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by Dorothy Jordon & David Ferber with Jordan Simon

When our kids both decided to go to college in California, friends warned us that they would end up moving there. Well, they didn't relocate but their stays did result in our visiting Los Angeles frequently. It's a terrific city for tourists, delivering the fantasy of the movies, cutting-edge culture, theme parks, recreational and spectator sports, chic shopping, dynamic dining, free TV show tapings, celebrity watching and miles of beaches!

Travel back in time with the famed fossils at La Brea Tar Pits or zoom through the Space Age at L.A. downtown’s world-renowned California ScienCenter. Explore reel life on studio tours or real life at the many stirring poignant tributes to the city’s multi-ethnic heritage (e.g., African-American Museum; Museum of Latin-American Art; Korean Cultural Center; Japanese-American Museum; and Museum of Tolerance). Take in a Dodgers game or visit the Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens — still more reasons for families to shout Hooray — and not just for Hollywood!

On a recent trip, we stayed in Santa Monica, an ideal blend of city and surf culture — and one of the few places in L.A. where transportation is frequently by foot! It flows right into the tony, museum-filled Westside (embracing Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Bel Air and Sunset Strip), which links with Hollywood. A car is still recommended for any visit to the City of Angels. However, if you don’t want to challenge those (in)famous freeways, the Metro is now fairly extensive (as a bonus, most stations feature remarkable public art).

We love Santa Monica’s compact downtown, where one can indulge in sinful Belgian chocolate, burn it off at a yoga center, burn CDs at the first Starbucks/Hear Music store, then hit the beach! Its Third Street Promenade is a delightful pedestrian street, with street performers, boutiques, galleries, restaurants and theaters. Many Promenade bookstores feature signings and children’s readings by such celebrity authors as Julie Andrews and Jamie Lee Curtis. Browse its trendy shops or grab a bench while savoring an Italian gelato and enjoying the antics of breakdancers, bucket drummers, jugglers, singers and mimes. Another fun, and a bit more sophisticated, shopping area in Santa Monica is located along Montana Avenue.

The Santa Monica Pier is a playground on pilings thrusting 1,000' into the Pacific. The UCLA Ocean Discovery Center here displays the denizens of Santa Monica Bay. Pacific Park, California’s only admission-free amusement park, has been featured in many films. Its Pier Pressure Zone is a classic honky-tonk arcade; the rides include miniature yellow submarines and World War I biplanes, bumper cars, a swinging wooden "sea dragon" ship, roller coaster and the world’s first solar-powered Ferris wheel (circling above the crashing waves). (310-458-8900/www.santamonicapier.org /www.pacpark.com)

Kids' fare in Santa Monica includes the Santa Monica Puppet & Magic Center (310-656-0483) and two intimate theaters at Magicopolis feature fun-filled, audience participation shows blending sleight-of-hand and comedy. (310-451-2241)

As one would expect, the museum scene in L.A. is awesome. If you have time for only one, make it the (free) J.P. Getty Museum. Richard Meier’s amazing design maximizes its hillside position, offering breathtaking panoramas of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Mountains, the Pacific (sunsets to die for) and Los Angeles. The Central Garden features a natural ravine, stream, stone waterfall, pools, tree-lined walkway and bougainvillea arbor: a spectacular interplay of light, color and reflection. Don't miss the interactive, in-depth, multi-media computer stations called GettyGuides. Explore a timeline of the collection; listen to commentary from artists and curators; screen videos on artistic techniques; even bookmark interesting artists and their works or e-mail them to friends and family. Free GettyGuide handhelds are available for special exhibitions.

The museum's bilingual (English/Spanish) Family Room, recently redesigned, features five activity areas where kids can build, play, draw and hunt for art treasure (and then look for the art in the Collection). And it's just the tip of the iceberg for family visits. A brochure, Family Fun at the Getty, offers ideas on how to make a family visit an adventure, and includes details on family tours, festivals and concerts. There's even a Children's Bookstore and an area for nursing mothers! (310-440-7300/ www.getty.edu)

Other extraordinary art institutions include: downtown’s Museum of Contemporary Art, aka MOCA, known for its cutting-edge exhibits and hands-on educational tool; Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum, showcasing superb European and Asian artworks ; and the L.A. Museum of Art or LACMA, the only West Coast stop for the blockbuster Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs starting this June.

