Touristing in LA? A Couple of Need To Know’s
Thu, Jan 28, 2010
I guess it actually falls under 1 main “need to know” really.
Almost regardless of where you stay you have to get used to the fact that if you only have a short amount of time to see the city, you’re going to have to factor some serious cab fair-age into the budget.
Here’s an example:
We stayed in Downtown LA, figuring that might be the most central spot from which to head out to the different places of interest. Turns out we were either wrong, or there just weren’t any places more central in the city. To get from downtown out to Venice Beach: $60 Cab fare and there wasn’t even much traffic. Coming back… more traffic… $70. Seeing Venice Beach = $130. Another example: Heading from Downtown out to the Hollywood strip. This one was less, just $25 to get there, then an extra $10 to hop over to Rodeo Drive when we were done.
After realizing the situation, we thought we’d test the public transport on the way back, catching the bus from Beverly Hills to 8th street downtown. Cost $2 or something in total and wasn’t so bad, it just tripled the amount of time for the voyage, putting it at over an hour.
The alternative is, if you’re there to see the touristy things, pay for a tour bus to take you round for a day seeing as many of them as you can (might cost you $100 but be well worth it), and on the following days, pay for the cab trips out to only the (smaller number of) ones you wanted to see again most, OR the ones you didn’t see on the tour
Bottom line is, it’s worth researching well before you head to LA, especially if it’s for a week or less. My advice would be to pick the spots you most want to see, and try to find a hotel that’s close to as many of them as possible. Chances are you won’t get one close to everything you want to see, but if you get close to even a couple of them, you’ll keep more money in your pocket for the activities themselves, for meals, for fun and games of what ever kind you’re into!
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As a pretty recent LA resident, the distance/traffic congestion can really be a challenge here. My advice is to simply rent a car and join the traffic! Sounds like from your costs here it would have been cheaper, and less stressful. The public transportation is either non existent or inconvenient, depending on where you are and we you area going. Downtown is def not high on the list for seeing the cool stuff in LA. I recommend staying in either Hollywood or a beach community like Santa Monica or Venice.