I have two travel diaries to share as we’ve spent a few weeks traveling this holiday from coast to coast! Two weekends ago Andrew and I flew to Los Angeles for my bestie’s wedding. We spent a few extra days in town to visit some of our favorite spots and meet up with some family as well. It’s been only 10 months since we left California and I can’t believe a lot has already changed in LA! Lots of new construction, new stores and massive mall renovations. We were in town for close to 3 days. This was a short trip and I wish we had been able to stay a full week but hopefully we will be able to travel back to the West Coast in the new year. Trip highlights and photo diary below!
Where we stayed: Mr. C Beverly Hills
For this trip Andrew and I stayed at Mr. C Beverly Hills and had an amazing stay. This was our second time staying at this hotel and it couldn’t be more perfect. I’ve stayed at a number of hotels in Los Angeles before and this one has been my favorite. The hotel has beautiful rooms, excellent service, amazing views and it’s also located in a great spot in Beverly Hills. It’s clean, modern, romantic and just lovely.
His and hers Away Suitcases, these are the regular Carry-On Size (reviewed here)
Travel beauty shelfie: let me know if you want the full beauty pack list and I’ll try to do a separate travel beauty post. In the meantime you can see my Travel Beauty Cases post here. What I packed on previous trips in my Dallas Travel Diary and San Francisco Pack List. I tend to repeat a lot of items. I traveled with the Dyson Supersonic Dryer for the first time and found it was absolutely essential for me. It will definitely be going on future trips! If you buy one make sure you find a good storage case for it. The one I have came with a pouch. I think the hard case version will probably be more ideal to protect it.
Sightseeing spots:
We’ve both been to Los Angeles a number of times so we picked a few sightseeing spots to visit. One of our favorite things to do is to look for night-time viewpoints. Since my brother is based in LA he has been able to show us some amazing view points! Places we stopped by:
Santa Monica for the sunset and beach
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Night City Views from our Hotel
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Griffith Observatory
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View of the Hollywood Sign from Beachwood Drive. If you’re driving along this street make sure you don’t keep going straight up into the hills! Turn off before you reach the hill otherwise you’ll get stuck like we did. The streets are narrow and windy and it took us forever to find our way back down!
Where we shopped:
Westfield Century City is a newly renovated mall and it’s amazing! There are still a lot of stores under construction with “coming soon” signs but there is a lot to find there. It’s especially great if you want a central location to shop with a lot to offer. The Nordstrom there has the most amazing beauty department I’ve seen in the US – they have Tom Ford, a Space NK wall, Atelier Cologne, Frederic Mall, a Natural Beauty section and so much more.
We also stopped by a few boutiques including Penhaligon’s and Aesop. The Aesop store is just so beautiful – all of them are! The staff is genuinely friendly, helpful, non-pushy and knowledgeable.
We made a quick stop inside Barneys New York on Rodeo Drive, I love this store 🙂
One evening we had dinner in Venice Beach on Abbott Kinney. I made a quick stop inside Hourglass store to see what was new. Anxiously waiting for spring launches!
Also on Abbot Kinney is an amazing Smashbox store! They have a lipstick bar and lipstick wall, it’s incredible. I highly recommend stopping by.
Where we ate:
Unfortunately I didn’t get many good food pics as the times we ate we were in dark restaurants or in a rush and didn’t get a photo! As a junk food junkie I’ve been dreaming about In-n-Out for months. I had been dieting for weeks beforehand to be able to eat junk food on our two recent trips. We ate at In-n-Out twice, had Mr. C room service a few times which was AMAZING (best burger I’ve ever had), dinner spots included Gjelina and Marino. Gjelina is one of my favorite restaurants of all time. In the event you aren’t able to get reservations and don’t want to wait for a table (dinner can get busy) there’s a take out Gjelina right next door.
What I packed and what I wore:
I packed an Away Carry-On with a few outfits, makeup, skincare and my Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer. I definitely over packed but didn’t quite pack the right clothing for the weather so I’ll share what I actually wore. I’ve also come to the realization that I need a wardrobe makeover for travel. Living in South Florida I’ve been living in super lightweight clothes, sandals, shorts, dresses because it is HOT here! For the rest of the country it’s really not warm enough to wear what I have right now. Funny how quick we can be to forget what real seasonal weather can be like. Although I do have to say I’ve always lived where it is sunny year round.
What I wore:
- Tan leather jacket by Joie (older style, similar here, here and here)
- Cotton floral sundress by Zara (old style)
- Louis Vuitton Neverfull Tote MM size
- Strapless navy floral dress by Majorelle
- Black denim jeans from Paige (my favorite brand of jeans ever!)
- Long sleeve sweater/tee by Rag and Bone/JEAN
- Cotton button down shirt by Joie (old style, similar here, here and here)
- Denim cut-off shorts from Blank NYC
- Nude leather wallet on chain clutch by YSL
- Black block-heeled sandals by Stuart Weitzman
- Patent leather sandals by Tory Burch
- Foldable sunglasses by Tory Burch
One snapshot I have from Laura’s wedding, thanks to Jessica Alexander for the photo! Laura wearing a chic white dress from ALC, I’m wearing Majorelle.
A few more photos:
Prosecco and chocolate strawberries courtesy of Mr. C Beverly Hills! We’ve never been treated with such a surprise before!
Additional thoughts:
We had a lovely stay and it was great to be back on the West Coast. There were a few things we would have done differently if we could have a do-over on the trip.
- If you plan visiting LA from out of town and are going to stay mainly in the Beverly Hills area I’d recommend you Uber instead of renting a car. Any hotel in the Beverly Hills area is going to have pretty high overnight parking fees and the traffic in LA is pretty stressful no matter where or when you’re driving. Not to mention finding street parking adds more stress. I’ve driven to LA from San Diego for events and weekend trips a number of times and my brother has recommended I take the train instead and Uber around the city to save time and stress from parking. That being said a lot of things are spread out in Southern California sometimes having a car is essential.
- We probably would have booked 2 more days to be able to take our time, see more places and visit more with friends/family. I think if we had 4-5 full days it would have been plenty of time.
- Shopping-wise I would have planned out my stops a little better. Abbot Kinney on Venice Beach has grown so much since I’ve last been there. I would have definitely allocated more time to walk the streets and browse. There are a lot of beauty boutiques there like Aesop, Caudalie, Hourglass, Smashbox and lot of clothing stores there. I think the Century City mall is quite amazing though.
- We would have probably skipped visiting Santa Monica. I think it’s great to see once, but we’ve both been there so many times seeing it again was a bit redundant and it was pretty far from everything else we wanted to see.
- Take some time to just sit back and do absolutely nothing! This is something we both need to work on. When we travel we tend to travel for adventure and I pack in a lot of things. Sometimes I need to remind myself to slow down and take a break.
Hope you enjoyed this travel diary! I’m working on my Miami trip post but probably won’t have it up until the end of the week or early next week. Stay tuned for more beauty posts soon!
Do you have any favorite LA spots?
Media rate was provided by Mr. C Beverly Hills for feature.
starts at $399 – perfect size for on-the-go
