best LA walks | The Style Eater

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a few years now (and in Southern California my whole life) and I’m still discovering its hidden gems and beauties. Take the Hollywood Reservoir for example. I only learned about it a few months ago while watching the film “Seven Psychopaths” (which I don’t recommend). There is one scene at the beginning of the film right on that very bridge in the first photo, and even though someone is getting murdered in the scene, Kyle and I looked at each other and thought: WHAT IS THIS HEAVEN ON EARTH?? Minus the murdering, of course. Oh but the beautiful lake and lush greenery! And then I immediately felt like an ass for never having been to this gem literally in the middle of my own city. Blasphemous.

So we went and explored. It was so peaceful and as a bonus, we saw deer in their natural habitat. There is a paved path around the reservoir that’s about 4 miles long and we just walked as far as we could (to a locked gate) and then back around. A large team training for the marathon was running along the path as well, giving us dirty looks as they passed us, probably thinking that we too were training for the marathon and must be real lazy with all those walk breaks we were taking. Sorry marathoners, we were not training. We just really wanted to take pictures of deer.

Here’s more info on the Hollywood Reservoir if you so happen upon LA, are stuck in traffic on the 101, and in dire need of fresh air and nature.

Stop being so dang pretty all the time, Los Angeles.

One of my favorite things about this crazy city of mine is that you can be grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s one minute…and then 15 minutes later you can be on the top of a mountain eating Cookie Butter or drinking Traderade. Just kidding on the Cookie Butter, but seriously there are so many great places to hike and explore.

For this particular adventure, we drove through the flats of Beverly Hills (aka lots of mini mansions), then up into the hills of Beverly Hills (aka giant mansions), then up even higher on a windy street up the side of a mountain until we reached our destination at Franklin Canyon Park. There are trails, walks, parks, reservoirs, and lots of cute puppies everywhere you look. We decided to do a small hike to the top so we could overlook the reservoir. What is it about bodies of water that are so appealing? I don’t know but we were darn excited to see this thing. When we got to the top, the reservoir was drained and empty. WHAT THE HECK? Anyway, so we took the long way down the mountain and snapped pictures on our iPhones. Can you believe these are iPhone pics??

*a note to locals who want to hike this: Stop completely at all STOP signs. We’re talking a 5-second stop at least! There are cameras at every STOP sign up in the park and they want you to give them a $100 for rolling through them. Be good and stop! We know from experience.

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The Hollywood Reservoir

STOP IT, LA.