"Geez, my feet haven't touched pavement since I reached Los Angeles."
Woody Allen, Annie Hall

Apparently "no one walks in LA." This little adage is the source of many jokes in films, notably LA Story where Steve Martin gets in his car to drive next door to visit his neighbor. It's pretty typical of the jaundiced view many people take towards LA, especially New Yorkers, but the irony is that LA County offers some of the best hiking you could expect to find near an urban area. Of course, you have to drive to get there. And when driving in LA County, traffic jams are as inevitable as death and taxes.

If traffic is decent, you can reasonably expect to get somewhere that feels like the middle of nowhere in 20-30 minutes. Straddling the Santa Monica Mountain range, with the San Gabriel Mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west, the country's most populous county has many canyons, forests, beaches and huge swathes of urban wilderness to explore. It also includes the westernmost edges of the Mojave Desert and the Channel Islands.

With sunny California weather on your side, there are also good day hikes in Ventura, San Bernadino and Orange counties. And if you want to venture further afield for a weekend away from smog and urban sprawl, there is California's contrasting landscape and diverse topography to explore. If you have even more time, the sweeping wide open spaces of American West are practically on your doorstep. Provided it doesn't take 6 hours to leave LA County (and if live here you know I'm not joking).