Halloween Weekend in Los Angeles
October 20-November 1, 2026
Halloween is a citywide affair in Los Angeles. From mid-October through the end of the month, the city is overtaken by haunted houses, themed pop-up bars, outdoor horror movie screenings, and coveted costume parties across nearly every neighborhood. The unofficial centerpiece is the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval, one of the largest events of its kind in California. On Halloween, a mile-long stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard morphs into a massive, costumed street celebration featuring a mainstage DJ. Wherever the weekend takes you, tables across the city book up fast.
Head to Santa Monica for some of the city’s best dining. Seline is a destination in its own right. The rotating tasting menu, helmed by award-winning chef Dave Beran, features between 14 and 17 courses, each telling the story of a season. For a fine-dining restaurant, the space is intentionally communal, removing barriers between the kitchen and the dining room to encourage interaction. Booking your table requires a deposit, applied to your final bill.
Pasjoli is another Santa Monica restaurant from the same chef—different dining experience, same rigorous standards. The menu at this playful, French-style restaurant is split between lighter, locally sourced fare and more decadent dishes, like crispy cordon bleu chicken wings. Ordering a few dishes from both sides of the menu makes for the best balance. The Cocktail Card is a fun touch: a choose-your-own-adventure experience where guests select their preferred spirits and flavor profiles, and the bar team crafts a custom cocktail on the spot.
Magnificent Mile Lights Festival Kickoff in Chicago
November 21, 2026
There is nowhere quite like Chicago to kick off the holiday season, and the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival is the place to do it. Every November, the festival ushers in the jolly spirit of the holidays with themed floats, marching bands, a fireworks display, and over a million lights strung across the Mile’s trees on North Michigan Avenue. The festivities draw hundreds of thousands of spectators to downtown, so a dinner reservation is worth locking in well ahead of the parade.