7 things in L.A. that you absolutely need to book in advance

You’ll undoubtedly recognize the Stahl House and its twinkly vista even if you don’t know it by name. Otherwise known as Case Study House #22 for you modernist fanatics, this iconic hilltop home is barely more than a roof, floor-to-ceiling windows and a swimming pool, but its vantage point atop the Hollywood Hills has made it an icon of jetsetting luxury since 1959.

The limited timed tours are pricey and popular (particularly the ones around sunset) and only offered on Wednesdays, Saturdays and two Fridays a month. Reservations become available (and are immediately snatched up) about three months in advance, so you’ll want to check the website for the latest reservation release info—and then cross your fingers that the weather ends up being good on the day of your booking.

The Huntington’s distinctly themed gardens are easily the most stunning manicured outdoor spaces in SoCal, and its library and museum holdings are equally impressive, too. You can access all of them with a single ticket, but you’ll need a reservation on weekends and holidays.

Even during peak tourism times, time slots shouldn’t be too difficult to come by as long as you book a couple of days in advance. But the Huntington’s first-Thursday free day is a different story. Reservations become available (and then are quickly all booked) the last Thursday of the month at 9am, with a limit of five tickets per household per year. Also, if you plan on dining at the rose garden’s tea room, you’ll want to book that as far in advance as possible.

The Huntington isn’t the only botanical garden with an in-demand free day: Both the Arboretum and Descanso Gardens are free to visit on the third Tuesday of the month. Both release their tickets on the first of the month—at 9am for the Arboretum and at 10am for Descanso.

When the Broad first opened, the free Downtown L.A. contemporary art museum was so popular that its standby line had its own Twitter account, and crowds queued up early just to try to get a decent return time to step inside of Yayoi Kusama’s mesmerizing, reflective Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away.

Thankfully, an option to add access to Kusama’s installation to your regular museum reservation has made this process much less hectic—assuming you don’t mind planning your visit a month in advance. Tickets for the museum are released on the last Wednesday of the month at 10am for the entirety of the following month, and when you book there’s an option to add timed access to the Kusama piece, as well.

If you’re set on stepping inside the Kusama installation, the month-out reservations are really the only way to go. The good news, though, is that reservations for the rest of the museum are much easier to come by, and a limited number of same-day tickets are set aside daily. There’s also a second Kusama piece, Longing for Eternity, that you can view in the third-floor galleries without a reservation. This walk-up-only installation is similarly illuminated and reflective, though instead of stepping inside you stick your head into a porthole-like window.

Big-name comedians pop into L.A.’s comedy clubs remarkably frequently, and getting tickets to these shows at spots like the Comedy Store tends to be a week-of sort of decision. And on the other end of the spectrum, theater and arena shows are big enough that if you miss out on the initial sale, you can normally nab resale tickets (assuming you have the budget).

But Largo lands on this list because it exists in a category of its own thanks to its lineups and ticketing procedure. For starters, the 280-seat theater on La Cienega Boulevard is pretty small for the caliber of names who frequent it, including Ben Schwartz, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Tig Notaro and Nick Kroll, plus musicians like Jon Brion, Aimee Mann and Jeff Tweedy. And as for the ticket policy, there are no digital tickets here; you’ll need to check in (in person) at the theater starting two hours before the show (which is also when you’ll get your seating assignment). Though most shows don’t sell out immediately, there’s essentially zero resale market here—in other words, if you see something you’re interested in, grab tickets while they’re still available.

It’s been an L.A. fixture for more than a decade, it’s earned two Michelin stars and it had a prominent spot in Netflix’s Chef’s Table series. So it’s no surprise that Niki Nakayama’s kaiseki restaurant remains one of the hardest-to-score reservations in L.A. (even with its $300-plus price tag).

It’s tough to find a table at a number of L.A.’s best restaurants, but n/naka is in its own set-your-alarm class: Reservations are released about a month in advance, always on Sundays at 10am. (For what it’s worth, it took our own restaurant reviewer an entire month before she was able to secure a table.) If you miss out, you could opt for Nakayama’s casual izakaya a few miles east, n/soto, but it’s simply not the same experience.

In 1974, oil magnate J. Paul Getty opened a museum of his holdings in a faux villa. Eventually the decorative arts and paintings were moved to the Getty Center, but the villa and its palatial grounds remain the home of Getty’s collection of Mediterranean antiquities.

Many L.A. museums suggest (or technically require) that you make a reservation, but the Getty Villa is one of the few where we’d really encourage you do so. Free reservations are required any day of the week, but they’re considerably more in demand on weekends. Tickets can be booked about a month out, but thankfully they’re not that in-demand. However, if you plan on visiting on a Saturday or Sunday—and have a specific time in mind—we’d certainly suggest securing a slot by the start of the week.

Though the theme park itself requires a dated reservation, those are thankfully mostly easy to come by. But that’s not the case for sit-down dining—that is, proper restaurants with table service, as opposed to casual takeout counters.

In general, dining reservations at Disneyland’s theme park and hotel restaurants open up 60 days in advance, usually around 6am (sometimes it’s earlier, other times it’s later). Boozy-but-tiny options like Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar and Oga’s Cantina are among the most sought after, as is Blue Bayou, a restaurant located literally inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

If you’re shut out, you’re not entirely out of luck. Restaurants still take some walk-ups, which you can now coordinate through the theme park’s app (though you’ll need to be standing near the restaurant to join the walk-up list). You can also continue to check for reservations online—and Disneyland finally allows you to search for availability across a 10-day range rather than checking each individual day. If you’re really set on an advance reservation for a particular spot, third-party paid site MouseWatcher will alert you when reservations open up, but we personally don’t think any particular restaurant merits that sort of financial commitment.