Janis, we're going to disagree on the beauty of baseball parks! LOL!

You make the call ;) (hope these work)

https://www.google.com/search?q=petc...&bih=592&dpr=1

https://www.google.com/search?q=orac...&bih=592&dpr=1

They're both better than that place in LA!

Besides baseball, in September and October you can also see NFL Pro Football (as well as college football) or "gridiron" as some overseas visitors call it. Both the San Francisco 49rs and LA Rams are in the NFL playoffs this weekend, so one of the two teams will be playing in the SuperBowl LA also has a second football team, the LA Chargers. Both teams play in the brand new SoFi Stadium. So you can see either or both baseball and football, time, money and desire permitting.

This trip report may contain a few hints for you on visiting Los Angeles without a car—
‘
https://www.fodors.com/community/uni...a-car-1402901/

It is quite possible to use the Metro Light Rail system combined with Uber to sightsee in Los Angeles.

Downtown, Hollywood, Universal, Pasadena and Santa Monica are all connected to the system.

Granted I don’t go to many Major League Baseball games, but I thought it pretty amazing in San Diego to watch the game while sipping wine and eating shrimp salad. (Beer and hot dogs are more typical choices.)

or . . . https://sf.eater.com/2018/3/29/17166...francisco-food

Ha! I had no idea! My only baseball game in San Francisco was several years ago with the young grandsons. Ice cream was the snack of choice! I’m sure things would be different now.

That's really good to know that here so many sport events to join. Will be hard to pick the right one because budget wise only 1 or 2 at maxium should be possible to join. But I need to research about the ticket prices first before I make a final decision. The best option (not money wise but interest wise) would be the visit 2 games. Watching a baseball and a football game to get a grasp of the stadium atmosphere would be awesome. It is one my bucket list for a visit to the states.

@k_marie Thanks for linking the travel report. It was indeed very enlighting to me.

@mlgb Good thin you mentioned Uber. I have not considered it as second mean of transport to get around next to the metro but is good to know. After seeing some footage of the LA traffic it is really tempting to consider public transport even when having a rental car. The LA traffic can be really intiminating at some places. Another plus of public transport in LA that have no problems with parking the car. This would help to reduce cost in case the parking is rather expensive. It would also be better for safety reasons. As a newbie it can easliy happen to park car at the wrong neighborhood and then when some kind of vandalismn accour I would be in troublle.

In general, planning a visit to LA can be kind of difficult just because it is so spread out. One good thing about LA is that because it tends to be so "car-centric", there is generally lots of parking and most of it is free outside of downtown or amusement parks like Disneyland or Universal. So really the key is planning when to drive or when to take Lyft or Uber or public transport. And to be honest even after living there many years we almost never use the freeways because the majority of LA area in what is called the "LA basin" which consists of the area west of Downtown to the beaches and south of Hollywood to LAX is made up of many long straight streets, so it is easy to drive to most places without getting on the freeway. And it is also key to try to avoid high traffic times. But when you are a tourist that is pretty easy to do since you can plan your timing better than someone doing a commute to work. And staying off the freeways will alleviate a lot of the stress of driving.

Aside from the places you have mentioned that interest you in LA, I would mention a couple of other museums

There are two wonderful Getty Museums, the Getty Center near the university campus of UCLA and the Getty Villa Mansion in Malibu
https://www.getty.edu/museum/
The Broad Museum Downtown is really great if you like modern art
https://www.thebroad.org/
And the nearby Disney concert hall is known for its modern architecture
And if you like cars, there is also a wonderful automotive museum called the Petersen automotive museum-it is really fun
https://www.petersen.org/
And the newest interesting museum to open is the motion picture museum
academymuseum.org

Here is a a good blog I have shared with other European visitors about various visits around California. I think he does a good realistic idea of what visiting the state feels like. Here is his post about downtown LA but you will find other posts also interesting I think:

https://californiathroughmylens.com/...o-downtown-la/

I think in general your idea of starting in San Francisco and ending your trip in southern CA is a good one. San Diego only has 2 non-stops to Europe-one to London Heathrow on British Air and the other to Munich on Lufthansa. But you always have LAX as an option, and it is only about a 2 hour drive up to LAX from San Diego. And of course San Diego has many flights to other larger US cities that will have non-stop flight to Vienna.

Also be aware by picking up a car in one city and dropping it off in another, it will most likely cost you more money, but I still think it may be worth it so that you can see some of the nice places in between northern California and southern California. There is a useful site in the US called Autoslash. You can track the prices of the rental car. Once you reserve a car (which I would do very early-even many months before since you can cancel easily) you enter the information into the site: https://www.autoslash.com/track It will then send you email notifications when the price drops and you just cancel the first one and book a new car. I use it all the time since we do many driving trips and it can save you a lot of money. If you decide that the car rental cost is too high to pickup in SF and drop in SD than you can skip getting a car in SF and just fly down to LA or San Diego and rent a car there and return it to the same place which will save you some money.

