Griffith Observatory: Parking, Hours and Free Admission

Griffith Observatory sits on the south slope of Mount Hollywood with a view over the entire basin, and admission to the building has always been free. It is a genuine public institution in a city where most famous destinations are commercial, and it is worth understanding how to visit without spending the afternoon looking for parking.

Free, with an asterisk

Entry to the observatory building and its exhibits costs nothing. That has been the policy since it opened in the 1930s, funded by the bequest of Griffith J. Griffith, who also gave the surrounding parkland to the city. His instruction was explicit: the observatory was to be free, on the theory that looking through a telescope should not be reserved for people who could pay.

The planetarium show is the exception. It is ticketed separately and it is the one thing that requires planning: if the show is the reason you are going, check the schedule and buy in advance rather than turning up and hoping.

Parking is the other cost. Paid parking and shuttle options exist, and the free on-street parking that once made this a spontaneous trip is far more constrained than it used to be.

Getting there

This is the real subject, because the observatory sits on a mountain road inside a park, and the access road cannot absorb everyone who wants to arrive at sunset.

Driving and parking on site works best well outside peak times. Weekend afternoons and the hour around sunset are the peak, and they are severe. There is parking at the observatory and along the approach road, and it fills.

Shuttle service operates to the observatory and is the option most likely to save your afternoon on a busy day. It exists for exactly the reason you would guess, and it is under-used by people who do not know about it.

Walking up from the trailheads in Griffith Park is a legitimate and popular approach. It is a real hike with real elevation gain, largely exposed to the sun, and it is one of the better urban walks in the country. Bring water. Do not attempt it in the middle of a heat wave, which in Los Angeles is a serious rather than a decorative warning.

Public transit reaches the park, with connections that get you closer than most people assume, though the last stretch still involves either the shuttle or a climb.

When to go

Sunset is the famous time and the crowded time. The view of the basin filling with light as the sky goes orange is genuinely spectacular and you will share it with a great many people.

A clear morning is the underrated alternative, particularly after rain, when the air is washed out and the view runs all the way to the ocean and sometimes to Catalina. Fewer people, parking is possible, and the building itself is easier to appreciate without a crowd in every room.

A clear evening when public telescope viewing is running is the best version for anyone actually interested in astronomy.

Check current operating days before you go. The observatory is not open every day of the week, and this is the most common way a visit fails: people drive up on a closed day and look at the outside of a building.

What is actually there

The building is an art deco landmark and worth seeing on its own terms, independent of the exhibits.

The Foucault pendulum in the entry rotunda, swinging in a fixed plane while the earth turns beneath it, is the first thing most visitors see and one of the few places you can watch the planet's rotation demonstrated directly.

The Tesla coil and the ceiling murals in the rotunda are period pieces of a kind rarely built any more.

The solar telescopes project live images of the sun during opening hours.

The Zeiss telescope on the roof is available for public viewing on clear evenings when the observatory is open, staffed by people who will explain what you are looking at. For many visitors this is the best part and the part they did not know existed. More people have looked through this particular telescope than any other in the world, which is a direct consequence of the free-admission policy.

The exhibits are aimed at a general audience and are unusually well made. This is not a filler science museum attached to a view.

Practical notes

It is colder and windier up there than in the basin. Bring a layer even on a warm day, particularly if you are staying past sunset.

The view of the Hollywood sign from the grounds is one of the better ones, which is why a large fraction of the crowd is present. If that is your goal you can get the photograph and leave without entering the building, though you would be missing the point of the place.

Restrooms and a café exist, and both have queues at peak.

The building has appeared in a great many films, which is part of why it feels familiar to people who have never been. If you have seen it before without visiting, that is probably why.

Why it matters

A free public observatory on a hill above a large city, open to anyone, with staff who will let you look through a serious telescope and explain what you are seeing, is an unusual thing for a city to maintain for ninety years.

Los Angeles is often described as a place without shared civic institutions. This is the counterexample, and it costs nothing to walk in.

Griffith Park around it

The observatory sits inside Griffith Park, one of the largest urban parks in the United States, and treating the observatory as the only destination misses most of what is there.

The park contains extensive hiking trails, the Greek Theatre, a zoo, an autry museum of the American West, a merry-go-round, and miles of road and trail with views across the basin. Several trailheads lead toward the observatory, which is why walking up is a realistic option rather than an eccentric one.

The park's scale is genuinely surprising to visitors who expect a city park and find a mountain range with roads through it.

Fire risk and closures

This is chaparral hillside in a fire-prone region, and parts of the park close during extreme conditions. Red flag warnings can mean trail closures, road closures or restricted access with little notice.

Check conditions before setting out on a hot, dry, windy day. This is not excessive caution; the park has burned before.

Photography

The observatory is one of the most photographed buildings in the city, and if that is your purpose a few things help.

The lawn to the west of the building gives the classic view with the city behind. The roof terraces give the basin view. The Hollywood sign is visible from the grounds to the northwest, and a longer lens helps considerably because it is further away than it appears.

Tripods and the crowd interact badly at sunset. Going at a less popular hour improves your photographs and everyone else's evening.

With children

The exhibits and the planetarium work well for children, and the pendulum and the Tesla coil hold attention reliably.

The practical considerations are the altitude of the walk from distant parking, the cold after sunset, and the queues at peak. A morning visit with children is dramatically easier than an evening one, and the telescope viewing that makes an evening visit worthwhile runs late enough to be difficult for younger children anyway.