LA Studio Tours – Miss Travels

Coast to coast with Trek America

If you’ve read my previous post about my decision to travel solo for the first time, you’ll know that rather than spending my entire trip completely by myself, I opted to join a small group tour. Specifically, the Southern BLT Tour with the established small group tour company, Trek America.

I booked the tour through the touradar website in their Christmas sale and the tour was to begin mid-February meaning I didn’t have too much time to dwell on my decision. With the extra nights I had added in LA and New York either side of the 3-week tour, I would be away for 4 weeks in total, the longest I had ever been away from home before.

As the departure date approached I decided to take up Trek America’s offer of a free FairFX prepaid currency card rather than just taking cash as I would on a shorter trip. This came with access to an app which I could use to top up the card with dollars if I was getting low at any point as long as I had internet access and as the tour was advertised as having on-bus WiFi and I knew from previous visits stateside that WiFi was easy to find, finding internet access shouldn’t be a problem.

The tour required us to take a sleeping bag for the night spent in a cabin and I also went out and bought a pair of special walking trainers from Sports Direct for any hiking we’d do, a quick-drying travel towel for use at the hostels and various other bits and bobs that I wouldn’t ordinarily take on holiday but I thought I might need in a trip like this!

My biggest worry was what size case to take. Or whether to take a case at all as I figured a lot of the passengers might be serious backpackers with, well, a backpack. For just a 2 week holiday, I would usually take my large case but I knew luggage was to be stored in our minibus as we travelled and would have to be dragged in and out of our accommodation every day or so (we had no more than 2 nights in any one place on the tour) so maybe a large case was too much. But would there be chance to do laundry or would I have to take enough clothes to last the entire trip?!

What to pack in itself was another problem. I’d assumed when I booked the tour that travelling through the Southern states meant that even in February/March, it’d mainly be warm although I did realise once we reached Washington DC and New York it would be chillier. But after googling the weather for some of our stops, I realised it was likely to be cool in quite a few places along the way so layers, a few jumpers, hoodies and even my winter coat might be necessary!

I eventually opted to take my medium-sized case, squashing as much as possible in and deciding if there was no opportunity for laundry, I could probably get a couple of wears out of most tops!!

So with lots of excitement, and some trepidation, I headed to the airport a few days before the start of the tour to begin my trip. I had booked 2 nights by myself in Santa Monica at a motel I had stayed at with my family a couple of years before and would then spend the third night staying at Trek America’s “gateway” hotel – the one the tour departed from – the night before the tour began.

Whereas I would usually share a taxi with my travel buddies to get us to our hotel quickly and easily after a long flight, it was a lot of money to spend for just one person so I had researched how to get to Santa Monica on public transport. So after arriving at LAX, I went to wait for the Airbus service hoping to save a bit of money. But after waiting and waiting and seeing numerous buses come and go for Hollywood, Downtown, Anaheim and various other districts of Los Angeles but none for Santa Monica, I gave up and, just wanting to get there, ended up in a cab!

It was odd finding myself alone in a city I had visited many times before with family and friends and needing food, I was unsure what to do. Not being brave enough just yet to go to a restaurant alone, I instead opted for the food court in Santa Monica Place shopping mall before heading down to the beach to watch the sunset.

To keep myself busy over the next few days, I’d planned plenty of activities, again extensively researching how to reach places on public transport. After breakfast at Denny’s (eating alone wasn’t actually that bad!), my first stop was Sony Studios for a backlot tour. Using public transport ran smoother than it had the previous day and after asking for directions just once when I got off the bus, I found my way to the tour check in point with plenty of time to spare.

After the tour, I wandered around the nearby area of Culver City before catching the bus back towards Santa Monica. I spent the afternoon in Venice following a self-guided walk around the canals which I had downloaded before my trip, another part of the city I had not seen before.

