*** PHOTO MOVED IN ADVANCE AND NOT FOR USE - ONLINE OR IN PRINT - BEFORE DEC. 21, 2014. ***An intensively sculpted front yard in West Hollywood, Calif., an ideal neighborhood for visitors who want to explore Los Angeles on foot, Dec. 4, 2014. A solo traveler will find few better ways to unmask the city’s hidden-in-plain-sight history, meet other people and imbibe responsibly than to be car-free. (Emily Shur/The New York Times)

LOS ANGELES — Had I been driving I would not have stopped here. But I was lured from the sidewalk by an open gate and the mysterious buildings beyond. There was a Moorish structure with a minaret, another was Italian with a loggia, a third had a fleur-de-lis on a chimney. It was as if a snow globe village had been dropped onto Sunset Boulevard. At the back of the hushed lot, a stone statue, naked to her hips, stood sentry.

I would later learn that this is where a Jazz Age gangster named Charlie Crawford was murdered. In 1936 these fanciful buildings, commissioned by his widow, became Crossroads of the World, the first pedestrian outdoor shopping mall in Los Angeles. In the 1940s it was recast as an office complex, attracting such tenants as Alfred Hitchcock. Today, the complex calls to mind the scene in “Big” where Tom Hanks returns to an abandoned fairground in search of a wish-making machine. There’s magic in the air, even after the carnival has come and gone.

Visit Los Angeles as a solo traveler and you’ll find few better ways to unmask the city’s hidden-in-plain-sight history, meet other people and imbibe responsibly than to be car-free. (And consider the money you’ll save on gas and valets.)

Driving can complicate a solo trip, and those who would rather not brave Los Angeles traffic should know that they need not see the city from behind a wheel to relish it. Some of its most beloved citizens, including the author Ray Bradbury, never drove. And while walking is common downtown and in Venice Beach and Santa Monica, in cooler months one can just as easily traverse Los Angeles between West Hollywood, Los Feliz, Miracle Mile and Larchmont Village by putting one foot in front of the other (with help now and then from mass transit and Uber). In fact, local tourism officials are encouraging people to do just that.

Last year the City of West Hollywood’s marketing arm posted “Walkable WeHo” tours on its website after being named the most walkable city in California by Walk Score, a company that ranks cities and neighborhoods by their pedestrian friendliness. On West Third Street, home to design boutiques OK and Plastica, banners promote the area as “a walkable shopping & dining district.” And in March, the California Department of Transportation reported “a dramatic increase in walking trips” among residents, saying they nearly doubled to 16.6 percent of trips by 2012, up from 8.4 percent of trips in 2000.

Granted, strolling Los Angeles can be anything but picturesque. There are wide, noisy boulevards with scant shade. If you’re a woman, men in cars may greet you with “Yowza!” as they whiz by. Sometimes, to borrow a phrase from Shel Silverstein, the sidewalk ends.

But just when you think walking these interminable avenues is for East Coast chumps, something makes you smile. Take the white Tudor-style building that caught my eye on an otherwise humdrum stretch of North La Brea Avenue. A second glance revealed a trompe-l’loil image of a grinning Charlie Chaplin leaning on a cane. From there my gaze traveled up the building to a 12-foot-tall Kermit the Frog tipping a bowler hat atop what turned out to be the Jim Henson Co., formerly Charlie Chaplin Studios (hence Kermit’s “little tramp” get-up).

Walk east on Franklin Avenue and you’ll be rewarded with postcard views of the Hollywood sign over your left shoulder, or the French-Normandy-style 1920s hotel Château Élysée (now the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International) rising above the trees near Tamarind Avenue. Walk long enough and you realize that here in this megalopolis of cars are quiet wonders, like the surprisingly ubiquitous sight of hummingbirds hovering around storefronts and terraces.

West Hollywood

When you’re car-free and solo, one of the easiest places to nest is West Hollywood. There’s plenty of shopping, dining and night life, and the central location makes it a great base for jaunts to other neighborhoods. Hotels dot the Sunset Strip (once the stamping grounds of numerous larger-than-life personalities including members of the Doors and Led Zeppelin) and a walk from here to the La Brea Tar Pits is a mere 3 miles.

For a tranquil morning stroll past bungalows and Mediterranean-style homes with cactuses in the yard, turn off Sunset onto Sweetzer Avenue. Make your way to the Farmers Market on West Third Street, a casual, affordable maze in which solo travelers will be at ease sampling an array of cuisines and dining alfresco. A chocolate caramel nut doughnut from Bob’s Coffee & Doughnuts goes with everything. (There for lunch? Try Loteria Grill.)

From there head south to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hancock Park and the La Brea Tar Pits, a grassy landscape punctured by the occasional black gooey pool, where paleontologists have unearthed fossils of everything from snails to an American mastodon. (Incidentally, the Tar Pits, which have been oozing since the last Ice Age, are filled not with tar, but natural asphalt.) Yes, it’s a tourist destination, but for those who have never been, it’s an offbeat adventure. For a greater sense of discovery, enter at the corner of West Sixth Street and South Fairfax Avenue rather than the parking area off Curson Avenue. You’ll pass Michael Heizer’s 340-ton boulder artwork, “Levitated Mass,” before reaching the Observation Pit.

At the yawning Lake Pit, where fiberglass mammoths evoke their unlucky predecessors, the smell of asphalt hangs in the air; on the other side of the fence, cars fly by on Wilshire Boulevard, seemingly invincible.

If you’d rather gawk at shop windows than tar pits, stay in West Hollywood, where you can walk North Robertson Boulevard past the little red awnings of Christian Louboutin; Sur, the restaurant and bar staffed by badly behaved reality TV stars; and the original Kitson boutique, where boldface names stock up on essentials such as rhinestone-encased pepper spray.

