Griffith Park
A 4,310-acre urban wilderness — America's largest — born from a 3,015-acre donation in 1896 by a man who later shot his wife, then funded an observatory to claw back his name.
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Rougher and less tamed than Central Park or Golden Gate Park, this Tongva-territory expanse stretches from Los Feliz to the San Fernando Valley. The Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign share the hills with rugged, largely untamed terrain the city officially designated "urban wilderness" in 2014.
What to look for
- Griffith Observatory — built with money Griffith J. Griffith donated after serving prison time for shooting his wife; the city accepted reluctantly
- The Hollywood Sign, visible from trails within the park
- Ferndell — LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 112 (1973), near the Tongva placename Mocovenga
The park spans Los Feliz to the San Fernando Valley with multiple far-apart entrances — pick your destination (Observatory, Zoo, Autry Museum) before you drive.
Griffith Park is one of 33 sights worth the detour in Los Angeles, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Los Angeles pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Los Angeles
- Hollywood Walk of Fame2,850 names pressed into pink terrazzo underfoot — actors, inventors, fictional characters, all at six-foot intervals for 1.3 miles.
- Dolby TheatreThe red carpet runs up these stairs every awards season — where Hollywood officially crowns its year.
- SoFi StadiumA million-square-foot canopy embedded with 27,000 LED pucks bright enough to be seen from planes descending into LAX.
- Hollywood SignA 1923 real-estate billboard that refused to come down — and ended up owning the word "Hollywood" itself.
- U.S. Bank TowerLA sold the sky above a fire-gutted library to fund its own rebuilding — and got its second-tallest tower in the bargain.
- Rose BowlA century-old sunken oval where the 1994 World Cup Final was settled — and the 2028 Olympics will return to do it again.