Downtown LA Walking Tours

Our Downtown Walking Tour with Neel was informative, entertaining and well-​paced. He hit some real highlights of architecture and the city’s past. Neel was an enthusiastic narrator of the architecutral scene of downtown LA, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. I peppered him endlessly with random odd ball quearies, which he managed handily. He was quite patient and generous. This was one of the most enjoyable architecture tours we’ve done in our years of travelling the world.

It was time for me to learn more about L.A. After living here 4 years. Neel was an excellent guide. very knowledgeable about the history and future plans for the city. I learned a lot and really enjoyed the tour.

I have taken two tours with Neel of DTLA Walking Tours. The first was in Dec 2014 for the Old/​New tour. I enjoyed it so much, that I wanted to book the Holiday Lights Tour. Alas it was already sold out for 2014.
2015, I vowed not to miss the Holiday Lights Tour. I went mid-​week on the tour with Neel. He is very knowledgable about the area and delivers this information without the usual boring tour guide drone.
I could have toured the DTLA area on my own, however I would have never been able to do it in an efficient (read: not wandering aimlessly in circles) manner, not to mention learn so much information about my city.
The downtown tours are perfect for tourists and long time residents.

What a fun night! We did the Haunted Tales tour with Neel. Now, he was an amazing tour guide! Passion for the history of Los Angeles oozed from his soul. He was excited to be there but not in a over the top «actor» sort of way. Highly recommend this tour. Thanks Neel for an awesome night!

Disclosure: I am a personal friend of Neel, who conducts the tours. But this is the first time I went on a professional paid tour with Neel and my review will focus on how I thought of the tour as a paid customer.
Since October is the season to be «spooked», I decided to take the haunted tour to learn about the dark sides of downtown LA. The tour group met at the north end of downtown at the Pico House. Neel, our tour guide, showed up and started the tour by giving us history and interesting tales of the Pico House and the cemeteries around the Olvera Street. Neel is an expert storyteller — along each stops he vividly described the people and the events that took place. One almost feels If we’re taken back in time.
The tour took us almost 2 hours to complete. Neel took us all around downtown and stopped at more than 6 landmarks/​buildings. Without spoiling the details, there were tales of murders, mysterious deaths, massacres, and hidden tunnels throughout the tours. Yes it’s dark and at times «spooky», but also fun. Who doesn’t like a great story, and Neel is one of the best to tell all stories, dark or not, of downtown LA.

These tours are great. Neel clearly has a passion for the stories that form the basis for the history of LA. Cheap activity if you have several people, and I understand you can even book private tours. This is a must see if you are staying in downtown and have a couple of hours free. I have taken many tours of la vis bus and never learned about the sites on the tour. Will definitely come back to take the Haunted LA tour.

It really doesn’t matter if you’re new to Los Angeles, just visiting, or have lived in LA for years — there’s so much history in this city!
I highly recommend taking all 3 of Downtown LA’s Walking Tours. Neil is an excellent guide, that has great insight and narrates while walking through the concrete jungle of DTLA. I’ve done two of the walking tours with friends and plan on a 3^rd tour soon.
If you have a large group of friends to bring together, they do private tours as well, which is well worth it. Explore the city with Downtown LA Walking Tours!

I had a friend visiting and wanted to do something special — I certainly did find something special! I’ve lived in Metro LA for over 30 years but yesterday, I learned to appreciate the rich history of our city! Spending just two hours with Neel was so much fun and enlightening. Made me proud to be here and «show» it off. I highly recommend booking the time with Neel and Downtown LA Walking Tours. He is a fantastic guide!

This was so educational eye opening fun and great date idea. Super cool! Highly recommend for those new and old to LA! Thank you tour guide neil, you were totally fun and it was a memorable experience.

I visited downtown Los Angeles for work and I stayed at the LA Live JW Marriott. One of the days, I woke up and realized that I had some spare time. I googled tours for downtown LA and came across Neel’s Downtown LA Walking Tours site. I booked two of his tours back-​to-​back. The website is really nice and user friendly. Booking these tours was the best decision I made because I not only got to see almost all of downtown LA, but I learned about the history of each site and how downtown has gradually become a vibrant and affluent metropolis. I saw parts of downtown that I would never stumble across on my own — and I am very nosy when it comes to exploring. But Neel knows all of the spots… like a jewelry store on the stage of an old theatre… who knew? You literally see the curtains of the old stage next to jewelry counters. It doesn’t get much cooler than that.
I highly recommend that tourists and LA residents take one of these tours. Thanks so much for a great time, Neel!

Accountant turned Tour Guide.
Neil, the owner tells a story of LA which people can relate to and care about.
No boring history lesson rather history in the making. I live in LA and I learned so much!
Thanks Neil.

