Best place to stay to explore LA without wheels!
 

Hi there, Iam planning to travel to LA in the fall but don't really want to hire a car for the full 5 days. Which area of LA is it best to stay in to enable me to explore the most on foot / public transport?

Thanks

West LA. Santa Monica, Westwood, Beverly Hills.

Agree on all fronts. LucieV pretty much summed it up.

Look on a map, and follow Santa Monica Blvd from La Cienega Blvd all the way to the ocean. Anywhere within spitting distance of that line will put you in a convenient area.

You really need to have a car in LA. There is no REAL public transportation. You will be much happier if you have your own set of wheels..........

kleroux is correct.
BUT if for some reason you don't/can't drive & you have to be moored in one spot, West LA would be my choice. There is so much to do and see right there, and the bus system is good enough to get around that area.

It depends on what you want to see and do where would be the best to stay.

If you were going to Farmers Market, Chinatown, Olvera Street, the old-timey tourist stuff like that wouldn't it be better to stay downtown proper or Fairfax?

Good point, suze, and those are cool areas to see. If I didn't have a car, though, and had to do a lot of walking around my hotel's neighborhood, I'd prefer West LA. That's just me, though!

Hi LucieV, we agree. I like Santa Monica a LOT too (grew up in Venice).

But if I'd never been to LA before, I think it's worth seeing the "real" downtown. I'll throw in more places like: La Brea tar pits, the walk of stars & chinese theatre, Hollywood boulevard, the Hollywood sign, and Melrose Ave for shopping and lunch.

Venice? Very cool, suze. I grew up here, but we visited often, and my husband grew up in BH. I loved Venice in its less-gentrified days (still love it, but it's just different.) Did you go to Pali or Uni HS?

And I agree re: Olvera Street -- and La Brea tarpits. That was always one of our favorite places as kids! Blurp. Blurp.

LucieV- I would have gone to Venice High but my parents moved me back east in 9th grade.

btw, when I was growing up in Venice it wasn't considered cool... more the "bad side of town", at that period you wished you lived in culver city or mar vista or santa monica -haha.

Not me, suze. I liked Venice. I liked the unpretentious artistic funkiness of it all. One of my college roommates lived in Culver City, and <i>that</i> was a place I couldn't relate to!

Bus &amp; metro system is much better than it used to be. if you don't agree, then you haven't tried it much. Depending on exactly what the poster wants to see, much is easy on public transportation.

One thing Angelenos shouldn't be doing is telling MORE people to put a car on the road.

I need to disagree with you joesorce...If arenatina wants to see as much as possible of L.A. the best way to do that is with a car. We don't have the best public transportation here....I wouldn't want to sit in a bus or the metrolink trying to figure it out. Study the map and rent a car, that's my advice.

While LA is easiest with a car, people forget that LA has a real metro/train system. The real travesty is that it doesn't reach West LA. But it does hit Pasadena, Downtown, Hollywood, East LA, Chinatown, and Long Beach.

You can see the touristy Hollywood stuff very easily on the Red Line. You can go to the aquarium and the beach in Long Beach. And Pasadena might be the best part of LA. I'd recommend staying in Pasadena and taking the Gold Line down to Downtown.

And the bus system is very extensive in LA.

I asked a similar question recently and was generally told that you need a car for LA. Maybe so. As it is for my own city, public transport doesn't always go where you want to.

However, it seems that if you mainly want to visit the major tourists spots as opposed to seeing LA (From what I've seen on TV I don't want to see all of it!)that there are shuttle buses which run from many hotels to places like Disneyland, Universal Studios etc etc. And there are organised day tours etc too. Public transport seems to get you to many places too, even if it takes a while - So many of those who say hire a car also mention how busy and congested the traffic is.

May not be the most cost effective but I'm sure you get to see some of LA as you go from place to place. (The same freeway you'll see while stressing out in a hire car no doubt)

Thanks Lucie for answering the OP's question straight up.

We stayed in Downtown at the Bonaventure in January just gone. We used public transport except for the day we went to Disneyland where we hired a car. However, if I did it again, depending on the amount of people I probably would have just taken a tour. That aside, we used the Big Blue bus, which was fantastic. Straight outside the Bonaventure to Santa Monica in 40 mins for $1.75. We used buses, ordinary metro ones to get to Century city from Santa Monica and then from Century City back to downtown. The only downside was that it took quite a while. However, if the traffic is so bad even a car would take you time. We took the metro/subway from Downtown straight to Universal studios, $1.25 each way. This metro also goes straight to Hollywood and Highland etc.
As a tourist you tend you use public transport and get along very well with it, as a local I never use the buses back home. It is just one of those things. I think you could group the things you could do my public transport together and then for the &quot;other&quot; places hire a car for the day. I don't think the local LA folks give their public transport system enough credit, it has improved considerably over the years. The big blue bus was great and went to a few other places. Check it out. You can even access the timetable over the net.

we need to separate what is ideal and what the poster is asking. I agree that to see all of LA, it would be ideal to have a car (along with a driver who is confident on So Cal roads, not a trivial thing). However, I strongly believe that you can put together a pretty good car-less vacation in LA if you plan correctly, and with the ideas from this board so far, I think arenatina can have a good time without having a car.

In Westwood you have the W hotel (deluxe) and the Hilgard House (moderate - no pool)...and you can get easily to Bev Hills, The Getty, Santa Monica, Sunset Strip, The Grove/Farmers Market/ La Brea Tar Pits. Each of those bus trips is about 10 minutes and you can get to Hollywood and Highland in 20, to Universal just hop the metro another 5 mins from Hollywood &amp; to downtown or Olvera St or Staples Center just hop the metro another 20 min from Hollywood. It's all very easy once you get used to it...no parking or road rage to deal with.
Start at mta.net with the address of your hotel. Print out the trip planners for all of the sites that you want to visit in advance. A day pass for all bus and metro is 3 bucks.

So my vote would be Westwood. Lots of dining nearby within walking distance, too, and very safe feel to the neighborhood.