Sunnyday ‘Scoot’ tours take sightseers to parts unknown

By  CHAD GARLAND,

JUNE 7, 2015

Amy likes to wave. She waves a lot — at pedestrians, at bicyclists, at fellow motorists — and of course, they wave back.

“We want to be a part of the community, and that’s why we wave,” Amy said Friday morning. “We can’t tell you how many people we’ve seen wave back.”

Driving along in her red three-wheeled “scoot,” which looks something like a roofless version of Lightning McQueen from the animated movie “Cars,” traveling down San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank — where their company is based — to Western Avenue to Riverside Drive and into Griffith Park, she waves.

Behind her on Friday morning were three more green scoots — specially made two-passenger scooters — each with a driver and passenger partaking in a tour. Many of them waved, too.

That level of personality is part of what makes their new tour business, called Sunnyday Scoot, unique. The other part is the scoots themselves.

Sunny Day Scoot takes caravans scoots on three-hour driving tours that focus on sights in and around Griffith Park, or on one-hour adventure rides that are more about the fun of driving. The company offers tour packages, as well as customized romance packages.

Hunter said it’s more fun than the typical tour bus, and participants not only get to buzz up and down the winding roads of Griffith Park, among other routes, they get to feel the wind in their faces while doing it. The tours bring some excitement to driving in a town where the prospect of regular traffic intimidates visitors and enervates locals, he said.

Jamie McCormick was back for his second tour with the scoot company on Friday. Even though he has lived in Los Angeles for several years and goes to many events and venues around town, his first tour showed him a side of Griffith Park he’d never seen, including places Walt Disney visited with his daughter.

Hunter said when they started the business, they expected to serve mostly tourists, but they’ve actually had many repeat customers and locals.

Chandra Chang, a writer and producer who lives in Los Angeles, shared a scoot with McCormick. It was her first time.

“It feels like a Mario Kart,” she said, referring to the video game that involves popular Nintendo characters racing in go-carts.

Sunny Day Scoot has been open for business a little more than two months, but it took about two years of planning, including a nationwide search for the right location before deciding on Los Angeles because of the year-round good weather and beautiful nature. Hunter said it’s a “dream job that snuck up on me.”

Not only does he love it, he said, he’s happy with the response it’s been getting from customers. He and Amy practically beam with pride at the five-star reviews they’re getting online — on Yelp and Trip Advisor.

Hunter said that while the scoots may “separate” them from their competition, “it’s good to read the reviews that say it’s our personal touch that really sets us apart.”

For more information, visit SunnyDayScoot.com.

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