I think the key to planning for Los Angeles is to think of it as 4-5 big neighborhoods: the beach areas (Venice and Santa Monica, both Getty Museums), West LA (UCLA ,Beverley Hills, West Hollywood) and then the West Central area (Hollywood, Griffith Observatory, Framers Market, Academy Museum, Petersen Auto museum, LACMA, Koreatown) Downtown (Broad Museum, Disney Hall, Grand Central Market, Angel Flight, Union Station) and then the Valleys (Burbank, Universal Studios, Pasadena).

I personally agree with you to stay near the bay/beach in San Diego. In LA I would recommend staying pretty central, probably near UCLA or close to West Hollywood/Hollywood area. I suggest those partly because those are neighborhoods where you typically can get a hotel/motel with free parking and they are central. You generally have to pay for parking downtown. But depending on your planning as you get closer, there are lots of nice places to stay in various neighborhoods of LA.

@jpie Thanks for the tipps about the neightborhoods in LA It is also good to know that it cost extra money when dropping the car in another city and not at the place where I have rented it. I will check out the outslash website right away. I have also have not considered using inter city flights between the city but that is valid and useful option as well. Thanks for mentioning it.

A return flight to Munich would be fine with me by the way. From there I could take train right to my hometown. I do not life in Vienna so I would also need a train from Vienna to my hometown Klagenfurt. So if a flight is not going directly to Vienna is not a big deal for me.

Speaking of San Diego. Staying near the beach seems to be the best thing for the relaxing part of my travel. The part of SD you have already recommend to me Pacific Beach really looks perfect.

Yes right now just playing around on car rental sites the difference in price is substantial-at least $500. But you are so early in your planning that will change. It is highly likely that if you do pick up the car in SFO (the SF airport) and drop in Southern CA, LAX (the Los Angeles airport ) will probably always be cheaper than the Sand Diego airport simply because it is a much larger airport. But really that it will all depend on how you want to budget your time and money, which you will most likely find out as you do more planning.
The Munich flight sounds like it might work well for you-and it is a new flight from San Diego-it is just starting up in March-so that is nice that you will have that option.

We do really like Pacific Beach-especially the area from the Catamaran Resort I mentioned north up all the way to where it start to climb into the hills along the coast. It is the part of the beach/bay that is less "party-central" and very walkable with nice restaurants, etc. And there are lots of nice places to stay-both hotels and "airb&b" home/room rentals. La Jolla which is up the coast from that area is also lovely but be aware it is kind of the Rodeo Drive area of SD, although there are nice vistas and really nice little restaurants there in addition to the high end shopping, so probably worth a drive up to see at least.

If you are concluding your trip in San Diego and have a flight home from LAX, consider using the train instead of driving between the two. (Maybe someone more familiar with the route could comment on train reliability for on-time performance vs. car traffic issues.) The FlyAway bus connects Los Angeles Union Station and LAX, a 30 minute trip unless traffic is unusually bad.

Most Fodorites commenting about rentals in the US are Americans and what is available to us can be different from what an overseas visitor needs. (For example here most of us have regular car insurance that covers domestic rental cars. That is not possible when traveling to another country.) Apparently there are car rental brokers that focus on overseas visitors to the US. These agencies offer special rates that are all inclusive -- insurance, unlimited mileage, no one way rental charges, etc. I can't give you a specific name -- because the car rental business has really intrenched during covid -- but my guess asking a local travel agent in Austria they will know some. I think one used to be Holiday -- but I don't know if they are still in the business.

Over the years there have been many reports on Fodors of visitors from Europe, Australia, India etc about the great deals they got using these sorts of brokers.

The Santa Fe Depot in San Diego is at 1050 Kettner Blvd. The first Pacific Surfliner train of the day leaves at 4:01AM. Following trains at 6:01, 7:01 and 10:01 the trains take nearly 3 hours to get to Los Angeles Union Station and the fare is $36/pp. The FlyAway bus leaves from a covered area outside the door of Union Station.

I strongly recommend the Getty Center in LA. You do pay to park, but there is no admission charge for the museum. Don't skip the garden, it's quite wonderful. Also, great food!

That's true. The Getty Center really looks nice. Worth a visit for sure.

@janisj The insurance broker is great thing . Thanks for mentioning it. Will check it out for sure to get good deal.

@jpie Yes Pacific Beach really looks like nice and comfortable spot. It is also good to know that it is not among the party centre of San Diego. I do have anything against the party crowd but I would feel a bit of place if hang out in middle of the centre of the party scene of San Diego.

La Jolla also sounds nice. Isn't La Jolla also the era where some sea lions hang out at some beach if I am remembering correclty? Would be cool to watch these animals from a save distance.

Using a bus or the train to the LA airport to fly back to Europe is also a good tipp. It depends on the departure of my flight though if a train or a bus is a valid option. It is better to as early as possible at the airport. So if the train or bus scedule is correct I am going to use these means of transport for sure.