10 Things to Do in Los Angeles in Summer

Sun, sea and music! Los Angeles is one of the most popular summer destinations in the United States because of its beach atmosphere and warm temperatures. But the truth is that in the summer there are plenty of things to see and do in the city, so if you're going to spend a few days there, the least you'll do is get bored.

Whether it's spending a day at Venice Beach, going on a hike or just having a drink on a rooftop: Los Angeles is really full of activities to do all the time in the summer. The city is completely adaptable to your tastes and hobbies and I promise you 'll have a great time during your entire holiday. Are you up for ten things to do in this great California city during the summer?

If there's one symbol of Los Angeles, it's Venice Beach. But Venice is not just a beach, it's a group of beaches, accompanied by canals, buildings and other constructions. At times, Venice feels like a city in itself, which is why I recommend you spend a day in this fantastic place, from morning to night. Here you can eat well, swim, relax, surf and party.

Venice Beach is four kilometres long, so you can walk it from end to end for a bit of exercise before heading into the water. You can also hire a bike and use it for the whole day. But that's not all you can do. When the sun is not so intense, I invite you to tour the canals of Venice with a rented boat or on one of the best boat tours in the city that you can hire directly from Venice Beach.

When you visit the canals, you will realise that this is also a tour of the houses of the rich and famous, as these are located on the edge of the canals. At the end of this tour and as the day draws to a close, I recommend that you sit on the sand and watch the sun go down, with maximum relaxation.

Thought Los Angeles only had parties in the summer? That's because you haven't hiked to the waterfalls. The area around Los Angeles is a great place to hike, because the mountains are low and the heat is a little cooler. But the best part is that there are some small waterfalls and streams with fantastic pools where you can take a dip.

The best part is that these hikes can be done by anyone, because the difficulty levels are extremely low. One of the best is Millard Canyon Falls, which is part of the Angeles National Forest in the Altadena area, where you can even get a view of the ocean. But you can also do the Solstice Canyon Falls tour in Malibu, where you can enjoy a 10-metre waterfall to cool off from the summer heat.

When you're in Los Angeles, you'll notice how much of an Asian influence there is in the city. The Lotus Festival is your chance to check it out. This festival is held in the beautiful Echo Lake Park for two days in July when the stunning lotus flower blooms in the park and where you can also take one of the best boat rides in Los Angeles.

The Lotus Flower is just an excuse to celebrate California's Asian heritage in a two-day festival with lots of music, cultural activities and film screenings, but not only. If you decide to go to this festival you can also eat delicious Asian food and also, with any luck, you can ride on a traditional dragon boat for a canoe race. Isn't that amazing?

Practical information

• Location: 751 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, 90026

• Price: Free admission

• Hours: Saturday and Sunday mid-July, 12 noon-9pm

The iconic music festival in Los Angeles is Hard Summer. This is an electronic music festival, mainly focused on alternative and emerging artists, although every year there are big stars on the roster. Hard Summer is a festival that usually takes place in Downtown Los Angeles, so the beach atmosphere will be the order of the day.

So, if you like to be at a massive summer event listening to electronic music, then Hard Summer is for you. The best thing is that it's a three-day festival: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with a different line-up each day for you to have a great time. The festival usually starts at around 4pm each day and finishes in the early hours of the morning, so recharge your batteries that night and don't miss either of the two days.

Practical info

• Location: usually Downtown Los Angeles, although it has occasionally been held in San Bernardino, a suburb of Los Angeles.

• Price: You can buy a general admission ticket for approximately 230 euros which will cover all three days.

• Hours: Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the last week of July, starting at 4 p.m.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is one of the most important museums in the city, but in the summer it is renowned for hosting some very special jazz evenings. If you go, you can enjoy the museum, take pictures at the famous Urban Light lamp sculpture and then walk to the museum's plaza, where there will be a constant jazz performance every Friday.

There are no big seats here: you can sit on the floor or wherever you can and watch the different groups play the most classic jazz, as well as different modern manifestations of this wonderful musical genre. Admission is completely free and there will be no excuse for you to miss it, because it is an event that is repeated every Friday night, so you will be able to go at least once during your stay.

Practical information

• Location: in the plaza of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), located at 5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, 90036.

• Price: admission is completely free

• Hours: every Friday during the summer, starting at 6 p.m.

Have you ever seen Hollywood movies set in Los Angeles, where the characters lie down on a rooftop to watch a movie, or stay for a film show in the middle of the street? Well, this is not an invention of Hollywood cinema, it really happens every summer in Los Angeles. For example, you can go to the Rooftop Cinema Club, a franchise that is in different cities, but that in Los Angeles has one of its main ones and where you can see the best cinema from a rooftop.

In this case, you can buy tickets for three different places: the club in the Arts District, the one in Downtown Los Angeles and the one in El Segundo. I recommend doing so because it's one of the symbols of Californian summer, but if you're a bit scared of rooftops, then perhaps events like the StreetFood Cinema are the best for you. Here you can combine food and film screenings that are set up on public thoroughfares or in museums like the Autry. This event usually takes place between June and July and makes for a great cultural evening.

