The hook
The original Batcave is a short rock tunnel in Griffith Park, and it's been the secret entrance to a thousand movies since the 1930s.
01Why it's worth it
Bronson Canyon started as a rock quarry in 1903, and when the digging stopped in the 1920s it left behind a short tunnel bored clean through the hill, its rugged mouth framed by raw stone. Hollywood noticed immediately. The canyon has stood in for the frontier, for alien planets, and for cave entrances in hundreds of Westerns and sci-fi pictures, from Flash Gordon in the 1930s onward, but its most famous role is as the mouth of the Batcave in the 1966 Adam West Batman series, the tunnel the Batmobile roars out of. It's a two-thirds-mile flat walk to reach it, and the tunnel itself is only a hundred feet long, but standing in the exact spot you've seen on screen your whole life, a short hike from the Hollywood sign, is a small, real delight.
02How to experience it
It's at the north end of Canyon Drive in Griffith Park, about six hours from the Bay. Free, an easy and mostly flat short walk from the lot, fine for kids. Walk through the tunnel and out the back openings. It pairs with the rest of Griffith Park, the Observatory, and the old zoo.