For our 21st edition of The Great Los Angeles Walk, we're hitting the Mother Road! It's the 100th anniversary of Route 66, so why not get our kicks by walking the last several miles of the iconic highway — in this case, it's the full length of Santa Monica Boulevard!
As always, the Walk will take place the Saturday before Thanksgiving, which this year is Saturday, Nov. 21, 2026. We'll meet at Echo Park's Lady of the Lake statue at 9 a.m. -- and then walk Route 66/Santa Monica Boulevard (which, I know, is now actually Route 2!) in its entirety, to the ocean. We'll end, naturally, at the Santa Monica Pier's "End of Route 66" sign.
This is also a special year personally for the walk, as I'm celebrating my 30th (!!) anniversary in Los Angeles. Most of you know that The Great Los Angeles Walk was born in 2006 as a way to mark my first decade in L.A. That year, the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 2006 I decided to walk the length of Wilshire Boulevard after being inspired by the book "Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles" (by Kevin Roderick and J. Eric Lynxwiler), I asked the readers of my blog Franklin Avenue to come join me for a day-long stroll across the city.
In 2007, for the encore, I chose another downtown-to-the-ocean route: Pico Boulevard. The 2008 Walk took on Santa Monica Blvd. In 2009, the event kicked off in the historic West Adams district and walked to Venice Beach via Adams and Washington. In 2010, for its fifth edition, the Great Los Angeles Walk reprised its original Wilshire journey. In 2011, participants marched to the ocean via Hollywood Boulevard. In 2012, the Walk traveled across Melrose Avenue; in 2013, Sunset Boulevard; in 2014, the Walk traveled across the San Fernando Valley via Ventura Boulevard; in 2015, the Walk took on Olympic Boulevard.
In 2016, the Walk returned to Pico; in 2017, it tackled Beverly Boulevard; in 2018, in honor of Jonathan Gold, we walked on 6th Street, including through Koreatown; in 2019, we walked down Colorado Blvd. from Arcadia and Pasadena, and then through Highland Park to downtown via Figueroa; in 2020, the socially distanced edition returned to Wilshire; in 2021, the event retraced the steps of L.A.’s first settlers (Los Pobladores) from San Gabriel Mission to downtown; in 2022, it once again explored West Adams on the way to Venice; in 2023, the Walk went in a square, beginning and ending in Griffith Park; in 2024, we walked from USC to UCLA; and in 2025, to celebrate the 20th Great Los Angeles Walk, we returned once again to Wilshire.
If you're not familiar with the Walk, please go read this wonderful feature in the Los Angeles Times, which perfectly encapsulated what we're all about:
L.A. isn’t a walking city? The man behind Great Los Angeles Walk would like a word
The last time we walked down the full length of Santa Monica Blvd. was in 2008 — check out the recap here.
And in 2013, we met at the Lady of the Lake statue to walk down Sunset Blvd.; here's a photo from that gathering (which you may also recognize from this website's header):
Last year's Walk was perhaps our biggest yet; read all about it here. As always, the Walk is completely free and is meant to serve as a grassroots way for Angelenos to get together and explore their community and share it with others. Stay tuned and make sure to email us at greatlawalk@mail.com to get on our email list!
Here's what the route will look like — don't worry, a real map will come soon, this is just a guideline.
I know I say this every year, but I think most who attended can agree it was our biggest walk yet. We ran out of "I ❤️ LA" hats from TV's "Hacks" (thank you Universal TV) and our handouts, and those ran around 500 -- so it was a lot! Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate the 20th edition of the Great Los Angeles Walk and hit the boulevard that started it all — Wilshire — on Saturday. Many (most?!) braved all 15.8 miles to make it to end too!
And it was a beautiful day for a walk. The temperature was mild (not too cold, not too hot) and after the past week's rain, the skies were perfect.
Other than that pesky security guard at Pershing Square (hey, he was just doing his job and I'm not sure he expected 600 people to randomly show up at 9 a.m.!) the morning kicked off well, starting with Jenny from the LA Conservancy giving us a little pep talk about what to see on Wilshire. A double thanks to the LA Conservancy, as I cribbed from an old Wilshire guide of the organization's to populate this year's handout.
First thing, some folks checked out the Biltmore Hotel (again, apologies to security there!) while most headed to One Wilshire to kick off our proper walk from downtown to the ocean. Early on, we reconnected with one of our favorite walkers, Julian from Santa Fe, who walks the route every year completely barefoot! Julian missed last year's event, but he was back and ready to go for the 20th!
We quickly made our way through downtown, and saw some classic architecture in the Good Samaritan Hospital and La Parrilla restaurant, a 1905 home that has been converted into an eatery. We made it to MacArthur Park, which quite honestly is looking ROUGH right now.
And yes, we witnessed perhaps another GLAW first: An LAPD arrest right in front of us, Yikes. I will not share a photo of that. Some of the beautiful buildings in the area are currently shut down and looking for some TLC, like the Park Plaza Hotel/The MacArthur, where I've been to many events over the years, including the wedding of good friends Jeff and Jess. Hopefully the building will recover.
From there, we saw a ton of wonderful apartment buildings like the Wilshire Royale, the Bryson, the Talmadge and more. We talked our way into the Gaylord, next to the HMS Bounty, were we once held the Ambassador Hotel wake. We saw the RFK school that took over the Ambassador, checked out the churches like Oasis, St. Basil, the Wilshire Blvd. Temple and then the Wilshire Colonnade.
Then there was the Wiltern, the newly painted red doors of the St. James Episcopal Church and the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple. Another treat was checking out the "House of Explore Indonesia" inside the Deco Building on Wilshire, where we got a free coffee! Along the way we also met an engineer behind one of those delivery robots, and we saw mahjong players setting up their tables. Learning a lot from fellow Angelenos!
By lunchtime it was LACMA (still can't believe what happened to the old buildings) and the Academy Museum (inside the old May Co. building), where many stopped for lunch at Fanny's.
Later, we walked through Beverly Hills (where some construction forced a sidewalk detour); and admired the rainbow patterned glass above the Bank of America building. We made it to the Beverly Hilton, where again construction forced some crafty running (and jaywalking, sigh) back and forth across Wilshire.
At Westwood, some of us stopped by to see People's Vision Zero painting crosswalks at the corner of Malcolm and Lindbrook in Westwood. The Hammer museum's "Made in LA 2025" exhibit also was a draw for some, especially since that venue is free!
There was a bit more to see after that as we passed by the VA and the Wadsworth Chapel -- the oldest remaining building on Wilshire, from 1900 — and then entered Santa Monica. And of course, after taking celebratory photos at the Santa Monica statue, we gathered to eat at Papi Tacos & Churros!
What a day! Thanks to everyone who made all of the trek, some of it, or even just helped give rides to their friends. Check out The Great Los Angeles Walk's Instagram feed for more pics, and the hashtags #glaw and #greatlawalk for more as well.
But here are just a few highlights from the day:
