things to do in la that are better with people

You found the thing. Maybe it's a night market, a group hike, a screening under the stars. You have the date saved, the plan half formed, and then the question lands: who's coming with me. Not "can I go alone," because you can. It's that some experiences are built for company, and going solo would mean missing the actual point.

some things in la just hit different with people

Some LA activities work fine solo. Others are engineered for a group, and doing them alone means experiencing maybe sixty percent of what they're offering. The difference isn't about confidence. It's about what the activity is actually for.

A movie theater is built for quiet, individual attention. A picnic on the Hollywood Bowl lawn is built for passing food across a blanket, for someone leaning over to say "wait, listen to this part." A food festival is built for splitting five different orders six ways so everyone tastes everything instead of committing to one plate. You can technically do these things alone. You'd be missing the design of them.

Most guides about "things to do in LA" skip this distinction entirely. They list venues and assume you already have people to bring. Other posts hand you generic friend-making advice with no activity attached, so you end up with a list of tips and still no plan for Saturday. Nobody connects the two questions, which is strange, because they're the same question: what do I want to do, and who do I do it with.

the activities that are most transformed by having someone with you

The activities that change most with people are the ones built around sharing, splitting, or reacting together, not the ones built around focus. Food festivals, group hikes, and live music sit at the top of that list. Alone, you get the experience. With people, you get the experience plus the commentary, which is often the better part.

Smorgasburg LA at Row DTLA is the clearest example. It's a street-food-style market, and the entire format depends on groups splitting dishes and reconvening to compare notes. Going alone means picking one thing and eating it by yourself. Going with three people means eight different dishes make it to the table, and you actually leave full of variety instead of one meal's worth of curiosity.

Grand Central Market downtown works the same way. The communal tables exist specifically so a group can scatter to different vendors and meet back in the middle, plates in hand. It's designed for exactly that kind of split-and-reconvene energy. The 626 Night Market in the San Gabriel Valley runs on the same logic, just louder and later.

Then there's Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where the 2026 season reportedly runs through at least September to October per Time Out. Watching a film on a blanket in a cemetery at night is a genuinely strange, specific experience, and it's built for a group blanket, shared snacks, someone next to you reacting to the same scene. Griffith Observatory works similarly for stargazing. Looking through a telescope alone is fine. Looking through it, then turning to someone and saying "did you see that," is the actual reason people go.

Runyon Canyon is the group hike answer people search for constantly: how do you find a group to hike with in LA. The trail itself doesn't require company, but the version of it where you're catching your breath next to someone and talking about nothing in particular is a completely different morning than the one where you're alone with your earbuds. Echo Park Lake and its swan boats are almost comedy props. Rowing one alone is a little sad. Rowing one with a friend who keeps steering you into the reeds is a memory.

Vista Hermosa Natural Park in Echo Park hosts pickup sports through groups like Pick Me Up, meeting at the field on W 1st Street, and this is the clearest case of an activity that's only good with people. Pickup soccer alone is just running. Topgolf in El Segundo is similar: you can hit balls by yourself, but the whole appeal is the friendly competition and the trash talk between rounds. Little Tokyo in DTLA is built for the walkable social stroll, ducking into shops and stopping for snacks, which is a rhythm that just doesn't happen solo the same way. And Art+Mind Studios' craft meetups, like their Junk Journal Club, are conversation starters by design. Cutting up paper next to a stranger for two hours means you're going to talk.

why the 'i'll go alone' plan keeps not happening

The "I'll just go alone" plan rarely survives contact with the actual day. It sounds fine in the abstract, on a Tuesday when you're scrolling. By Saturday at 6pm, the motivation has quietly evaporated, and the thing you were excited about a week ago becomes the thing you skip.

This isn't a willpower problem. It's a design problem. Solo plans have no accountability built in. Nobody's expecting you, so nobody notices if you bail. The night market you were excited about becomes a night in, and you tell yourself you'll go next time. Next time rarely comes; the loneliness of that pattern is specific to LA, where distances are long and plans die easily between the couch and the car.

The fix isn't more willpower. It's removing the moment where you have to talk yourself into going by yourself.

how to actually find people to go with, not someday, right now

The fastest way to find people to go with is to pick a platform that matches what you actually need: Meetup for group access to recurring activities, Bumble BFF for slower one-on-one friend-making, and WashedUp for finding an actual event happening this week that you can just show up to. Each solves a different piece of the problem.

