3 days in Los Angeles
 

My wife and I are planning a trip to L.A. in mid June. We want to spend time at the beaches, but we don't want to pay for an expensive beach hotel. <BR>We were thinking of staying at the Wyndam Checkers. Would we be able to bike to the beaches? (we would do a limit of 10 miles)Or shoould we rent a car?

if I'm not mistaken, the Wyndham Checkers is in downtown LA -- a drab, desolate location. Once the government workers and lawyers go home, it's a ghost town. <BR> <BR>Downtown LA is something like 15-20 miles from the nearest beach (Santa Monica), impractical & unattractive to bike (because of the car-choked major boulevards, and some unsavory intermediate neighborhoods). A car trip at the wrong time of day could take an hour, 1-way. <BR> <BR>Consider staying AT THE BEACH, and commuting back into downtown LA if you have business to do.

Downtown LA would not be a desirable location to stay during the summer months. I'd look into finding a hotel in Santa Monica or Marina Del Rey - much better for enjoying the beaches.

I probably wouldn't stay downtown for convenience unless you had business there, either, but I find parts of downtown LA interesting and pleasant, and not as dire as others. I don't agree with recommendations for LA tourists to always stay in Santa Monica or Marina del Rey (espec the latter which I dislike). There are many other places to stay in Los Angeles, and Santa Monica is very expensive. If you want to spend most of your time at the beaches, I guess it would make sense, but there are more reasonable hotels in nearby Century City or Culver City, and you could bike fairly easily from either one of those, I suppose, as they are only a couple miles away from the beaches and along broad, flat major streets that go to the west. You could also stay more in the mid-Wilshire/Fairfax/West LA or West Hollywood areas, they have some reasonable hotels. Upon rereading your post, however, it appears that you don't want to bike for fun but to save money, so I would not recommend that as you would have to have a car anyway to do other things in Los Angeles, unless you had no other plans. I think it would be a problem trying to rent a bike near your hotel and getting it to/from the rental place to your hotel, unless you have more details about your plans than you've described as to where the bike would come from. What would you do at night to get anywhere when you wouldn't be biking? If ALL you want to do for those three days is go to the beach, I would stay in Santa Monica, I don't think the price diff of hotels would be enough to make up for the hassle; some hotels in SM aren't that different from Wyndam Checkers which is not a cheap hotel, either, from my understanding.

go to entertainment.com, call them, order a book, you will save a TON of money on dinner and 50% off on some great hotels. trust me, you will well get far more than your $40 bucks worth right away. And no, do not stay downtown.

Why not consider staying in Long Beach. You have the beach there, but it's not as expensive as other beach areas of LA COunty. Plus you can ride the green line of the Metro Rail from Long Beach to LA and Hollywood if you choose to forego a car rental.

Read the post looking for a nice reasonable hotel near the airport. <BR>A business trip for a month. Any thoughts on weekly or monthly rentals near LAX. Safe, Clean, walkable neighborhood with cafes would be ideal but location is everything. Is the area <BR>west of the airport considered safe. <BR>Thanks <BR> <BR>

Jeremy, may I offer another option: stay on the beach at Malibu, on the Pacific Coast Hwy, about 10 minutes west of Santa Monica, and only 20-25 minutes from downtown LA, via Sunset Blvd. or I10, or any number of other blvds. (look at a LA map). This is what we did in March, and wow, it was wonderful. And you can walk the beach to your heart's content. We stayed at Casa Malibu, room 104, 22752 PCH - 310-456-2219. Right on the beach ... waves breaking 100 feet from our patio. About $160 per night, including breakfast. Free parking. While in LA, don't miss the Getty Center on Hwy 405N. Reserve M-F, and avoid the weekends. Have a great trip. Ciao.