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Walking down from the dorms to go to places like Starbucks and Diddy Riese was considered a big Friday night excursion when I first came to UCLA. I would walk down with a big herd of freshmen and we felt as though we had really gone out and done something exciting – but maybe that was just because we were all ready to pass out as if we’d spent all night dancing on Sunset by the time we finished the hike back up to Hedrick Hall.

After standing in line with high school kids for one too many Friday nights for cheap, not-so-fresh cookies, realizing that the chairs packed into Ackerman Grand Ballroom made me consider typical movie theater seats to be in the same realm as luxury leather armchairs, and resorting to buying yet another UCLA sweatshirt because my shopping was limited to what was within walking distance, it shouldn’t be surprising that I began to feel as discontented with my social life as I was with E! when the network made Kathy Griffin part of the new fashion police. After all, hadn’t the fact that UCLA was in a major city been one of the reasons I decided to attend? There was an exciting world beyond Hedrick Hall and the Ackerman Student Union, and I wanted to explore it.

I found a fellow East Coaster in my building who shared an interest in Los Angeles tourist attractions, and together “K.” and I eagerly compiled a list of all the places we wanted to go: Venice Beach, the Getty, the Grove, LACMA. But then reality hit us. We didn’t have a car. All of our friends were freshmen and they didn’t have cars. There wasn’t a West Los Angeles subway. And there would be no point in going shopping if I was going to spend all of my money on cab fares.

Then we realized there was one form of transportation we had overlooked – the bus.

We decided to start with an easy destination for our first bus trip – Third Street Promenade. The person at the front desk of Hedrick gave us a map and even told us what bus number to take and where to find the stop. After our mile-long hike down from the dorms, I had the humbling experience of taking public transportation to get around a city where a car is the most important accessory to someone’s outfit.

And that’s when I realized, taking the bus wasn’t too bad. K. and I became experts at the bus – we expanded our destinations beyond those which the Big Blue Bus could take us to and began to learn which bus lines were fastest (the Metro Rapid) and their time schedules. We felt as if there was nothing that could stop us from being able to write the newest “Frommers Guide to Los Angeles.”

But that’s not to say we didn’t have our moments when we vowed never to take the bus again – like when we got on a bus going in the wrong direction, or made the mistake of sitting down on the seats that faced a creepy man with a camera who wouldn’t stop taking our picture, or the time we got on the wrong bus and the bus driver kindly and somewhat frighteningly floored it and weaved around traffic to catch up to the bus we should have been on – I swear the last one happened.

In fact, I would venture to say that the worst bus-related experiences I’ve had were the times that I was too impatient or stubborn to ride it. Like when I was tired of waiting for the bus home from the Getty and decided the walk really wasn’t that far, only to realize after I came panting into my dorm room and passed out on my bed that my ability to estimate distances was more than a little off. Or the time K. and I took the bus to the good Penguins at Westwood and Olympic and were too embarrassed to let the upper-classmen whom we ran into know that we had taken the bus there. So, we waved goodbye and started walking down the street looking for a place to hide until we knew for sure that they had left and we could go back to wait for the bus. The result of that decision was freezing outside of a pizza shop for an hour.

I’m not saying that the bus is the fastest or most stylish way to get somewhere, or that I don’t appreciate having my car now, but it is reliable and you definitely won’t go broke riding it. Plus, I’m proud to say that K. and I often discovered in conversation that we had been to more places and were more knowledgeable about the city than most of our friends who were California natives.

So, make a list of the places you want to see in Los Angeles. Go online and look up the city’s bus routes and schedules, and head out there to explore the city. When you’re coming back from a museum or a movie in Santa Monica and see people in the dorms crowded around someone’s laptop watching a movie from someone’s already-exploited DVD collection, you’ll be glad you didn’t spend the evening on a bunk bed in a cinder block room. You may even earn some admiration from people when you tell them where you spent the evening and fearlessly explain that you took the bus to get there.

Have a fun bus story to share with Rodgers? E-mail her at jrodgers@media.ucla.edu.