These days tours come in many creative variations from historic walking tours to bus adventures to scavenger hunts. Tours provide a fun, interactive way to connect with and learn about the cities we live in. One company that has raised the bar on tours is the Esotouric Bus Company. Created by Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, Esotouric, operating in Los Angeles, is by no means your run-of-the-mill tour bus company.

Their tour themes are complex and stimulating, but never-ever dull; combining architecture, crime, urbanism, social history, music, literature, film and fine art into a stimulating stew of “original research and startling observations.” Hoping aboard an Esotouric bus, the rider is assured an intelligent and passionate off-beat journey into LA’s secret heart divulging a treasure chest of hidden gems and going where no bus tour has gone before.

On Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles tour, riders are guided down the mean streets that shaped his fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in a four hour tour of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: Musso & Frank, Union Station, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio’s gates, and much more.

The “Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles” tours each explore themes of industry, infrastructure, architecture and the built environment. Installments of this tour include Route 66, South LA and the Lowdown on Downtown.

The Charles Bukowski tour focuses on his great passions: writing, screwing and Los Angeles.

Strapped for cash? Hop aboard The Hippodrome, a free monthly shuttle bus exploring Downtown’s ArtWalk.

These are just a taste of some of the spectacular themes offered. To learn more about Esotouric and to browse their full list of unique brand of upcoming tours go to Esotouric.com. Why Esotouric? To capture a deeper discovery of the world beyond the everyday.