I will be in LA for a weekend in Jan with wife. In Friday night, out Sun afternoon. I am planning to rent a car. This is our first time in LA.

I need help in deciding where to stay. We are not much into museums, but would like to check out the top spots - problem is I dont know what they are. I am guessing Marina and Hollywood or San Gabriel?

Ideally, I would like it to be reasonable with parking (heard its bad downtown). We like good restaurants nearby for lunch and dinner. Basically, whats the best spot with a car without spending too much time in traffic?

I am a member of HHonors, Priority Club, and SPG. Depending on the price, I may pay or redeem for two free nights.

The best places for tourists to stay in LA is the Westside, with groups of hotels in the West Hollywood area, the Beverly Hills area, and the Santa Monica area.
You mentioned you did not want museums. The West Hollywood area is known for nightlife; Beverly Hills is the expensive area known for high end shopping; and Santa Monica is more laid back with the beach nearby.
The San Gabriel valley is mostly middle class and residential, the exception being Pasadena, which has a nice "old town" shopping area, but not much else.
There are a few nice places in the marina, but I think there is more to do near Santa Monica.
Contrary to most warnings, the Westside of LA is not that big, and it is relatively easy to get from Santa Monica to Hollywood at most times on a weekend if you have your own car. Hope this helps. I am sure you'll get many other suggestions.

If you like shopping and people watching, the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica is good for both. If you like shopping and not so much people watching the Grove in Beverly Hills is good for that. Another trendy shopping area is around Melrose and La Brea, stop by Pink's hot dogs while you're there!

I agree with the above poster, there is not much to do in the San Gabriel Valley but Pasadena's old town area is nice as well as South Pasadena's.

I think we'd be able to provide a lot more information about where to go and what to do if we knew more of your interests. Have fun in LA though!

I'll throw another option for hotels out there as being the Culver City area around the 405 and 90 freeway interchanges. There are several properties around that area representing all of the major chains, and IIRC most of them have free parking as they all have large parking lots/structures. That area would also give you reasonably good access to the Westside areas of Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey, and if you're arriving/leaving via LAX they're convenient enough to be used by flight crews. Depending on traffic, it can be a bit of a hassle to get up to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, or further north from there, however.

Sightseeing, and good food mostly.

Ideal plan would be to cover the following:

1. In-n-out burger Friday night on the way to the hotel. Are they open late?
2. Visit the beach area or go to beachside restaurant for good brunch.
3. Spend couple hours at a famous shopping district/mall to keep the wife happy. (which one?)
4. See some famous Hollywood related place. Isn't there a place with people's hand prints?
5. Dinner at a nice trendy restaurant.
6. Hang out at a good Bar.
7. Anything else that I can fit in couple hours around noon time or earlier on Sunday before heading to the airport.
8. Is there anything worthwhile in downtown? Did not see anyone mention it as a destination to swing by.

I see that there are Holiday Inns all over the place. IC in Century City, and Beverly Hilton. I will probably try and use the free nights from Priority Club or HHonors.

Appreciate all the help. I am a total newb to the west coast.

1. Yes In N' Out is open late
2. Suggest checking out Venice beach then, good people watching on a Saturday morning and lots of sidewalk cafes. C&O Trattoria near Washington Blvd. and the boardwalk is quite good.
3. Melrose / LaBrea or the Grove, Century City Mall, or Beverly Center if you are staying nearby.
4. Mann's Chinese Theatre
5. Hmm, lots of those, I'll let somebody else weigh in on what's around the Hollywood area.
6. Same as 5

1. Skip In-N-Out. You're coming to LA and going to a burger joint? Plenty of other interesting dining options. Thai, Mexican, sushi, etc.... On your way from LAX to where ever you end up staying you'll likely pass a lot of interesting 'food joints'. Live it up, expeirment a little. If you insist on a burger at least go to Fat Burger.
3. Depends on what the wife likes to shop for but most of the malls are probably very similar to what you have at home. Personally, I'd go to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. It may not be kind to your wallet but that's the chance you take....and, then again, some women get a thrill of just 'window shopping' there and don't really spend a lot of money.There are also some things that aren't all that expensive that she can always say, 'I bought this on Rodeo Drive during our trip to Beverly Hills...'
4. As stated above, Mann's Chinese. Also close by; Rosevelt Hotel, Kodak Theather, Hollywood Walk of Fame.
5 & 6. Combine this with shopping in BH and you can kill all three birds with one stone. Stroll the streets, see what looks interesting, check their menus and drop into whatever looks good to you. You'll often see celebrities in what seem to be unlikely locations. The Sunset Strip is less than a mile away so that's an easy second option.
8. On a weekend, if you're not interested in museums the answer is no.

For heaven's sake, if you're looking for "good food" In-n-Out not the place.

In-n-Out is a burger chain...
To put it in East Coast terms, it's a different flavor of White Castle.

If you are looking for a plebeian Los Angeles food experience that's GOOD, don't do In-n-Out!

Instead go to Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, or Cantor's Deli, or Pink's Hot Dogs....or track down some of the amazing LA food Truck scene serving everything from Korean Tacos to Crepes....and even great Mexican food.

Not sure how you equated good food to In n Out from my post besides the fact they were mentioned in the same post.

I want to just have a bite at In n Out just for the experience. One of the reasons being comparing it to White Castles where I have eaten from at most twice in my life (most of which on the east coast). I just want to drive thru and grab a bite late night when I arrive at LAX, especially since wife wont be hungry and would never even smell it even if she was hungry.

I want to eat at good sit down restaurants. Din Tai Fung is an example, however, I will be skipping it since I had it in TPE.