Our family loves visiting Hollywood, where the most famous attractions are clustered within a few blocks on Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue. A must pilgrimage is comparing celebrity hand- and footprints at the fabled Grauman’s Chinese Theater (323-461-3331/ www.manntheatres.com), before tracing the stars along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

CityPass Hollywood (there's also a Southern California version) features three mesmerizing venues (in addition to a Starline Tour highlighting stars' homes) documenting Hollywood past and present:

The 33,000-sq. ft. Hollywood Entertainment Museum features interactive exhibits, memorabilia and a studio backlot tour (including the original sets of Star Trek, The X-Files and Cheers. Our visit here was a delight. Among the museum's collections are: the Max Factor Collection, from the man who coined the term "make-up"; and, a sure-fire kid-pleaser, the Science Fiction Collection. (323-465-7900/ www.hollywoodmuseum.com)

The Hollywood Museum, located in the Historic Max Factor Building (a glorious Art Deco landmark), displays 5,000 artifacts from rare costumes to props and posters on four floors. You can "visit" Hannibal Lecter’s cellblock and learn how Max Factor revolutionized movie make-up. (323-464-7776/ www.thehollywoodmuseum.com)

A guided tour of the Kodak Theatre, the crown jewel of Hollywood and Highland, a mega-complex embracing the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, six movie screens, 12 bowling lanes, restaurants and shops, a television production studio and more. The Theatre, a state-of-the-art performance venue, hosts the Academy Awards and the TV show American Idol. (323-817-0220/ www.hollywoodandhighland.com)

We often visit Universal Studios Hollywood. This mega-theme park features movie studios, tours, attractions, rides, restaurants and more. Many heart-pounding rides and full-sensory experiences are scary, gross or both — including Fear Factor Live opening in June. Our favorite part of Universal are the non rides, the movie/tv exhibits where we can escape into the thrilling worlds of blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Terminator, monkey around at Animal Planet Live!, and tour the Special Effects Stages, the sound stages and movie lots. Free Priority Seating Passes to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno are distributed first-come first-served Friday at the Silver Screen store. Free tickets (based on availability) to other TV tapings are distributed at the Audiences Unlimited Ticket Booth. Look for terrific online deals (including a free 2005 Pass for each full day ticket you buy before May 1). (818-777-1000/ www.universalstudios.com)

If your children are 10 and older, check out Warner Brothers VIP Studio Tour, a treasured local secret (advance reservations required). Groups are small, so you learn quite a bit. It begins with a video chronicling studio history, from the first talkie (The Jazz Singer) to today’s monster franchises (the Matrix and Harry Potter films). The Warner Brothers Museum houses iconic movie memorabilia like Sam's piano from Casablanca. The tour visits both back and front lots (changing daily to accommodate shooting schedules). The bustling front lot is very cool — a prop warehouse, the costume department and the Foley Room (where sound effects are created). Visit the closed set of a movie or TV show like ER, Gilmore Girls or Everybody Loves Raymond. At the high-tech post-production labs lucky folks get to watch an orchestra recording a soundtrack or actors dubbing additional dialogue. (818-954-6000/ www.studio-tour.com)

Downtown, a treasure trove of fun awaits families. Exposition Park’s Natural History Museum is the nation’s third largest venue of its kind, housing more than 33 million artifacts and specimens, from mammals to Megamouth (the world’s rarest shark) to a Mamenchisaurus skeleton (the longest-necked dinosaur). (213-763-3466/ www.nhm.org)

