Some people come to Los Angeles to go to Disneyland. Some come for the beaches. Others come to stand beneath the Hollywood Sign and whisper to themselves, “Wow, dreams really do come true!”

And then there are the conscious few who come to spend April 20th on the Los Angeles Weed Bus, hot-boxing their way through the city in search of classic stoner movie history, dispensary deals, and whatever satisfaction can be attained when a strange “weed tourist” from Wisconsin passes you a blunt at 11:30 in the morning.

I first heard about the LA Weed Bus years ago, always in that folkloric way that people talk about things in Los Angeles, where it sounded too ridiculous to be true. Following some research, I determined that the Weed Bus was very much a real thing... and is extremely successful.

I booked it for Monday, 4/20. Their most popular date, for obvious reasons.

The main draw for my 4/20 journey was simple: I wanted to visit the original Friday movie set house, and sit on the sacred porch where Craig and Smokey puffed, passed, and tried to figure out how to pay back Big Worm for all the weed Smokey had decided to smoke rather than sell.

You smokin my shit?

Hell nah... fuck with your shit? Hell nah...

You smokin my shit?

Now why would I do some shit like that?

I’mma have to fuck you up SMOKEY!

When Friday came out in 1995, I was 20 years old. Marijuana was my life. So was hip-hop. So was comedy. That movie absolutely floored me and my friends. Thirty-one years later, what was once just our favorite film is still the defining stoner movie of the last three decades. Most films age into forgotten oblivion. Friday aged into comedy and weed holy scripture.

So on the morning of April 20th, I arrived at downtown’s Grand Central Market to meet the head of the Weed Bus, an enthusiastic and weed-loving tour guide named “Rollan Buds.” (Probably his real name). There were roughly six passengers waiting in the area where they were instructed to gather... but we were nowhere close to leaving on time.

Rollan told me there were still 16 others who were either currently lost or missing.

“It’s like trying to herd cats,” he said, explaining the logistics of getting 22 stoners to board a weed bus on time.

Hiii magazine editor Rob joined me for the tour, and we climbed on a 2002-era converted party bus (complete with a working CD player) and tripped into a cloud of smoke complemented by a booming hip-hop soundtrack that suggested the driver had one job... and was killing it. It was still early, but fellow passengers were already offering us joints, blunts, and vapes, passing them around like corn salad at a Sunday church potluck.

“Happy 4/20, motherfuckers! Let’s get hiiiiigh!” a woman from the back row screamed, after the missing 16 passengers had finally boarded. We were already 45 minutes behind schedule and nobody cared.

The response to her call-out was a cautious, half-hearted, “Woooh.” It was the kind of sound that you hear when 22 stoners are still assessing the group vibe, deciding if this weed bus tour was worth the money, and suddenly panicking about if they had remembered to lock their rental car in the nearby parking lot. And if they had brought enough weed to last the two hours of the tour.

And then, after we had all boarded, Rollan took the mic like he was Kendrick Lamar shutting down Coachella in 2017.

With the smooth dignity of a person who has truly defeated the LA rat race, he informed us:

“My name is Rollan. I get to drive around and get high with you every day... and yes, this is literally my job.”

At that point I considered saluting this man. In a town where actors were currently fighting to do extra work, Rollan Buds was clearing mad cash, driving around South Central in the same party bus where I think my friends threw my bachelor party back in 2004.

But Rollan was good. Really good. He broke the ice quickly.

“Anybody celebrating birthdays? Anniversaries? What about divorces?”

The beautiful thing about Los Angeles is that none of these would have seemed out of place on the Weed Bus.

Next, Rollan broke out the “Where are y’all from” roll call to see where the bus riders lived state by state. As it turned out, nearly everybody on the bus was from a state where marijuana laws are a buzz-kill.

States like Louisiana. Texas. Virginia. Wisconsin and Minnesota. There was even a couple from North Dakota. What I realized was that, for these folks, California represents a cannabis freedom fantasy in the same way that Amsterdam did for Americans back in the ’90s. Since its legalization, LA has become a place where one can smoke freely without having to crouch behind a Waffle House dumpster with a Proto Pipe like they were a mid-’70s drug fugitive.

Our first stop was Arts District Cannabis—a downtown dispensary where I learned that the Weed Bus was just one arm of a larger empire. The company runs six buses in total, including a self-guided driving tour and a limo-style, gay Hollywood bus tour. (Who has the address for The Golden Girls house?)

They even offer a cannabis-themed funeral service called Mourning Buds, which handles funeral processions, ash scatterings, and, apparently, the possibility of planting ashes into bud clones—because nothing says ‘eternal rest’ like smoking your relatives.

Keith Richards would approve. He once admitted to snorting his dad’s ashes... a fact that somehow felt less insane after an hour on this bus.

After everybody bought their legal goods at the dispo, they climbed back on the bus to compare ounces and edibles the way normal city tourists compare museum and Broadway show tickets.

By the time we got rolling again, the mood had loosened. The smoke was thicker. So was the appetite. Conversations turned to local food deals. Suddenly the bus became a think tank devoted entirely to the relationship between fast food and the 4/20 holiday.