Neel was such a fun and informative guide. His stories allowed us to connect buildings to life and the cities history with a why and how. It also aquainted us to unique locations and facts, like hooks on the buildings on broadway. Any tour will identify the marquees. Los Angeles is now a trip we’re excited to share about, real animation, no mouse ears and at a cost that you can celebrate with a special meal, souvenir, and without guilt. We did two tours and discovered the real gift of Downtown LA Tours, a personal pride in the City of LA that Neel is committed to share.
Sandy and Chuck of Vancouver, WA

Being I’m a native of Southern California I never knew about the LA beginning tour.
Neel was/​IS simply put, AMAZING! So informative, he made the tour FUN, explaining everything as we went. He makes it interesting the way he tells the stories. If i could I’d give him 10 stars!
IMPRESSIVE, FUN and KNOWLEDGEABLE!
Can’t wait to book the other 2!
NEEL THANK YOU!!!

Rating this business and writing this review is going to be easy, because Neel was a rockstar!
We took the «LA: Old and New» tour and it did not disappoint. The quality, content, and entertainment value of Neel’s tour was on par with some of the high-​end Context walking tours in Europe that I’ve been on that cost 3x as much! My husband and I have been living in Los Angeles for most of our lives and never knew DTLA had such a rich cultural history. Some of the facts were so interesting that I was actually taking notes on my phone! Now you know that’s good stuff when as an adult, you voluntarily write down things when it’s not required for school or work!
I am not going to give away the ending, but the last place that Neel takes you to is a total hidden gem. But here are SOME of the places that he covers on the tour:
1. Old Bank District
2. Grand Central Market
3. The Edison Building
4. The Arcade building
5. Pershing Square
6. Jewelry District
Even if you’ve been to some or all of these places (li, please don’t think you know them like Neel does! The stories behind these places will make you see DTLA in a whole new light. My favorite was the history behind the real estate progression in the Old Bank District and how DTLA came to have so many small art galleries. I would highly recommend Neel’s walking tours for both locals and out-​of-​town visitors who want to get a deeper understanding of this culturally diverse city.

Brilliant tour — our guide was clearly passionate about his city! We learned a huge amount about the forces that have changed downtown LA over the years, all very entertainingly explained.
Our guide (I didn’t catch his name) also helped us make the best of the rest of our visit with absolutely on the money recommendations about what to see, where to eat etc.
I thoroughly recommend this tour. Great experience!

My wife and I really enjoyed the walking tour a lot.
Park in the lot adjacent to the Grand Market. There’s one we went to that was $ 5.50 for all day parking the next block over. Not sure if that’s the pricing every time but relative to other DTLA parking, totally worth it.
I liked that the guide was very knowledgeable about how the the market prices of real estate affects the local culture here. We are locals here and still learned a lot of stuff about our own town. It was really nice to be able to know about the things that are right in front of us. I don’t want to give too much detail away here but there are lots of picture opportunities. The price is perfect as now we feel like we will go on more of the other tours offered. We’ve taken walking tours around the world in various cities and this was right up there with the best of ‘em.

This tour was definitely worth my time.
Having lived here most of my life, and being pretty culturally-​literate, my fear of taking city tours is that feeling that «I already knew this.» Neel made sure that he included sights and bites in his tour in which even the historian may not have known.
This 2-​hour tour which covers central DTLA was great. He doesn’t take more than 20 folk, so that all will be able to hear him and take pics (simultaneously). See pics for some of the sights we touched.
Recommended.

Amazing tour of Downtown LA. I been in la 20 yrs and never seen this interesting places. Neel is very interesting tour guide and gives you a lot of information and makes it fun. Thank You
Will join your other tours :)

I’ve lived in LA for 15 years but, on a whim, decided to spend a gorgeous Sunday afternoon getting to know a little bit more about this city.
We met up at the bottom of Angels flight and Neel, our tour guide, took the time to welcome everyone and gave late comers a few extra minutes to arrive.
I believe he may offer 3 types of tours and hosts tours 7 days a week. Ours started with some of the history of Bunker Hill and took us through the changing population migration in and out of the city. We walked about a mile and a half in total. Not a fast pace and there are regular stops along the way. As a gauge, the 8 year old in our group was able to keep up just fine.
I won’t give away any of the details but I did find it all fascinating. If you have friends from out of town, I highly recommend taking them on the tour then grabbing a bite at one of the downtown spots afterwards.
Parking: downtown parking is such a crap shoot. Keep an eye out for $ 5 spots there are a few around. On Sunday’s there’s some free street parking in places if you’re lucky.

Neel was a fantastic guide for the Old and New Downtown LA Tour! He is very knowledgeable and extremely passionate about the awesome information he gets to share with his tour mates. He made me fall in love with LA even more!
Though I purchased this tour via Groupon, I will definitely return to learn more about our City of Angels!