Things to do around Los Angeles at the beginning of August?

disneyland.. or any other theme park like six flags.. knotts..

i live in LA and those are some fun places to go

Have you heard of Ojai? It is a small mountain town 90 min NW of LA. Amazing hikes and some hot springs near there. Although it will already be quite hot. Santa Barbara is also 2 hours away. The beach at Santa Monoca is really nice – that’s right in LA.

oh yeah santa monica.. its cool there ive gone before theres a lot of stores.. its fun to walk around and you can go to the pier

JT will be spectacular on August evenings. Arrive late afternoon & camp overnight, then split before it gets too hot. If you can be there on the 12th, you’ll see the Perseid meteor showers.

Other ideas:

> Visit the Getty Villa in Malibu, an antiquities museum designed as an authentic replica of a Roman villa from Herculaneum (near Pompeii).

> Drive down the coast to La Jolla or Mission Bay.

> Tour Topanga Canyon – lots of odd little shops, tons of interesting history.

Take a drive up Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica through Malibu. Stop at Neptunes Net for lunch (just over the Ventura County line). Head up to Santa Barbara for a cocktail and appetizers. Come back south and stop at the Malibu Inn dinner and live music. Its a full day but the beach is perfect in August. If your car is a convertible, the drive will be sensational.

There are some other good suggestions in this discussion:

http://www.fluther.com/disc/5765/what-are-some-amazing-things-to-dovisit-in-la-west-hollywood/

Rent a GPS and do some geocaching! Or, message me and we can geocache together! Perfect for mini-adventures. :)

The PCH toward Ventura with a stop at the Ventura harbor is nice and a trip to the Ventura mission is interesting. Malibu Cyn Drive has been the scene for many tv and movies. Most people like the Hollywood walk of fame. Can’t go wrong on PCH. If you’re a movie buff you can make a stop at Westlake and Lake Sherwood. Lake Sherwood is where original Robin Hood movie was filmed. Doesn’t look anything like that now but a super trivia place. You can check on tours at Warner Bros too. How about Venice Beach?
Have fun

Take an early boat over to Catalina and take a tour to the outer parts of the island. First time you will probably need to take a guided one, but it’s an interesting rig for a bus, and the stops are very interesting. Gives you a view that people that stay in Avalon don’t get to see. Just get a sample of the place and you’ll want to go back. The casino (not a gambling casino) has a small museum under it that is interesting. The ride over is nice as well.

Just make sure that a cruise ship isn’t in port that day.

LA Live Steamers and Travel Town in Griffith Park (they are both free). There all kinds of other great stuff in Griffith park too, hiking, the zoo, picnic areas. If you make it to Ojai, stop at Boccalis or The Ranch House to eat. Boccalis has the most amazing pizza and garlic bread, a fabulous tomato salad, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach is great if a little pricey.

@Trustinglife Ojai is awesome but is so far from LA, more than 3 hr drive with the traffic we have nowadays.
@PupnTaco I though the Getty was moved to near Sepulveda Blvd near Wilshire Blvd. That’s the new Getty Museum on top of a huge hill you can see on the right as you drive south on the 405 Fwy coming from downtown LA though 101 Fwy.
You can also have fun at the Wax Museum on Jefferson Blvd and the park around it has a lot of flowers nice for picture taking, a nice hiking place are the Santa Monica mountains, full of trees and once you are on the top, you can appreciate the whole landscape of the city.

If you want to camp someplace cooler than Joshua Tree, you can go camp on the beach in Malibu. The beach in general is always fun—I like to bike along the boardwalk from Redondo to Manhattan Beach. Or hike up to Griffith Observatory (you can see all of LA from there).

you can hike at mt Hollywood . You can even do that hike at night for a 360 degree view of la.