Day 3
7/12/2019
The hostel offered a Beverly Hills Walking tour of celebrity houses and Rodeo Drive. However, the tour was more of ‘famous people’s gates.’ Most houses are well hidden and you can only catch a small glimpse of their houses.
Celebrity Gate Hunting
The group took the city bus from Hollywood to the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Ladera Drive. Here we were able to see an iconic Beverly Hills sign.
We then continued into the residential neighborhood to see where celebrities both currently or formerly lived. However, it was mostly a tour of former celebrity homes as many have moved out of the area. And of course, it was mostly just a view of their gates.
On the walk were able to see the gates and property walls of Walt Disney’s former property, the house where Michael Jackson passed away, Elvis’ LA mansion, former home of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner (pre-divorce), and former home of Ellen Degeneres. We also saw the current home/gate of Sean P. Diddy Combs and were able to catch a minuscule view of the Playboy Mansion.
The security is super strict around the Playboy Mansion and the guards will yell at you on a loudspeaker if they catch you taking pictures of the property.
An interesting fact about Beverly Hills is that in many of the neighborhoods, there are no sidewalks. Probably in hopes to deter visitors walking the area. Also, many of the houses seemed like they were right on top of each other and not much yard space.
Rodeo Drive
After exiting the Beverly Hills neighborhood, we took the bus down to Rodeo Drive. The street was lined with every expensive, luxury brand you could think of. Most stores you can’t even go into because they are by appointment only and have security guards. These policies are probably in place because the street is mostly filled with tourists.
Was the tour worth it?
It was nice to see the area and see what Rodeo Drive is all about, but it is not something I would do again. Again, not a huge celebrity person, and just seeing their gates makes these types of tours pointless. The driven tours seem to be even worse. A few of them zipped by us and they had even less time to see the area than we did by walking. If you’re planning to visit Los Angeles, it is a gimmicky, traditional tour everyone does, but not one worth paying money for in my opinion.
