Los Angeles can feel like a city of nomads in many ways, especially when you’re among the masses working on screenplays or updating their LA Casting profiles in coffee shops. Whether you’re just checking email or working on your opus, join them – it provides a peculiar-but-heartwarming sense of community. Chances are you’ll find a friendly WiFi sign in most coffee shop windows, like at Groundwork (Map 3) and Bourgeois Pig (Map 3) in Hollywood. Or, for the defiantly autonomous, most of the Los Angeles Public Library branches (www.lapl.org) are wireless. Wi-Fi hotspots can be found in the most unlikely of places around the city: Santa Monica’s Krispy Kreme (Map 18) and Hollywood’s venerable dive bar Boardner’s (Map 3) are both wireless. Even downtown’s Pershing Square is wireless. A noble gesture, yes, but the services are lost on the homeless population who most often frequent the park.
T-Mobile allows you to “get more” at a price by offering high-speed wireless broadband Internet service in public locations such as Starbucks, Borders, FedEx Kinko’s, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Red Roof Inns, and select airport and airport clubs. Access prices vary; consult www.hotspot.t-mobile.com for details. LAX offers Wi-Fi in certain terminals, as do several hotels including downtown’s Marriott (Map 9), the Chateau Marmont (Map 2) in West Hollywood, and LAX’s Courtyard (Map 26).
Check www.wififreespot.com/ca.html or www.wi-fihotspotlist.com for a complete list of local Wi-Fi opportunities—or if you don’t find this morally objectionable, you could always try to tap into someone’s network for free. Then again, if you’re in LA, you most likely tossed your morals out the window somewhere south of Sunset.