1. In-N-Out is open til 1:00AM and 1:30AM on Fri/Sat. Shouldn't be hard to pass by one, they're everywhere.
2. If you happen to be have a chance to drive to Malibu, there's a great place on the beach called Paradise Cove. Malibu is about 30-45 mins from Santa Monica.
3. Try the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica or the Grove at 3rd/Fairfax
4. Go to the Hollywood and Highland intersection on Hollywood Blvd, a lot of shopping/tourist attractions and the Walk of Fame
5. Depends what you're looking to spend and looking to eat, but Yelp is helpful, just type in your address and look nearby
6. Good bars everywhere, Yelp it depending on what scene you're looking for
7.
8. I enjoy visiting the Westin Bonaventure Hotel (cool glass elevator with great view of Downtown LA), and Standard Hotel downtown (right near Westin Bonaventure, rooftop is a great view in the middle of the financial district).

Another shopping option would be the Montana Ave. area in Santa Monica. A lot of small boutiques and some good local restaurants including Father's Office (lots and lots of beers on tap and in the bottle and a great burger!), Spumoni, Marmalade Cafe, etc.

I just did a similar two-night stay with my wife right before New Year's. We booked a hotel near the airport (mostly because our departing flight was in the morning) and spent most of our time in Santa Monica. Really great experience; there is a lot to do in a small, walkable space.

Having seen the traffic and lack of free parking, I am now glad that we didn't rent a car. There is regular bus service between LAX and downtown SM, which is surprisingly clean and seemingly safe, and as an added bonus it passes right by the famous runway-side In-And-Out Burger (which is itself connected by a free parking shuttle to LAX) -- though you have to be careful not to overshoot because you might end up having to walk half a mile back from the airport entrance.

As a quicky response to OP:

Forget downtown L.A. It does have its points, museums, L.A. Music Center (opera house and other theatres), but evidently not your cup of margarita.

Forget San Gabriel Valley. Long way off, not very interesting (except for Pasadena area), does have some of best Chinese food in US, but, probably not worth the drive for a two day visit. (Although the beef rolls in Alhambra are superb ).

Stay in Santa Monica if it is in your budget. Preferably very close to Third Street Promenade. Shutters on the Beach Hotel is very nice and there are several others. Otherwise, Beverly Hills or West Hollywood.

PS In and Out Burger near LAX is open 'til at least 1 AM. You might also want to hit Randy's doughnuts near LAX, famous for the giant doughnut on top as featured in Iron Man 2 and the Simpsons. Great doughnuts and you can hang with every fireman and cop in the area if you come by early in the morning (look out for backing up hook and ladder trucks).

I would not stay by the airport as the area is quite dull for a tourist and rather isolated.

There are tons of guide books, and Web sites, on tourist sites in L.A., so not sure why you're having a hard time finding where they are and feel you just have to guess. Where did you come up with San Gabriel????? By "marina" I assume you mean Marina del Rey. Not an unpleasant area, but don't know that I'd list it as a must-see for tourists. I love the Getty Center in Brentwood, but you indicate a lack of interest in museums.

Los Angeles is a huge, spread-out area, and the term Los Angeles is often used by tourists to applyto not just the City of Los Angeles, but the wider County of Los Angeles, and even nearby counties, such as Orange (where Disneyland is located). Once you reserach the sites, to find what you personally want to see out of the hundreds of possibilities, do look at a map. Best place to stay? Many people enjoy Santa Monica, since it's near the beach, but do check to see what the parking fee would be wherever you stay (except in outlyig areas, you could end up paying a lot).

Hollywood is another catch-all term, often used to apply to anything related to the entertainment industry. For me, Hollywood itself has few attractions beyond the Grauman's Chiense (handprints in cement) and the stars in the sidewalk, both on Hollywood Boulevard. If you want to take a movie studio tour, the best are probably Warner Brothers in Burbank, Sony Studios (formerly MGM) in Culver City and, perhaps, Univeral Studios in, surpsrisingly, Universal City (Universal is primarily an amusement park but does have a smaller studio tour). None is cheap. NBC TV studios also has a tour, but I was underwhelmed (you can also do a Google search to look for tickets to taping of TV shows).

I enjoy downtown especially the historic Millennium Biltmore hotel (where the Academy Awards ceremony took place in the 30s), the Bradbury Building (used in many films) and Angels Flight, but I agree there are probably other places most tourists would put on their lists.

I am not an In-N-Out fan (it's still fast food burgers) but the franchise does have its devoted fans. The above poster didn't say you equated In-N-Out burgers with good food, but simply offered an alternative. For me, the atmosphere is nothing special (at least not at either of the locations I've been to), and the food not unique enough to warrant putting it down as a must-see, though if I happened to see one when I was hungry, I might stop. I actually prefer Bob's Big Boy hamburgers, but that's partly due to the fact that one was a hang-out for students when I was in high school in the San Fernando Valley. L.A. has a great variety of restaurants.

Not sure what you consider as a "trendy" restaurant, but to hit the most trendy ones you may have to shell out big bucks. Are you seeking a trendy place for the food, to possibly see famous people, or what? I'd go back to my first suggestion: look at a guide book for some ideas. The "Los Angeles Times" Web site (www.latimes.com) should have restaurant and hotel reviews (also see Tripadvisor.com). Have you considered a tour for at least part of your stay (e.g., one focusing on the entetainment industry, or perhaps history of the area)?

Well, the trip I just mentioned was my second time in LA, and first time as a tourist, and I was seriously puzzled after reading the guidebooks. There are many things to see and do around the area, but they are all at least an hour's drive from each other, so prioritizing on a short stay is extremely difficult, much moreso than in any other city I know of.