Meetup is good when you want an established group with a regular rhythm, hiking clubs, sports leagues, craft nights. Bumble BFF is good when you want to build one friendship slowly, over coffee, before adding them to your group chat. But if your actual question is "there's a night market this Saturday and I don't want to go alone," you need something built around the specific plan, not the slow social build.

That's the gap WashedUp fills. It's not about building a profile and waiting. It's about finding a plan someone's already pulling together, a group hike happening Sunday, a picnic forming for the Bowl, and just joining it. Right now there are 4 live plans on this exact kind of thing, with 2 happening in the next 7 days. Late nights, after 10pm, are the most common time slot for these plans, which tracks: a lot of the best version of LA happens after dark, and that's exactly when going alone feels heaviest.

So want to hit a night market with three other people instead of scrolling alone at home? find people to go with. Want to catch Cinespia without being the only person on your blanket? find people to go with.

the recurring-attendance trick that turns strangers into your people

The fastest way to turn strangers into friends is to show up to the same thing more than once. The first time, you're just a face in the group. By the third time, you're a regular, and regulars talk to each other without needing an excuse.

This works best with activities that repeat naturally: pickup sports at Vista Hermosa, craft nights at Art+Mind Studios, sports leagues that LAist points to for pickleball, kickball, dodgeball, soccer. One-off events like a specific concert don't build this the same way, because there's no next week to return to. But a Sunday soccer game or a weekly craft meetup does, because the structure is already recurring. You're not starting over each time. You're deepening something.

Across WashedUp, 42 plans on this exact kind of activity have already happened, proof that people aren't just browsing, they're actually going, more than once in a lot of cases. That's the whole mechanism: the plan gets you in the room the first time, and the repetition does the rest.

what to do this week if you want to go somewhere and not go alone

If you have a specific thing you want to do this week, the move is simple: find a plan already forming for it and join, rather than trying to build a group from scratch. Venice, Santa Monica, and Atwater Village are the top neighborhoods for these kinds of plans right now, and Sunday and Saturday are the busiest days by a wide margin, 17 and 15 respectively.

A representative example: "Chess & Brunch" in Venice on a Saturday, five people, and it filled. That's not a huge number, and that's the point. It doesn't take a crowd to make something feel social. It takes two or three other people who also didn't want to go alone.

Across all of WashedUp, 532 plans have happened and 913 people have joined one. That's not a claim about this specific activity, it's the LA-wide picture, but it tells you the pattern holds: people are consistently choosing to show up with others rather than sit out.

Want to catch group stargazing at Griffith Observatory instead of standing there solo with a telescope? find people to go with.

Start here: open WashedUp tonight, filter for something happening this weekend near you, Venice and Atwater Village are both active right now, and join one plan. Not next month's version of yourself. This weekend's.

frequently asked questions

how do I find friends to do activities with in Los Angeles?

Start with the specific activity, not the abstract goal of "making friends." Join a plan already forming for something you want to do, a hike, a craft night, a food market, on a platform like WashedUp, or join a recurring group like a sports league or Art+Mind Studios' craft meetups. Friendship follows repeated shared activity better than it follows cold introductions.

what are the best group activities in LA for adults?

Food-focused group activities work best: Smorgasburg LA at Row DTLA, Grand Central Market downtown, and the 626 Night Market all reward splitting dishes across a group. Outdoor group activities like Runyon Canyon hikes, a Hollywood Bowl picnic, or Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery also transform with company, since sharing snacks and reactions is built into the format.

how do I meet people in LA who want to do the same things I do?

Look for activities with built-in repetition: pickup sports at Vista Hermosa Natural Park, sports leagues like pickleball or kickball, or craft clubs like Art+Mind Studios' Junk Journal Club. Showing up more than once turns you from a stranger into a regular, and regulars naturally start talking. Platforms like WashedUp also let you join a specific plan around a shared interest rather than a vague meetup.

what social apps actually work for finding people to hang out with in LA?

Meetup works well for joining established recurring groups, hiking clubs and sports leagues especially. Bumble BFF works for slower, one-on-one friend-building over time. WashedUp works best when you have a specific plan in mind this week, a night market, a hike, a picnic, and want to join people already organizing around it instead of starting from scratch.

what recurring events in LA are good for meeting people?

Sports leagues covering pickleball, kickball, dodgeball, and soccer are reliable, since they meet weekly and reward showing up consistently. Pickup games at Vista Hermosa Natural Park in Echo Park work the same way. Craft-centered meetups like Art+Mind Studios' Junk Journal Club offer a slower, conversational version of the same pattern, where repetition builds familiarity faster than any single event can.