Fueling the journey

Among the joys of walking is refueling.

At Gracias Madre, a vegan Mexican restaurant that’s been a popular dinner ticket since it opened early this year, I nabbed a table at lunchtime without a reservation near the open patio doors, sipped a Purista margarita and savored a “bowl” that was as filling as a beef tortilla: romaine lettuce, brown rice, black beans, guacamole, tempeh chorizo, pico de gallo, cashew crema.

The Gracias Madre team is also behind the vegan fare at Cafe Gratitude on Larchmont Boulevard, about a 3-mile walk from West Hollywood. And grateful is what you’ll be for the food, especially the savory Bonita breakfast taco plate: brown rice and quinoa, black beans, salsa fresca, avocado, cashew nacho cheese and pumpkin seeds. (Ask for the toasted coconut “bacon” flakes.) Or order a Grace smoothie — coconut milk, almond butter, dates, vanilla bean — to take with you on a walk through the village shops.

But back to West Hollywood. The boutiques on Melrose Place are polished, yet those on a budget are better served on Santa Monica Boulevard at places such as the $2 Clothing Store. Inside, women were sitting on the floor gleefully fishing sweaters from waist-high heaps of clothing. For some, this is heaven. For me, heaven was a mile and a half away at Book Soup, where spirited (and occasionally naughty) staff recommendations are written on cards tucked into shelves, helping you discover everything from classic fiction you always meant to read to coffee table books such as “Houses of the Sundown Sea: The Architectural Vision of Harry Gesner.” As a staffer named Amelia wrote: “Mr. Gesner is my new favorite architect! Apparently an awesome guy too — he’s 89 and surfs every day: check out the boat houses on pg. 90!”

Should you happen to be an architecture buff, find your way to the nearby Schindler House, described by its curators as “the birthplace” of Southern California modernism.

Griffith Observatory

The air becomes fragrant near the corner of Fern Dell Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard on the edges of Griffith Park, the largest municipal park with an urban wilderness area in the United States. The whir of traffic — which I’d been walking amid for 4 miles — faded, and soon all I heard was the brook as I entered the woods, stepping on fallen sycamore leaves, yellow with pointed lobes, like stars on the Walk of Fame.

Near the top of the trail to the Griffith Observatory (James Dean fans may recall the “Rebel Without a Cause” scene shot here) there’s a rocky shortcut, which I began ascending in delicate French sneakers. It wasn’t long before I was sliding back down. A woman in gym shoes bounced past me like a gazelle.

“You’re almost there!” she shouted over her shoulder as she reached the summit.

“Thanks!” I said, on my hands and knees, clutching a small boulder. “I wore the wrong shoes.”

The view at the top took the sting out of my ungainly arrival. Hawks circled and plunged toward the enormous silver city basin. In the distance, the ocean beckoned.

I will not recount how I began skidding down yet another shortcut off the Mount Hollywood hiking trail, but suffice it to say that when it came time to leave, I wanted the most direct, not the scenic, route out. And I thought I was on it as I followed the sidewalk down from the observatory parking lot. Alas, the sidewalk eventually disappeared, and I was suddenly darting Road Runner-style from one curve to another to ensure I would be seen and not hit by oncoming cars. Lesson 1: Wear proper footwear. Lesson 2: Know when to summon Uber.

Uber has had plenty of clashes with California regulators (not to mention with those in other states and countries), however it’s convenient in sprawling Los Angeles as well as surprisingly affordable. And as a solo traveler I was delighted to have drivers who shared their favorite haunts (note: they are also willing to stop at drive-thrus) and asked questions that encouraged me to reflect on my travels.

“What’s the best thing you saw inside?,” said the driver who picked me up at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

As it happened, I was at the Getty for more than three hours before looking at a single painting. With works by Monet, van Gogh and Rembrandt, it’s easy to forget that the ivory and honey center, designed by Richard Meier, along with the gardens, are works of art in their own right.

Looking into the bowl of the garden is not unlike observing the orchestra from the balcony of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where I decided to spend a Friday night.

Reserve a seat in the center of the last row, the best spot to admire the hardwood-paneled auditorium and pipe organ, designed by Frank Gehry. It’s also convenient if you want to let your eyes drift close as I did during Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.”

Downtown

It’s worth spending time downtown in the surrounding streets, eating in the Grand Central Market, checking out the Victorian court of the 1893 Bradbury building, Little Tokyo and the opulent Spanish Baroque-style Rendezvous Court inside the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. (If I had more time, I would have explored downtown landmarks on one of the Los Angeles Conservancy walking tours.)

Across the road from Los Angeles Union Station, completed in 1939 when such majestic stations would soon become a thing of the past, you’ll spot a Mexican marketplace. Look beyond the stalls hawking colorful trinkets to the historical buildings. On Olvera Street, there’s Avila Adobe, the oldest existing house in Los Angeles, built in 1818. I walked up the porch into the dark, thick-walled adobe (admission is free) and was greeted by a knowledgeable guide who talked about the ranchero family that once lived here as I peeked into the handful of rooms.

Afterward I sat on the porch overlooking the market, imagining what life was like before the car was king.

Yet as rich as this area is, any car-free tour of Los Angeles must, at some point, lead to the beach.

When the sun shines on the soft, fine sand of Santa Monica, everything shimmers. In the white-blue light of morning, I passed sea gulls and surfers with boards tucked under their arms.

It is here, after a $20 Uber ride from West Hollywood, where I end my trip, listening to the comforting thunder of waves, walking east, without a destination.