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Pasadena [1] is one of the oldest cities adjoining Los Angeles and is the main population center of the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California.
Pasadena [2], the City of Roses, is most famous for its New Year's Day Rose Parade and Rose Bowl football game. The number of people in the city balloons every year after Christmas as visitors come from all over to decorate and view the floats, as well as to attend arguably the most famous college football bowl game of the year.
Pasadena has become the most exciting place for night life in the San Gabriel Valley. With a vibrant Old Towne in the western section, chic shopping and dining on South Lake and abundant services in the eastern area, Pasadena is really the place to be!
Pasadena also boasts the world renowned California Institute of Technology, home to many Nobel prize winners. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is also just a ten minute drive north. Downtown Pasadena is a cultural mecca with museums, theater houses, and movie theaters playing independent films.
Most visitors to Pasadena will also not want to miss the nearby Huntington Library with its large art collection but more famous for its 150 acres of botanical gardens used as a backdrop for many Hollywood films.
The closest and most convenient airport is in Burbank. Other nearby airports are in Los Angeles, Ontario, and Orange County.
There are a couple of ways to get to Pasadena from the LAX airport, other than a taxi, which costs around $80.
Supershuttle and Primetime are shared-ride vans which serve the Pasadena area from LAX. Stand under the orange "shared ride vans" sign in the center concrete island outside the airport. Tell a customer service representative that you need a ride to Pasadena. They are easy to identify by their blue jackets (Supershuttle) or red jackets (Primetime). If no representative is available, then flag down a blue van (Supershuttle) or red van (Primetime) with a "Pasadena" placard in the windshield. Approximate cost is $25 per person. Approximate time to Pasadena is 1 hour.
The cheapest method to get to Pasadena from LAX is to use the Metro. Do not use this method if you have many bags to carry or if you do not want to walk long distances. Stand under the green "FlyAway, Buses and Long-Distance Vans" sign in the center concrete island outside the airport. Board a blue FlyAway bus heading to Union Station, $7 one-way (a 45-minute trip). It is a large charter-style bus, and is occasionally not labeled. FlyAway buses operate every half hour, 24 hours a day. Next, walk behind the ticket counter, and proceed down the stairs. Follow the path and enter Union Station on the left. Walk to the Metro Gold Line (yellow signs) which is located at track 1 in Union Station. Inside the track 1 terminal is an automated kiosk for purchasing tickets. Buy a one-way ticket and insert $1.25. Consider a day pass if you will be traveling by Metro again in the same day. Proceed up the stairs to the trains. All trains on this track travel to Pasadena, however be sure not to board an Express train during rush hour because there are limited stops. The Gold Line stops in Pasadena at Fillmore, Del Mar, Memorial Park, Lake, Allen, and Sierra Madre Villa stations. The travel time varies from 30 - 90 minutes, depending on rush hour conditions. *The Gold line does not operate between the hours of 11:52PM and 3:45AM.
Pasadena is approximately a half hour away from Downtown L.A. via the light rail Metro Gold Line. Three of the stops (Fillmore, Del Mar, Memorial Park) are along the Arroyo Seco Parkway, and the other three (Lake, Allen, Sierra Madre Villa) are in the median of Interstate 210.
Please note that traveling by light rail between Pasadena and LAX will take approximately two hours and requires getting on a FlyAway bus between LAX and Union Station, then traveling on the Gold line.
Greyhound Lines [3] serves Pasadena at 645 E. Walnut Street.
From Downtown L.A. or other southern cities take the 110 freeway north until it ends. The 110 freeway ends at the south end of Pasadena. From the east and west Pasadena can be reached via Interstate 210. California Highway 134 East is the most direct way from Glendale and Burbank.
The Metro Gold Line [4] serves the Arroyo Seco Parkway, Old Town Pasadena, and East Pasadena. While convenient, buses may be required to reach more distant destinations.
Pasadena is primarily served by the county-wide Metro [5] and the local Pasadena ARTS [6] network. Additional (mostly commuter) service is available from Foothill Transit [7], Montebello Bus Lines [8], and LADOT [9].
Metro's 780 Rapid bus goes from Pasadena to visitor-oriented areas of Hollywood--it's an (often interesting) ride that takes about an hour.
Pasadena as a whole is large enough to require use of a car or public transit, but major shopping and entertainment areas like Old Town Pasadena and South Lake Avenue are easily walkable.
Visitors around the New Year will most likely want to see the Tournament of Roses Parade. The parade moves along a five and one half mile course west to east through the center of the city, principally along Colorado Blvd. The easiest way to get a view of the parade is to buy tickets to bleachers setup along the route. For the budget viewer, "front row" space has to be found well in advance. Many parade viewers arrive the night before with blankets or sleeping bags to secure their seat for the parade. There is a general party the night before with everyone sleeping out to reserve their seats. If you go to the beginning of the parade at about 2:00 a.m. on the morning of the parade, you can see the floats up-close as they stage themselves on South Orange Grove Blvd.; it will likely be quite cold, so dress warmly. If you want to see the parade and don't want to pay for a seat or arrive the night before, then you will want to bring something to stand on or head for the stretches of Colorado, east of Allen Ave. Keep in mind that the parade start time is for the beginning of the route, and that it takes a couple hours for the first floats to reach the end of the route. So if you wake up late, head for the end of the route on Sierra Madre Blvd. BE AWARE that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to cross the city north/south after midnight the night before the parade, until about 2:00 p.m. the day of the parade. Also, many people cruise the night-before party on Colorado, but don't be surprised by an errant water balloon or a stream of silly-string.
If you don't want to deal with the dense crowds at the parade, head to the intersection of Sierra Madre Blvd and Washington Blvd the day after, where the Floats are parked for a couple days. There is an admission charge of $7, but once inside, you can walk right up to the floats, and take your time to examine the detailed flower work.
Visitors and locals can volunteer to decorate a float. The floats begin to be assembled in early to mid December and decorated with flowers right until the parade. Although the work is detailed and repetitive, it is incredibly fun and exciting to know that you glued the thousands of poppy seeds that became a shadow on a giant leaf. There is a sense of camaraderie amongst the volunteers, and you get to climb on and decorate actual floats. Children under 16 are not allowed, but if you have older kids, this is an excellent family activity. You work in four hour shifts, and volunteers are fed out of a chow wagon for free. For a list of float companies and independent float volunteer opportunities, visit: [21]
A quirky alternative to the Tournament of Roses Parade is the Doo Dah Parade (http://www.pasadenadoodahparade.info), held in late-November of every year. People dress-up in costume, assemble a group (such as the The Brief Case Drill Team) and generally act silly.
Pasadena's Rose Bowl Stadium is home of the UCLA football team, the New Year's Day Rose Bowl game, and various special events. The stadium holds approximately 100,000 people and consists of a single level. If you get a seat more than half way up, you will need to not be afraid of heights and bring binoculars. Tickets for the Rose Bowl game start at $125.
Old Town Pasadena and the Playhouse district have a number of theater and movie houses and are a good place to see some of the latest independent or foreign films.
The San Gabriel mountains above Pasadena offer some excellent hiking opportunities. Of specific interest are some of the hikes along along the abandoned Mount Lowe Railway in the Angeles National Forest. You can pass such places as the site of the White City, Echo Mountain, the site of an old observatory, and Inspiration Point. Start at the northern end of Lake Avenue.
Go for a swim year-round at the Pasadena Aquatics Center [22].
Play golf at Eaton Canyon [23], a nice 9-hole full-size course, or Brookside [24], with two challenging 18-hole courses.
Skate at the Pasadena Ice Skating Center [25]. The rink is actually the former ballroom of the Pasadena Civic Center and has chandeliers hanging above the ice surface.
Pasadena has a wide range of hotels to accommodate all budgets. The pricier hotels tend to cluster around Old Town and downtown Pasadena, which provide ready access to shops, restaurants, and entertainment. Pasadena also has a strip of motels and other budget hotels in the eastern part of the city along Colorado Boulevard, presumably to accommodate Rose Parade/Rose Bowl visitors, which are farther from most of the attractions in town.
Drive to the northern end of Lake Avenue for a spectacular view of the San Gabriel valley.
During Christmas time, see amazing light displays at: 1) the Balian House at about 2000 N. Allen and 2) Hastings Ranch (go north on Michillinda, about one mile past Sierra Madre Blvd. and make a left -- about a square-mile of residents in the area decorate their properties!).
Enter the Eaton Canyon nature preserve at the intersection of Altadena and New York. Great hiking, and during the spring, a pretty good river to hike next to. Go far enough up and you will get to a waterfall that is well-known to locals.
Take the Metro Gold Line south to downtown Los Angeles.
| Routes through Pasadena |
| Santa Monica ← Los Angeles ← | W  E |
→ Claremont → Barstow |
| This is a usable article. It has information for getting in as well as some complete entries for restaurants and hotels. An adventurous person could use this article, but please plunge forward and help it grow! |
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