Travel in city San Fernando

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The magic of hospitality is staying in a place that isn’t anything like home. A castle, a treehouse, a farm, a yurt: all such places promise an escape from the every day, especially when combined with luxury flourishes that boggle the mind. I am still wondering how ice showed up in the Gobi desert at the Three Camels Lodge in Mongolia or how blueberries came to be served at breakfast at the Explora Lodge on Easter Island. Or, in the case of the Four Seasons in Madrid, how a hotel combined seven historic properties into one sensational art destination.

Perhaps nothing defines Los Angeles like the freeways: ribbons of asphalt and steel (and traffic jams) tying coast, valley and mountains together in a multilane, limited-access web. These highways were considered so essential that planners nearly jammed one right through the center of swanky Beverly Hills.

Los Angeles has long been viewed as a new city, spring up and sprawling out from downtown to the Pacific Ocean to the San Fernando Velley. But the city of angels has had almost 250 years of haunted history since it was founded in 1781.

Marigold-strewn altars to deceased loved ones, revelers dressed as skeletons, and colorful parades make Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) a big spectacle in Mexico and U.S. border states. The somber-meets-celebratory holiday November 1 and 2 honors the dead with a fusion of Catholic and pre-Columbian traditions. It sees locals decorating family graves at cemeteries and travelers joining public celebrations from Mexico City to California.