According to one passenger from Virginia, Subway had a buy-one-get-one footlong 4/20 deal on the table. Wingstop was offering a 4/20 special limited-edition collectible tray with the purchase of a Hot Box. KFC had some kind of $4.20 chicken pot pie situation and BJ’s Brewery was apparently selling a giant pizza cookie for $4.20. Someone mentioned Chipotle’s BOGO burrito deal if you wear a hockey jersey to a restaurant in the hushed tone usually reserved for insider trading tips.

Suddenly, I was starving. But sadly, we all learned that the bus would not be adding a Chick-fil-A stop to the guided tour.

Then, as we hit Slauson, Rollan decided it was time for a game.

“Alright, it’s time for a blindfolded blunt-rolling contest,” he said. “Who’s in?”

Three volunteers quickly threw their hats in the ring. They would go head-to-head and were given one song to roll a “functional blunt” while blindfolded and sitting on a moving party bus.

It was hilarious to watch... like seeing baby fawns attempt to walk just after being birthed in the wild—except with blunts and blindfolds. The guy who eventually won produced something that resembled what a sorority girl I dated in the ‘90s tried to roll while we were on shrooms at a Dave Matthews concert... For his winning effort, he won a pre-roll.

Finally, the Weed Bus made a turn onto West 126th Street to a row of houses located, “Between Normandie and Western... where we call this 20 bag a twenty twin-twin...”

We were finally in Friday territory.

And suddenly, there it was. Mummified in South Central myth, looking exactly like it did in the film. The Friday House (@CraigHouseFriday).

The current owner was selling Friday t-shirts and flower from his garage. For 20 bucks, he offers you the chance to pose on Craig’s porch and yell “Daaaamn!” while someone films it on your cell phone. Hiii magazine editor Rob and I did our best to recreate the iconic moment.

Naturally, my IG story garnered TENS of views. Damn indeed. The Internet isn’t as fun as it used to be.

(Ed. note: The Friday house recently saw an uptick in interest when the sons of stars Ice Cube and Chris Tucker starred in a promotional clip for the LA Rams NFL Draft— look it up).

Across the street was Ms. Parker’s house, where, in one of the more wonderfully undiscovered gems of LA tourism, visitors can pose on the house’s front lawn while spraying a garden hose in tribute to Ms. Parker—the hottest woman on the block. (The home’s 85-year-old owners apparently have a massive TikTok and Instagram following and have lived in the house for 54 years.)

A few blocks later, after leaving the Friday neighborhood, the bus crowd energy had suddenly changed. Morning enthusiasm had drifted to a mellow fatigue. There was less singing along and more yawning. There were fewer declarations of 4/20 brotherhood and way more introspective moments spent staring out the window, rapping along to Dr. Dre and Snoop songs. I suppose that’s just what happens when you chain-rip joints for three straight hours in a moving vehicle while trying to emotionally process the fact that you just paid to visit a film set from 31 years ago.

After Rollan showed off the Boyz n the Hood film set neighborhood, the Baby Boy house (nobody cared), and Crenshaw High School (they shot All American there!) I was pretty much ready for the tour to end. I grabbed Rollan and asked how much longer we had on the tour.

“About 45 minutes.”

Oy!

By the last stretch of the tour, the bus felt less like a wandering party and more like a required school field trip that was about to come to an end... nobody was unhappy. We were all just... a little faded.

And that is when the final revelation came to me. This bus needed some snacks.

Anything would have sufficed. A salted pretzel station? Was a nacho bar too much to ask for? Maybe an onboard hot dog street cart? It seemed to me that it was pretty brave to ask people to spend half a day touring dispensaries and film sets in the hub of LA cannabis culture without also offering passengers something like... Funyuns?

It felt like negligence.

Just as this thought entered my mind, as if on cue, Rollan suddenly busted out a paper bag full of potato chips and passed them around—like a true OG.

Rollan came through like the final boss in 420: the Video Game and the bus began munching on fried snacks like we were sitting on a couch in a fraternity house watching Family Guy.

Twenty minutes later, we finally made it back downtown. We said our goodbyes, Rob and I handed out some Hiii mags and realized that none of us passengers would ever be in this situation again. We had become 4/20 brethren—it felt like we had been on the Space Shuttle together. We had gone to the moon and back... and none of us could tell if it was all real or not.

Look, some people celebrate 4/20 in a park. Some stay home and watch Up in Smoke, Pineapple Express, or Friday for the 40th time. And some climb aboard a bus full of strangers from prohibition states, pass around Js and potato chips, and cheer through a pilgrimage to a Hollywood set from over 30 years ago.

The Weed Bus Tour is basically the stoner version of what the Universal Studios backlot ride is to Midwesterners from Nebraska. Craig’s house is the new Psycho house. You just don’t have to pay $125 to see it. The main difference on the Weed Bus is there are no restrictions on what you can or can not do... and let me tell you... it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

The highlight is in the camaraderie you share with your fellow riders... and the fact that you are amongst tokers who don’t get to experience this freedom in their home states. The Weed Bus is highly encouraged and I will never forget what has been the best 4/20 I’ve experienced in a long time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go smoke my grandma’s ashes.

For a tour: WeedBusLA.com

Zach Selwyn is an actor, writer, and musician. Selwyn has written for TV and published a collection of short stories, Talent Will Get You Nowhere. His novel, Austin Translation, is a comedic murder mystery and the first of the Stoner Chronicles Trilogy. His band Zachariah & the Lobos Riders has released six albums.