Compare it to London... Most of the London metropolitan area lies within a 15-20 mile circle centered upon Charing Cross. By contrast, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, measured from city hall downtown, sprawls 40- 50 miles SE to Newport Beach and Mission Viejo, wraps up the coast to Malibu & Thousand Oaks on the West (25-35 miles), fills the San Fernando Valley and pushes fingers into the mountians of Angeles Crest to the north up to Castaic & Sand Canyon (30-35 miles) and then expands east along the foothills & inland valleys to San Bernardino & Riverside to the East (nearly 60 miles).

To put it in persepctive, the greater LA area covers 3-4 times the area of the greater London area...with only a third more people living there (9.3 vs. 12.9 million)...moreover, it is much less focused on a specific urban center. Additionally, where the London area is nearly flat, with the Thames providing the only geographic complication to transit planning... Los Angeles area is divided by what would be major mountians in Britian... Heck, the Hollywood Hills soar to over 1600 feet elevation, over city hall and Hollywood Blvd which are about 300 feet above sea level.

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Public transit in Los Angeles, while not *quite* as bad as suggested by the previous comments, is not up to the standards of anyone used to dealing with the urban centers of the EU. On the other hand, you might be suprised by the quite reasonable price... Airport "FlyAway" express busses to several key points around town (Van Nuys, UCLA, Union Station) cost a mere $4.00; a Metro day-pass allowing nearly unlimited use of Metro Busses & light rail trains cost only $5.00. While much of the outlying bus service is porvided by a scattering of independent municipalities and counties, each requiring a seperate fare, the cost is equally low... By contrast, Taxis are *NOT* reasonable..with fares from LAX to downtown a flat $42.00, and other rates including a $2.65 flag-drop + $2.45 per mile (+ $2.50 additional for airport pickup, w/ a $15.00 minimum) You should become familliar with the Metro website, which has a lot of good routing tools and tips avalible for your use.

If I were confining myself to public transit, and wanted to see Hollywood and a few highpoints of LA; I might think about making a hotel in Universal City or Hollywood my base for this trip. Universal City has both a Sheraton & Hilton a short distance from the Metro Red Line tube station w/ shuttle service, a more modest Holiday Inn is only a few blocks further w/o the shuttle.