The very name Los Angeles—the “City of Angels”—is plural for a reason. This place contains multitudes; it is not any one thing or singular set of shared realities, but rather a series of overlapping metaphysical geographies, vast and intimidating and yet surprisingly human, intimate and personal. There’s nowhere else quite like it. I’ve been traveling to Los Angeles several times a year for the past decade for myriad reasons: to experience the city’s coffee scene as a cofounder at the international coffee publication Sprudge, to report on the city’s food and bar scene as a contributor to LA Times Food, and as an enthusiastic consumer of LA’s uniquely unrivaled cultural smorgasbord. I go there to work and play, alone and with friends and family, for short trips and extended stays. Along the way, there are parts of the city that have begun to feel familiar and comfortable and others that remain baffling and hard to pin down. All of it remains distinctly compelling. Call me Randy Newman if you’d like: I love LA. In no way does any of this mark me as an expert; Angelenos are rightly wary of outsiders beaming in to make claims on their city. Nothing I can write about LA could ever be definitive, and I apologize in advance for so much of what I’m leaving out, but over the years I’ve learned about places and experiences that help you make the most of your time in the city, however long or short that might be. Below you’ll find a collection of places to stay, play, work, and lose yourself in the bottomless Olympic-size deep-end pool of LA culture. Los Angeles is more beautiful than you’re prepared for. There’s urban grit here, of course, and freeways and off-ramps and parking lots, but also perfumed hillsides alive with birdsong and flowering citrus trees, hundreds of miles of hiking trails, gorgeous mountains framing the city to the east, flowers everywhere, and the world-famous beaches. Griffith Park offers a glimpse of this beauty, and so do hikes around Moon Canyon i