Are you going to be in Los Angeles at the end of August to close out the summer? Do you want to experience an all-out festival that combines electronic music with indie and rap? Then what are you waiting for to buy your tickets to This Ain't No Picnic? This is a festival that takes place in the Rose Bowl, one of the largest football stadiums in the United States with 95,000 spectators, so you won't be short of company.

The lineup of this festival, which has already become a tradition, is very varied and caters to all kinds of musical tastes. In addition, it lasts two days, Saturday and Sunday, so you'll have a night to rest and continue enjoying the best indie and electronic artists that will get the whole Rose Bowl audience buzzing. Get ready to dance, enjoy and scream this weekend at the end of August.

Practical info

• Location: at the Rose Bowl, an American football stadium located in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

• Price: You can buy a general admission ticket for around £300 for both days or £160 for one day only.

• Hours: Saturday and Sunday of the last weekend in August, from noon onwards

Every June 28th is commemorated around the world as LGBTI Pride Day. That's why one of the first activities of the summer you'll have in Los Angeles will be the LGBTI Pride rally and parades. And Los Angeles has one of the biggest parades in the United States and the world where there's no way you'll get bored with so much colour and floats.

This is the main event and it usually takes place on Hollywood Boulevard, but it's not the only one. In fact, the whole month of June is Pride Month and with that theme you can attend all-day festivals like La Pride! In The Park, where all sorts of pop stars will be singing. Also, if you're interested in shopping, on weekends in June there will be Made With Pride, where art and music will be on sale, in a cultural and vindicative atmosphere for the LGBTI community. It's a perfect excuse for a stroll.

One of the biggest neighbourhoods in Los Angeles is Chinatown, both in terms of importance and number of tourists. But there are three days in the summer where Chinatown takes on an amazing relevance in the whole city: Chinatown Summer Nights, a series of street parties where you can eat the best food in food trucks, drink beer and see the best DJs and bands of Californian artists. You can also shop for vintage clothing and even collectibles.

Chinatown Summer Nights is an event where art and food come together just for a night out in the middle of Chinatown, making it one of the best things to do at night in Los Angeles. There's a Chinatown Summer Night at the beginning of every month of the summer: June, July and August, so it's likely that your stay will coincide with one of them. Are you up for a night out?

Practical info

• Location: in the streets of the Chinatown neighbourhood.

• Price: It's a public event in the middle of the street, so it's free. However, you will be able to buy food, drinks and clothes.

• Hours: Generally one Saturday night in early June, July and August, starting at dusk.

The sun sets in the west which is just the position of the sea in Los Angeles. That's why this city has some incredible sunsets where the sun hides behind the ocean, and what could be better than watching one of these sunsets from a rooftop bar? In Los Angeles there are many rooftop bars, where the classic thing to do is to order a cocktail and watch the sun go down.

But not just a cocktail. Many of these bars are actually on rooftops, but very close to the beach, in iconic areas like Santa Monica. Among them I recommend the ONYX Rooftop Bar, the rooftop bar of the Shangri Hotel in Santa Monica. Here you can also try the best beach drinks such as pina coladas. This is a great way to simply relax after a busy day and admire the immensity of the sun. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that it is one of the best places to watch sunsets in the world.

Los Angeles is hot, very hot. Los Angeles is located quite far south, so the temperatures are quite hot all year round, but in summer it is even worse. It's also a fairly flat and arid city, which makes the heat even more pronounced. In general, the average for the month of August is around 25°C, but many times the wind chill is even higher and depending on the time of year, the temperature can exceed 30°C.

If you ask me, summer is the best time to visit Los Angeles, because everything in the city is designed for that heat. If you go in late June and early July, the temperatures will be quite a bit more pleasant, but there will also be less activity and the day will be shorter. But in August you'll have almost 15 hours of sunlight and that means you can do a lot of activities in the late afternoon, when temperatures rarely rise above 25°C.

Los Angeles is very busy all year round, but the most popular time for tourists is in the summer. We are talking about a city that receives more than 50 million visitors a year, so throughout the summer there are several million tourists visiting the city. The good thing is that the whole city is adapted to this, so you are sure to find space to stay and enjoy yourself.

However, you should be very aware that there will be many tourists everywhere, particularly if you go in summer. Sometimes you will have to queue for certain services. My advice is to book tickets early for the activities you want to do, as there are bound to be a few hundred or thousands of tourists wanting to do the same as you.

Loose-fitting clothes, sunscreen and a swimming costume. If you visit Los Angeles in summer, I recommend you pack comfortable T-shirts, shorts, shorts and anything that won't make you too hot, because the temperatures are really hot. In addition to that, it is essential that you bring at least one sunscreen that you will have to use all the time, because the sun in the city is inclement.

You also can't escape from bringing at least one swimming costume; the kind you want, but that dries quickly, so you won't have problems storing it. Sandals or any kind of beach shoes will be important, as well as trainers that will be useful for the excursions and hikes you will have to do. Finally, I recommend a hat to protect you from the sun, whether you're hiking or taking a tour bus ride, where you'll want to admire the city and not get sunburned by the intensity of the sun.