The following day, I had booked onto another tour to see the Star Homes in Malibu and then, after lunch alone at Barney’s Beanery – my favourite Santa Monica eatery – I hired a bike and rode to Marina del Rey, again ticking off a few more places I’d not been to before. In all honesty, I kept myself too busy to even notice I was by myself and I actually enjoyed not having to compromise on anything and being able to do what I liked and at my own pace.

Watch my Vlog of my time spent in Santa Monica before the tour here:

That evening, it was time to move from my cosy Santa Monica B&B to my Trek’s departure hotel, the Custom Hotel bear LAX. Wanting to avoid paying out for another taxi, I had again looked up how to get there on public transport. One direct bus which would drop me outside my new hotel seemed doable although I hadn’t factored in travelling in rush hour with a case and bag!

6 weeks before your Trek America tour departs, participants are given access to an online group where you can ‘meet’ other members of your tour group. This only works, of course, if other members are active in the group and no one seemed to be using it for the tour I had booked. Undeterred, and curious as to whom I would be spending 3 weeks travelling with, I instead, left a message on the Trek America forums asking if anyone else was going to be on the Southern BLT tour departing that week. By the time I had left for LA, there had been no replies but a few days later, 2 people had answered saying they too would be on the tour.

So the evening before the tour departed, once settled in at the ‘gateway’ hotel, I made my way up to the hotel’s rooftop bar where I had arranged to meet 3 of my fellow travelling companions. Everyone seemed nice – we were all solo travellers who were travelling solo for the first time and it put my mind at ease slightly about the next few weeks. After a few drinks and some small talk, it was off for an early-ish night ready to start my 3-week cross-country adventure the following morning.

It was an early start the next day where I met the rest of the group in the hotel lobby. 11 of us in total, 7 guys, 4 girls, aged 20-34 from the UK, Australia, Sweden and Switzerland. After brief introductions, some form-filling and a talk from our American tour guide, it was time to load our luggage on to the trailer and board our minibus ready to get on the road!

My first Small Group Tour travel experience Part 1

Going it alone

I’m a huge movie buff and cult TV viewer and I love a good movie tour and LA currently offers 4 of them. For some reason, I never got around to doing any of these tours on my first few visits to the city but I’ve since made up for it doing 2 of these tours on my 3rd visit and the others on my 2 subsequent visits. While I did have a favourite – the Warner Brother’s Studio Tour – they all had their merits and are worth doing if you are a film and TV fan.

Warner Brothers Studio Experience

Our WB Studios Tour was included on our Go LA pass but we wanted to book in advance to guarantee a spot at the time we wanted. This wasn’t a problem as we’d booked our pass well in advance so it was just a case of emailing the studios with our Go Card reference number to get our time slot scheduled in. Getting to the studios required a bus journey from Hollywood, the first time I’d ever used a public transport bus in the city and typically, the next stop announcer wasn’t working. Luckily, we got a friendly driver who took pity on us now knowing where on earth we were going, gave us a shout once we were at the stop we needed!

Anyway, the tour itself was great – we were taken around the studios on a little golf-buggy type vehicle passing exteriors used in shows including Friends – I’ve never been so excited to see a patch of grass but it was the patch of grass that Phoebe ran on!! We also had time to explore the Studio’s museum, one of which had a collection of Batman memorabilia from various shows and films over the years, another a Harry Potter exhibition with many props and costumes and one with a collection of vehicles used in WB films and shows including the Batmobile – as a complete geek who love Harry Potter and any comic book shows, I was in heaven! Next, we got taken to some of the studios’ sound stages seeing inside the studio where the Ellen Show is filmed and another where a comedy show was shot in front of a live audience. Then we saw an outdoor area which, at the time, was set up as ‘Bluebell, Alabama’ in the series ‘Hart of Dixie’ but also doubled as the town in Pretty Little Liars amongst other things. As I watched Hart of Dixie at the time, I was very excited to see the familiar shop fronts from ‘Bluebelle’ and well as walk into the church set used in the show and then see the sound stage where the interior shots are filmed!

