Travel Town Museum

Established in 1952, Travel Town is a free open-air museum and park, tucked obscurely on the far east side of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. It primarily concerns itself with American rail transportation from the 1880s to the 1930s.

On the surface, it is a quaint dated moment in time, a relic of the 1950s that showcases relics of an even earlier age, almost begging us to look at it through the same lens that it uses to look at an even deeper past. Beyond this metatheatre, the grounds act as an inviting community space featuring wide open park landscapes, a collection of several dozen rail/cable cars and locomotives, and even a miniature railway on which you can take a ride.

On weekdays, it is a sparsely-visited shady and comfortable respite from the tense pressure of the city. On weekends, you can find it filled with families, enjoying the whimsical delights of a bygone age.