Did I Touch The Hollywood Sign?

As I mentioned in my first post about going to California, one thing I wanted to do was try and touch the Hollywood sign. I knew going into it that they had a lot of security around it and that it was going to be difficult.

So did I do it? Unfortunately no I did not. I decided that it wasn’t worth getting arrested or falling down the side of the hill to my death. Here is an overview of the different approach options and why I decided again doing each of them.

Option #1: Hiking Up

The first approach option is to start below the Hollywood sign and go up. There is no fence in front of the sign so…

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Venice Beach, California

As I mentioned yesterday, my girlfriend and I decided to stay at a Venice Beach Hostel. Today I wanted to do a post about Venice Beach itself and what it’s all about.

The beach is pretty popular and is located just south of Santa Monica. It’s about 30 minutes from Los Angeles on a good driving day (do they really exists?).

Anyways, here is a breakdown of some of the things Venice Beach had to offer:

The Beach

The actual beach in Venice is really nice. It’s really big in terms of sand, as opposed to smaller beaches like Waikiki in Hawaii. There was some construction going on near our hostel so a lot of it was blocked…

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Venice Beach Hostel

It’s time for the last hostel review of the trip. This time it’s the Venice Beach Cotel, which is located right on the beach in Venice, California.

What is a cotel you ask? That’s a good question. I stayed there for two nights and still have no idea. My only guess is that it is some sort of cross between a condo and a hotel. However, this place describes itself as a youth hostel according to the flyer so that doesn’t make sense.

Enough with the name, it’s time for the review.

Location

The Venice Beach hostel has hands down one of the best locations available. Especially if you are looking for a place to crash…

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Headin’ Out Californee Way…

Might be some internet out there…

Haha one of my favorite episodes of South Park (preview). Anyways, I decided it’s time to take advantage of the digital nomad lifestyle and head somewhere else for a bit.

So myself, along with my partner in crime (girlfriend) are packing up ours bags today to head off to California. We figured we might as well head out there one last time before we move to Austin in May. It’s a lot shorter of a drive.

The first stop is going to be San Diego for a bit. Then it’s off to Los Angeles for a few nights.

Here is a quick breakdown of the trip and what we plan…

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Road Trip to California and Nevada

Hey everyone, I finally managed to make it back here to Phoenix. If you didn’t see my last post, I took off for San Francisco last Friday. I was expecting to make the 13 hour drive but what the trip turned into was something completely different. Check out the map of the trip:

The Places I Went

As you can see from the map, I managed to see a ton of stuff on this one trip. I made it back to Hollywood, up to San Francisco, and all the way to the Redwoods of California. From there, I made it to Reno, Lake Tahoe, and Death Valley. And last but not least, through Las Vegas on the way back to Phoenix.

I managed to take over a thousand pictures which I have not even begun looking through yet.

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Border Jumping in San Diego

Well today is my final post summing up my road trip to California. Monday I talked about the Pros and Cons of staying in hostels and yesterday I summed up my experience at USC.

Today, I want to conclude the trip with my experience in San Diego. The drive to San Diego from Los Angeles was not that long and it was actually pretty cool to see. There were a lot of rolling hills and huge houses along the way. It seems like their is not much break in cities all the way except for a few stretches.

Along the way, we made a stop in Oceanside, which had the feel of a small surf town that almost reminded me of…

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Parking Lot Drinking at USC

One of the things I did while in Los Angeles was hang out at the University of Southern California. One of my roommates was originally supposed to attend a seminar their but we were not able to find it.

So what did we do instead?

Well, we walked around for a little while and took a few pictures. As we were walking back to our car on the top of a USC parking lot, a guy asked if we wanted a beer.

Of course, being who we are, we decided to accept. The next thing I know, my roommate and I are drinking tall boys of Coors Light on top of the parking ramp overlooking the courtyard they have on campus.

It…

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Road Trip to Los Angeles

Once again, this past weekend was another busy one. My friends and I went out in Tempe Friday night and had a good time. While we were at the bar, we decided that Saturday morning we were going to hop in the car and drive out to Los Angeles.

So Saturday morning, feeling a little hungover, we hoped in the car and headed out of Phoenix at 9 am. For the next five and a half hours we drove through the desert. The drive was not too bad, much better than the drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas.

Along the way, we made a stop in Indio, California, which is one of the only cities I have ever seen with…

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