Low cost vacation package

It’s raining, an oddity in Southern California – but so was the idea of spending a weekend in downtown Los Angeles, up until a few years ago. While I was growing up in the nearby San Fernando Valley, and even as a USC student four miles south of downtown, venturing there (except for the occasional taco run to Grand Central Market) was as rare as the water droplets bouncing off my umbrella. But time is a talented transformer: DTLA – the acronym is a sure sign of its it-ness and hashtagability – is now the city’s must-visit neighborhood, with new hotels, restaurants, bars, and arts venues, and more culture than is possible to absorb in one go. LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes’ gift shop. (Natasha Lee) Like the city that boomed around it, DTLA sprawls across one-way blocks and micro-hoods. I recall my obligatory elementary-school field trip to its Pueblo de Los Angeles, the city’s birthplace, settled in 1781. As an adult, I appreciate it as the cultural heart of L.A.’s Latinx communi...