Griffith Observatory With Kids: Free Entry, Hours, Parking

Quick answer

• Entry to the building and grounds is completely free. The only thing you pay for inside is the planetarium.
• Closed every Monday. Tue–Fri 12pm–10pm · Sat–Sun 10am–10pm. The grounds are open 5am–10:30pm daily.
• 2800 East Observatory Road, Los Angeles, CA 90027. Phone (213) 473-0800.
• Parking is $10 an hour, credit card only — and free before noon on weekdays, before 10am at weekends, and after 10pm.
• Planetarium tickets: $12 adult, $10 senior/student, $8 child 5–12, under 5 free. ⚠️ Sold only at the Observatory on the day — no online or advance sales.
• ⚠️ Children under 5 are admitted to the first show of the day only, and must sit on a lap.
• Allow 2–3 hours. Longer if you want sunset and stars.

We went to Griffith Observatory twice on the same trip — once after dark, and once in daylight — and they were so different that I would now tell any family to do the same thing if they can.

The building and the grounds are free. You do not need a ticket, you do not need to book, and the view over Los Angeles from the terrace costs nothing at all.

What we did not know before the first visit, and what cost us, is further down: the Monday closure, the way planetarium tickets are sold, and the parking. All three are easy to get wrong.

Here is everything we learned across two visits, with the practical detail we wish we had had.

Is Griffith Observatory free?

Yes. Entry to the building, all the exhibit halls and the grounds is free, and always has been — it was a condition of the bequest that built it.

The only thing inside that costs money is the Samuel Oschin Planetarium. Everything else — the telescopes, the exhibits, the terrace, the views — is free.

That includes the two things most people assume they will have to pay for:

• Looking through the Zeiss telescope. Free, every clear night the building is open. Over nine million people have looked through it, which makes it one of the most-viewed telescopes in the world.
• The monthly public star parties. Free, run with the Los Angeles Astronomical Society, the Sidewalk Astronomers and The Planetary Society.

Parking is the one hidden cost, and it catches people out. See below.

Opening hours — and the Monday closure

Monday	❌ CLOSED
Tuesday–Friday	12:00pm – 10:00pm
Saturday–Sunday	10:00am – 10:00pm
Grounds and park	5:00am – 10:30pm, daily

The Monday closure is the single most common way a family trip here goes wrong, and the weekday noon opening is the second.

Note the difference between the two rows at the bottom: the grounds are open even when the building is not. So on a Monday, or on a Tuesday morning, you can still walk up, stand on the terrace, see the city and see the Hollywood Sign — you just cannot go inside.

That is genuinely worth knowing if Monday is the only day you have.

Parking, and how to avoid paying for it

Parking is $10 per hour, credit card only, pay-and-display. The machines do not take cash. It applies to the main lot, West Observatory Road and Western Canyon Road.

Paid hours are Monday–Friday 12pm–10pm and Saturday–Sunday 10am–10pm — which is to say, exactly the hours the building is open.

So parking is free:

• Before noon on a weekday — arrive at 11am, walk the grounds and the views, and be parked free when the doors open at midday
• Before 10am at the weekend
• After 10pm any day

The other free option is the Greek Theatre lot, at the bottom of the hill, which is free except on concert nights — and from there you take the DASH bus up.

A tip that is worth more than it sounds: when you drive up West Observatory Road, stay in the left lane. The left lane goes into the main lot; the right lane is parallel parking and buses only. Getting in the wrong lane on a busy Saturday means going back down and round again.

Uber and Lyft must drop off past the horseshoe driveway and are not allowed to park at the Observatory at all.

Getting there without a car

This is a genuinely good option and almost nobody writes about it.

The DASH Observatory / Los Feliz bus runs from the Vermont/Sunset Metro station, seven days a week, roughly every 20–25 minutes, from 10am to 10pm.

The fare is 50 cents. 35 cents with a Metro TAP card, 25 cents for seniors and disabled riders, and free for children four and under.

Fifty cents each, no parking, no queue for the lot, and it drops you at the door. With children this is often less stressful than driving, and after dark it means nobody has to navigate the hill in the dark.

The planetarium — read this before you go

The Samuel Oschin Planetarium is the only paid thing at the Observatory, and it is worth doing. But the way tickets work catches families out constantly.

Prices:

Adults (13–54)	$12.00
Seniors (55+)	$10.00
Students and teachers with ID	$10.00
Children 5–12	$8.00
Children under 5	Free

And now the two rules that matter:

⚠️ You cannot buy planetarium tickets online, by phone, or in advance. They are sold only at the Observatory, on the day of the show, at the box office or the ticket machines around the building. Cards and cash both accepted.

⚠️ Children under five are only admitted to the first show of the day, and must sit on a parent or guardian’s lap for it.