The final part of the Warner Brothers Studio Experience, and probably a big selling point for many, is a visit to the Central Perk set from Friends, now recreated in unused studio where you can sit and pose for photos on the couch!

Universal Studios Hollywood

The day after we visited the WB Studios, we spent the day at Universal Studios not far from Hollywood. To tour the studios here, you need entry into the park. Getting there was an easy ride on the metro from Hollywood/Highland Station followed by jumping on the free shuttle bus up the hill to the Universal City Walk. The City Walk is a vibrant entertainment district with shops and restaurants with the Studios complex itself at the end of it. Despite it being the start of August, the Studios weren’t too busy and we managed to go on most of the rides without too much of a queue. We also enjoyed all the shows on offer.

The actual Studio Tour can be taken at any time during your visit. After queuing, we boarded a bus which then rode around the studios while our guide commentated on what we were seeing. Unlike the WB Tour, there was no opportunity to stop and get off the bus on the way around – in fact it moved constantly – and, for the most part, sets were much more in the distance than at Warner Brothers. The tour also felt a bit more like a ride as special effects were timed to go off as we drove past. The highlight for me was seeing ‘Wisteria Lane’ where Desperate Housewives was filmed!

Riding the bus on the Universal Studio Tour

Sony Pictures Studio Tour

Culver City, LA

I toured the Sony Pictures Studios on a flying visit to the city during which I was staying at Santa Monica. From there, I had to catch a bus to Culver City – part of LA I really enjoyed strolling through and felt had a really nice feel to it! – then walk to the Studio Building where the tours went from. The directions on the confirmation email were not great and I struggled to find the building at first but luckily I’d left plenty of time and thanks to some helpful studio employees giving me directions, I eventually found it. The building housed some props and costumes from various films which we were encouraged to look at while we waited for our tour to be called.

No bus or golf buggy this time – instead we toured the studios on foot. The studios are most famous for being where classic film The Wizard of Oz was filmed and as you enter, a huge rainbow looms over you and can be seen from most points of the tour! I found this tour a lot more informative on the workings of the studios and film and TV production in general than the other tours which made it one of my favourites as I found it really interesting. We were taken to rooms where various stages of post-production take place such as where the sound effects are added and – one of the tour’s highlights – we got to stand in the music studio where Judy Garland recorded Somewhere Over the Rainbow! Sticking with the Wizard of Oz theme, we got to glance into the sound studio where the movie was filmed – obviously set up for a completely different production now. Like in the Warner Brother’s Tour, we got to see inside a current set although this time, I wasn’t lucky enough for it to be for a show I watched.

Paramount Studios

The final tour offered in LA is of Paramount Studios, just outside of Hollywood. I took an easy bus ride followed by a short walk to get there. After photos in front of the famous studio gates, we again boarded a golf buggy type vehicle to be driven around the back lot. I feel we got to spend a bit more time out of the vehicle walking around the back lot than we did on the WB Tour but there were less-recognisable things to see than at Warner – to me at least! I was excited to get to stand inside the ‘McKinley High’ set from Glee which luckily had yet to be dismantled despite the last ever episode being filmed there recently!

At the end of this tour, I really enjoyed seeing the room where a lot of old props and costumes are stored!

While I really enjoyed all of these tours and seeing a bit behind the scenes of some of my favourite films and shows, just a warning that doing a tour will completely ruin your illusions when watching in the future. There are so many times now that I’m watching TV shows or films and I recognise sets from one of the studios and am able to pinpoint which studio it was filmed at, it can take me away from what’s happening on screen a bit! I the same way, the first few films I saw after doing the Sony Tour, I spent the whole time thinking about what we’d been told about sound effects every time there was a background sound or door creak. But if you’re ok with this, then I definitely recommend booking a tour if you’re in LA!