Best Los Angeles hotels

In a city as vast as Los Angeles, it can be hard to tell which are the “best” hotels.  In a city where travel is often measured by how long it takes to get from one place to another by car rather than how far apart the places are, location and proximity to where you want to go often govern your choice of hotel.  Here is a brief summary of 10 good Los Angeles hotel possibilities, 5 high-end places and 5 good deals.

The Peninsula Beverly Hills is described in guest reviews as “perfection”. You can get into your room whenever you arrive and even check in as your plane arrives at LAX, and can keep the room until you are ready to go. Garden villa suites have huge marble bathrooms, individual thermostats in each room and complementary fruit baskets, and the Peninsula Spa and Belvedere Restaurant are expensive but nationally known.

The iconic Bel Air Hotel occupies 12 acres, and guests are housed in 58 rooms and 45 suites that look like Italian villas. Amenities include in-room iPads, and Wolfgang Puck provides the food and drink at the pool and the Spa by La Prairie.  Many stars and celebrities have lived at this hotel, which is now part of the Dorchester collection.

Another part of Los Angeles lore is the “Pink Palace”, the Beverly Hills Hotel that figures in the song “Hotel California”. Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned here 6 times, Katherine Hepburn jumped into the pool fully clothed and the Polo Lounge is still the place to see and be seen. This is also affiliated with the Dorchester.

The Beverly Wilshire was the scene of Pretty Woman, and has provided luxury accommodations close to Rodeo Drive shopping for high-end guests since 1928. Now a Four Seasons property, the expensive but unpretentious rooms are noted for their private bars, marble fittings and complementary Internet, and the staff is universally praised for its friendliness and poise.

There is more to Los Angeles than Beverly Hills and Hollywood, however, and the Ritz-Carlton offers the utmost in amenities, striking high-rise design and high-level customer service downtown. The hotel is within walking distance of the Grammy Museum and Staples Center and has a huge spa and 24-hour fitness center, as well as Wolfgang Puck’s WP24 restaurant and lounge.

If you are not quite traveling as Taylor and Hepburn did, the Omni Los Angeles at California Plaza is freshly-renovated downtown. Located on Bunker Hill, this 4-diamond property is a short walk from the Disney Concert Hall, the Ahmanson and other theaters and the striking new cathedral. The Hollywood Hotel is an oasis of quiet in that often-frantic quarter, and is right on the Metro’s Red Line so you can get around without a car. The Magic Castle Hotel is within the budget of most travelers but still won the TravelAdvisor Certificate of Excellence last year, and is a short walk from the Chinese Theater, Hollywood and Vine and the Dolby Theater, home of the Oscars. The historic 1925 YMCA across from L.A. Live and the Convention Center has been turned into the Hotel Figueroa, with Moorish design like a movie palace, a refrigerator in every room and easy access to the Lakers at the Staples Center. The beachfront Cadillac Hotel in Venice Beach is 100 years old and still in fine shape, and the Hotel Angeleno on Sunset Boulevard offers free parking and good rates near the West Side, UCLA and the Getty Art Museum.