What this means in practice. If you have a child under five and you want to see a show, you have to be there for the first show of the day — which on a weekday means being there when the doors open at noon, and at a weekend means being there at 10am. There is no way round it and no way to book ahead.

If your children are five or over, buy your tickets as soon as you arrive rather than after you have walked round, because popular shows do sell out on busy days.

Shows run about 32–35 minutes. The current programme includes Signs of Life, Centered in the Universe and Water Is Life.

What is inside, and all of it is free

Three floors, and these are the things worth finding rather than drifting past:

The Zeiss 12-inch refracting telescope. Free public viewing every clear night the building is open. Over nine million people have looked through it. Queue early in the evening — the line grows fast after dark.

The Foucault pendulum, in the main rotunda. A 240-pound bronze ball on a wire, swinging in a fixed plane while the Earth turns underneath it. It knocks over a peg roughly every twenty minutes — worth waiting for if one is close to falling, because children remember that.

The Tesla coil. The one on display, GPO-1, was built in 1910. The demonstrations are loud, purple and brief, and they are the thing our kids talked about afterwards.

The Big Picture, in the Depths of Space hall — 152 feet long and 20 feet high, the largest astronomically accurate image of its kind. Stand back from it first, then go right up to it.

The camera obscura, in the Wilder Hall of the Eye. Small, easy to miss, and a lovely thing to show a child.

The Astronomers Monument on the front lawn, from 1934, honouring six astronomers.

The Hollywood Sign — the honest answer

You get one of the best free views of the Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles from the Observatory lawn, and it costs nothing. For most families, that is the answer, and it is a good one.

Hiking to it is a different proposition. The route from here is the Mt. Hollywood Trail — 5.3 miles and around two and a half hours, rated easy but long, and it takes you to the ridge above and behind the sign.

You cannot reach the letters and you cannot touch them. The area around the sign is fenced and closed, and trespassing is enforced.

Trails are open sunrise to sunset only, 365 days a year. There is no shade for much of the route.

Star parties — free, monthly, and barely known

Once a month, on a Saturday, the Observatory hosts a free public star party with the Los Angeles Astronomical Society, the Los Angeles Sidewalk Astronomers and The Planetary Society.

It runs from 2pm to 9:45pm — so it starts in daylight with solar viewing and runs through into the night.

Amateur astronomers set up their own telescopes on the lawn, and you can look at the Sun, the Moon, the visible planets, and talk to the people who own the equipment. All of it free.

Note the times do not match the building’s. Telescope lines close at 9:45pm even though the building stays open until 10pm.

If your dates are flexible, plan your Griffith visit around a star party. It is the single best free thing on this list and it turns a two-hour stop into an evening.

Our two visits — night first, then day

The first visit was in the evening, and we arrived later than planned and missed sunset. What we got instead was the city coming on underneath us and a queue for the public telescopes, with staff and volunteers explaining what we were looking at while we waited.

The second visit was in daylight, and it was a completely different building. The exhibits, the halls, the view out over the city in the sun — and a walk out onto the trails afterwards.

If you can only do one:

• Go in the evening. Arrive about ninety minutes before sunset, watch the light go, then queue for the telescope. That is the version people remember.
• But go on a weekend, when the building opens at 10am, if you want the exhibits as well — because on a weekday it does not open until noon and the evening fills up fast.

Doing it with kids — the practical bits

Allow two to three hours for the building and the grounds. Four or five if you are staying for sunset and telescopes.

• It gets cold after dark, more than people expect. It is 1,100 feet up and the wind comes across the hill. Bring layers even in summer.
• There is very little shade on the lawn in the middle of the day.
• Café at the End of the Universe is on site, but it is limited and it is not cheap. Bring water and snacks.
• Pushchairs are fine inside — the building is accessible and there are lifts.
• The Tesla coil demonstration is loud. If you have a child who is sensitive to sudden noise, stand near the back.
• Toilets are on the lower level, by the café.

The best age? Our experience is that from about six upward everything lands. Under five, the free exhibits and the terrace work well, but the planetarium rule above makes a show hard to arrange.

Where we stayed

We stayed at The Biltmore Los Angeles in downtown, about a twenty-five-minute drive from the Observatory depending on traffic.

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Internal link: our stay at The Biltmore Los Angeles

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What else to do nearby

• The Hollywood Walk of Fame — about fifteen minutes down the hill, and the obvious pairing with a daytime Griffith visit.
• Downtown LA — City Hall’s free observation deck gives you the opposite view: downtown looking out, rather than looking in at downtown.
• Griffith Park itself is one of the largest urban parks in North America and the Observatory is only one corner of it.

Is it worth it?

Yes, and it is the best free thing to do in Los Angeles with children. That is not a small claim in a city where everything costs money.

Go in the evening if you can only go once. Go twice if you can. And check three things before you leave the hotel: that it is not a Monday, what time the building opens that day, and — if you have a child under five — what time the first planetarium show starts.