Los Angeles is not a single compact city like San Francisco, but a sprawling suburbia comprising dozens of disparate communities located either on the ocean or the flatlands of a huge basin. Even if you've never visited L.A. before, you'll recognize the names of many: Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Malibu. Ocean breezes push the city's infamous smog inland, toward dozens of less well-known residential communities, and through mountain passes into the sprawl of the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

Downtown Los Angeles -- which, by the way, isn't where most tourists go -- is in the center of the basin, about 12 miles east of the Pacific Ocean. Most visitors spend the bulk of their time either on the coast or on the city's Westside.

Main Arteries & Streets

L.A.'s extensive system of toll-free, high-speed freeways connects the city's patchwork of communities. The system works well to get you where you need to be, although rush-hour (roughly 7-9am and 4-6pm) traffic can be bumper-to-bumper. Here's an overview (best read with an L.A. map in hand):

U.S. 101, called the "Ventura Freeway" in the San Fernando Valley and the "Hollywood Freeway" in the city, runs across L.A. in a roughly northwest-southeast direction, from the San Fernando Valley to the center of downtown. Heavy rush-hour traffic.

Calif. 134 continues as the "Ventura Freeway" after U.S. 101 turns into the city and becomes the Hollywood Freeway. This branch of the Ventura Freeway continues directly east, through the valley towns of Burbank and Glendale, to I-210 (the "Foothill Freeway"), which takes you through Pasadena and out toward the eastern edge of Los Angeles County.

I-5, otherwise known as the "Golden State Freeway" north of I-10 and the "Santa Ana Freeway" south of I-10, bisects downtown on its way from Sacramento to San Diego.

I-10, labeled the "Santa Monica Freeway" west of I-5 and the "San Bernardino Freeway" east of I-5, is the city's major east-west freeway, connecting the San Gabriel Valley with downtown and Santa Monica.

I-405, known as the "San Diego Freeway," runs north-south through L.A.'s Westside, connecting the San Fernando Valley with LAX and southern beach areas. This is one of the areas busiest freeways -- avoid it during rush hour.

I-105, Los Angeles's newest freeway -- called the "Century Freeway" -- extends from LAX east to I-605.

I-110, commonly known as the "Harbor Freeway," starts in Pasadena as Calif. 110 (the "Pasadena Freeway"); it becomes an interstate in downtown Los Angeles and runs directly south, where it dead-ends in San Pedro. The section that is now the Pasadena Freeway was Los Angeles's first freeway, known as the Arroyo Seco when it opened in 1940.

I-710, aka the "Long Beach Freeway," runs in a north-south direction through East Los Angeles and dead-ends at Long Beach. Crammed with big rigs leaving the port in San Pedro in a rush, this is the ugliest and most dangerous freeway in California.

I-605, the "San Gabriel River Freeway," runs roughly parallel to the I-710 farther east, through the cities of Hawthorne and Lynwood and into the San Gabriel Valley.

Calif. 1 -- called "Highway 1," the "Pacific Coast Highway," or simply "PCH" -- is really more of a scenic parkway than a freeway. It skirts the ocean, linking all of L.A.'s beach communities, from Malibu to the Orange Coast. It's slow-going due to all the stoplights.

A complex web of surface streets complements the freeways. From north to south, the major east-west thoroughfares connecting downtown to the beaches are Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard, and Olympic, Pico, and Venice boulevards.