban Adventure Hunts. Taking place up to three times each month, these three-hour adventures combine the brainteasing clues of a scavenger hunt with the timed pressure of a footrace. Inspired by The Amazing Race, events send teams of two or four speeding through the streets of a Los Angeles neighborhood on foot, by car, or via other unique methods. Participants can explore the diverse architecture of Little Tokyo, steep themselves in history in 200-year-old Old Pasadena, and ski down Hollywood’s snowbank-like piles of discarded screenplays. The team that finishes with the most correct answers wins a bronze trophy, assorted books and gift cards, and a picture in the Winners' Circle on the race website.

Buses coast down sunny avenues lined with palm trees and pastel-colored buildings. Many of these buildings boast complex histories—as music venues, film studios, boarding schools for stuntmen, and more—that synced audio tracks and charming tour guides divulge during Rockin Hollywood Tours' interactive excursions. On each tour, groups pass more than 70 sites around the streets of Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and West Hollywood. Guides expound on well-known landmarks such as the Hollywood sign, the Jim Henson Company lot (the former home of Charlie Chaplin Studios), and the Playboy Mansion. They also lead riders through musical history and Elton John's personal diaries as they pass venues including Whisky A Go Go, the Troubadour, and Capitol Records studios. Driving through residential areas, guides also point out the past and present homes of celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy, and Nicolas Cage.

Hollywoodland Tours escorts guests through Tinseltown's star-studded streets during a trio of informative adventures. Aboard the company's shaded, open-air van, tour takers snap pictures and revel in the close proximity of famous landmarks as knowledgeable guides dish out facts about passing sights. The Beverly Hills Star Home tour showcases the castles of more than 70 celebrities, including Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts, before coasting over to the Sunset Strip, where industry big shots dine, shop, and teach their wax likenesses how to use chopsticks. Patrons can also hitch a ride on the Hollywood tour, which sails past the sites of historical films, television series, and radio studios, while the Hollywood Sign tour grants picturesque photo opportunities and the chance to ask the typically reticent "H" for its autograph.

From the outside, the big, red bus looks like an open-topped relic from across the pond. Once on board, however, a rainbow oasis of streamers, flags, and tinsel reveals that this is no stodgy ride; rather, it’s the flagship vehicle of Out & About Tours—a tour company dedicated to celebrating the oft-overlooked sites associated with Los Angeles' LGBT legacy. Company CEO Jim Anzide pulls double duty as the tour’s guide, narrating historic info about the roots of the LGBT community in neighborhoods ranging from West Hollywood and downtown to Silverlake and the Sunset Strip. Lively banter punctuates each trip as Anzide and his guides quiz passengers on history and share personal anecdotes. They also lead walking tours that explore La La Land's hotels and bathhouses and curate their signature SunGay Brunch tour—a mini bus excursion that includes mimosas and bites at stops including Flying Leap Café and The Other Side, Los Angeles' last piano bar purportedly haunted by the ghost of Fats Waller’s Wurlitzer.