California ScienCenter is a mind-blowing venue featuring interactive exhibits and an IMAX Theatre. Its fun-filled Science Court holds live demos, special exhibits and interactive attractions, like the three-story High-Wire Bicycle, Cave Climb and the Hypar, a five-story moving sculpture. Journey through Creative World to tinker with the latest technological advances in communications, transportation and construction. Travel down the Life Tunnel to learn how a single-cell amoeba and 100 trillion-cell human beings are surprisingly alike. Voyage into space through hands-on exhibits and artifacts. Younger children create and communicate in the interactive Discovery Room, a city street replica including a Construction Zone, Hardware Store and child-sized TV studio. The upcoming Robots + Us exhibit offers fabulous futuristic fun: use your body to control the motion of the Garden of Sensory Delights’ wacky robotic flowers and build your own Jitterbug Robot using simple materials and your own creativity. (213-7447400/www.californiasciencecenter.org)

Though amazing performing arts venues are located all over Los Angeles, downtown’s Music Center is the city’s cultural nexus. Its Ahmanson Theater, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and gleaming new Disney Concert Hall host major festivals, world-class performers, touring shows and internationally renowned performing arts companies like LA Philharmonic, Mark Taper Forum/Center Theatre Group and the LA Opera. Informative backstage tours are available. (213-972-7211/ www.musiccenter.org)

BEST BEDS

Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel has a stunning beachfront setting and is convenient to Santa Monica’s attractions. For kids, the swimming pool holds great appeal. The atrium lobby, graced with palm trees and ocean views, beckons. The 321 guest rooms (there are also 19 suites) are a nice size and the bathrooms are sleek. A family package includes a free movie (daily), popcorn and more. This Four-Diamond property features award-winning dining, healthclub/spa, business center, pool and rooms equipped with all contemporaries luxuries from wireless Internet access to in-room movies. Terry robes, hairdryers and makeup/shaving mirrors were nice to find.

The hotel also participates in the Loews Loves Kids program (kids under 18 stay free in parent's room, child-proofing kits, cribs and rollaways, all free) which includes a Family Concierge (run in conjunction with Parenting magazine) and its new Healthy Kids menus, including a Quenchers Menu of low-sugar drinks with such names as Pink Cow, Monkey Business and Berry Berry good. Unfortunately, there are no longer any supervised kids' programs at the hotel. (800-23-LOEWS/310-458-6700/ www.loewshotels.com)

L.A. boasts an exciting diverse dining scene, with plentiful ethnic options, themed eateries, chichi watering holes run by celeb chefs . . . you name it. Pick up a Zagat survey to learn more about dining in LA. Here are just a few, very few, recommendations:

We enjoyed a lovely seaside brunch at Shutters on the Beach, an upscale boutique hotel down the beach from Loews. We sat beachside, watching walkers and runners . . . locals enjoying the promenade running along the beach. (310-458-0030)

Many British expatriates call Santa Monica home, and Tudor House sets a proper afternoon tea — seemingly always a kid-parent-pleaser! Its shop stocks English goods and goodies. (310-451-4107)

Café Crêpe (310-576-0499), a French import via Canada, serves more than 40 types of crêpes, from strawberry jam to jambon: a marvelous cheap Santa Monica meal.

Downtown’s Olvera Street is a colorful Mexican marketplace dating to 1930 with numerous authentic eateries, Latin American craft shops and even folkloric performances. (213-485-6855/www.lacity.org/elp)

If you're looking for a family-friendly restaurant in Beverly Hills, try Il Fornaio, part of a small chain that serves up terrific pizzas, pastas, salads and more, together with hot from the oven crusted breads. (310-550-8330)

LA INC. The Convention and Visitors Bureau websites, www.visitlanow.com and www.lacvb.com, feature deals galore, a calendar of events and comprehensive listings of sights, restaurants and more.

The Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau, www.santamonica.com, has plenty of special offers and detailed information on events and attractions.

The best site we've seen for family activities is www.gocitykids.com/. Here you can customize your itineraries by date, ages of your kids, type of activity that interests you and much more. A winner for families!

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© 2005 Dorothy Jordon & Associates Inc.