After the peace and quiet of the Cook Islands, LA was definately the opposite we were looking for. We stayed in Hollywood just off the walk of fame. Whilst we were there we did Venice beach, Muscle beach and Santa Monica which are nice seaside towns and where they fimed Baywatch! We also did a tour that took in Hollywood Blvd, downtown LA, Rodeo Drive and some celebrity mansions in Bel Air and Beverley Hills which were amazing. We watched 'Oceans 13' at the Chinese Theatre where it had premiered 2 weeks before. Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Matt Damon were the latest celebs to leave their imprints and signatures in the cement in front of the theatre. We really enjoyed Hollywood and could have spent longer there.

A short bus ride south took us to San Diego. Our first 2 nights were spent on Ocean Beach, it was a nice place but our hostel was rubbish so we moved into the city for our next two nights. We were staying in the Gaslamp Quarter which is the lively party district. San Diego town and the Marina were both really nice places. We hired a car on our last day and drove up the coast to Orange County. We went to Newport beach which was a lot bigger than expected but didn't recognise any of it from the programme 'The OC', which was annoying.

Our next stop was Santa Barbara, a couple of hours north of LA. We only had one night there which was a shame as it was a really cool place with heaps of bars, restaurants and shopping leading down to the pier. We would have stayed longer but we were meeting a friend from Fiji for a day of fun in San Francisco.