New York City has the Empire State Building, Hollywood has cutout letters strung across a hillside, and Santa Monica has its pier: a single, focus-pulling element that looms large in the public consciousness. So large in fact, that it attracts an estimated 10 million tourists a year. Some come to ride the world’s only solar-powered, LED-covered Ferris wheel.
Others come to complete a a pilgrimage that began in Chicago — reaching the western terminus of historic Route 66. But there’s more to the roughly 8.3-square-mile city than that 1,651 feet of wood jutting out into the Pacific Ocean — much, much more.
If you let your gaze wander away from that Ferris wheel, past the stretch of sand next to it and inland from the endless blue ocean, you’ll discover that the city at the end of the Mother Road was also at the beginning of aviation history. And, if you have the right guide, you might just find yourself collecting mermaids in a nautically themed bar, noshing on the best grilled cheese sandwich in the universe or catching a stand-up comedy set performed by kids. That’s not to say you should skip a trip to the fabled Santa Monica Pier .
Far from it. Especially if you’ve never done it before. Like Times Square in New York, it’s the kind of teeming tourist throng everyone (except, perhaps, the severely agoraphobic) should experience at least once.
Pause under the iconic archway (take a selfie or it didn’t happen). Seek out the End of the Trail Route 66 marker out .
