Cruise the Sunset Strip, where the signs are as loud as the music

Why: The Strip, a 1.5-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, is as loud and glitzy as Sunset Boulevard gets. It’s got bright lights, bold signage, live music and generations of celebrity highlife, misbehavior and tragedy underfoot.

What: Before the actors, musicians, models and assorted party people and fame-seekers arrived, this neighborhood was a hangout in the 1920s for gangsters (perhaps because it’s just outside Los Angeles city limits). Nowadays it’s part of West Hollywood and raucous nights continue at venues including the following:

The Whiskey-a-Go-Go, a famed rock music venue, goes back to 1964. The Roxy Theatre has been staging live shows since 1973. The Viper Room, which opened in 1993 and saw actor River Phoenix’s overdose death that same year, still offers live music. The Comedy Store goes back to 1972. The Chateau Marmont (just inside the L.A. city limit), opened in the 1930s,and continues to flourish as a hotel, restaurant and bar, despite John Belushi’s drug death there in 1982 and Helmut Newton’s fatal car accident there in 2004.

And if you’re haunting storied music venues, don’t forget the Troubadour (where Elton John, James Taylor and Tom Waits played crucial early gigs), 12 blocks south of Sunset on Santa Monica Boulevard at North Doheny Drive in West Hollywood.

Where: The “Strip” section of Sunset Boulevard, west of Marmont Lane and east of Phyllis Street, is in West Hollywood, 10 miles northwest of downtown L.A.
How much: It’s free to look. And you can probably afford to buy something or catch a reading at Book Soup. Admission prices for live music vary widely. Nightly rates at Chateau Marmont typically start around $520 (tax included).
More info: Visit West Hollywood