Venice Beach is one of Los Angeles's most distinctive neighborhoods — a mile-long boardwalk lined with street performers, tattoo parlors, fortune tellers, and artists hawking their work from open-air stalls. On any given weekend you'll see bodybuilders at the famous Muscle Beach outdoor gym, skaters tearing through the skate park, and the loose, sun-drenched crowd that gives Venice its particular energy. It can be chaotic and a little seedy, and that's part of the charm.
A few blocks inland, Abbot Kinney Boulevard is a different kind of spectacle: an upscale strip of independent boutiques, coffee shops, and restaurants that draws a creative crowd. The street is named after the man who built Venice in 1905 — Abbot Kinney, an eccentric developer who dug sixteen miles of canals and imported gondoliers from Italy to create an American answer to Venice, Italy. Most of the canals were paved over in 1929, but a small network survives just south of the boardwalk. Walking the Venice Canals on a quiet morning, past the arched bridges and the ducks, is one of the better surprises the neighborhood offers.
Venice sits on the west side of Los Angeles, easily reached by car or bike from Santa Monica to the north. Parking is a perennial challenge; cycling along the beach path from Santa Monica is a better option if you're coming from that direction.