Los Angeles Travel Guide: Two Weeks of Matcha Walks & Meetups

I lived in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade — USC, the Hollywood assistant years, the TV writing rooms, the era when I ranked coffeeshops by screenplay-writing potential. Going back for two weeks this spring, I got to be a tourist inside my old life: same streets, new obsessions, and a city still fully capable of taking my money one matcha at a time.

This is my updated Los Angeles travel guide — two weeks of seeing friends, hosting Make Writing Your Job subscriber events, garden estates, rooftop pop-ups, and eating like it was research, because it was. (The Living in Los Angeles archive holds the prequels.)

Where to Stay in Los Angeles: Go Walkable or Go Home

LA is a driving city, which is exactly why you should refuse to fully participate. We based ourselves in this Hancock Park house on VRBO (not on Airbnb — worth the platform detour), just north of Mid-City in the Fairfax–La Brea orbit, and we really enjoyed it: a lovely host, a great house, an even better location, and the unglamorous amenities that actually make an LA stay work — parking permit included, which locals will recognize as the true luxury tier.

From that base: a walk to M Cafe, a walk to Sightglass, a walk to Blu Jam Cafe, a long-but-doable walk to Community Goods, and a short drive to Re/Creation. Pick your base for walkability and half your LA problems dissolve.

The Matcha-Walk Morning (Patent Pending)

The routine that defined this trip: walk to a matcha spot, collect the drink, and drink it on the walk to breakfast. The flagship version runs the long road to Community Goods for the vanilla bean matcha (my LA matcha ranking explains the devotion), then lands at Blu Jam Cafe for the tofu scramble. Steps, matcha, breakfast: the whole morning solved before 10am.

The Cafes Worth Working From

Two weeks of remote work taught me the hierarchy. Bricks & Scones is the deep-work pick — library-like inside, with a sun-drenched corner of the patio that I claimed so often it should pay property tax. Republic of Pie in NoHo is the social one, always popping, where co-working and meeting people happen in the same sitting. Re/Creation is for a golden few hours (they politely cap laptop time, and weekends go screens-down for salsa classes and paint-and-sip nights). Sightglass is the grab-drinks-and-pastries stop — gorgeous, gluten-free-friendly, and perpetually short on chairs. And Dialog Cafe earned its keep for writer-friend catch-ups.

The Pop-Up and Event Layer (Where LA Actually Lives)

The real Los Angeles is on the event layer. This trip alone: a rooftop matcha-and-microbakery pop-up next to Larchmont that racked up a 300-plus-person waitlist, an all-women book industry mixer at The Wellesbourne (a room that feels like an old, slightly mischievous library), and a vegan food festival in Westwood Village. Follow the pop-ups and the city organizes itself for you.

One honest note from that Westwood outing: the Village itself has visibly struggled — empty storefronts, for-lease signs stacking block after block. LA is many cities at once, and some of them are having a harder decade than others.

Gardens, Estates, and the Green Hour

The garden-stroll counterweight to all that caffeine: Robinson Gardens in Beverly Hills, a multi-acre estate with genuine Gatsby energy, the kind of place LA hides in plain sight behind a hedge. (Google Maps) Pair it with any of the canyon or park walks and the city stops feeling like traffic entirely.

Where to Eat: the Short List

The full rankings live in my best restaurants & coffee shops in Los Angeles (every spot has its own review), but the two-week highlight reel: Layla Bagels, Rosemary and Thyme’s potatoes, M Cafe’s leave-feeling-great cooking, Blu Jam’s tofu scramble, and Bodega’s day-to-night double life in Santa Monica.

The Nightcap: Shiloh Tea House

End at least one night at Shiloh Tea House in DTLA: candlelit brick loft, live atmospheric musicians, board games, tea tastings. LA nightlife for people who’d rather remember it — and the single coolest room of our trip.

Weather report: it’s LA. Bring sunglasses, walk more than the city expects you to, and leave room in the schedule for whatever pop-up finds you. For the rest of my traveling life, the travel archive awaits.

This is part of my travel series — I spent five years reviewing places around the world as a digital nomad (all the guides live here), and now I road-trip out from San Francisco with the same notebook. Subscribe to my newsletter for new guides and reviews — and if you’re a writer who wants a career that travels this well, that’s what Make Writing Your Job is for.