We have decided to spend our last five days in San Diego. Thanks for all your advice. Now how to get there. We are looking at taking the train from Union Station to San Diego then fly out of San Diego. Is that a good idea rather than rent a car in LA drive to SD and then drive back to LA to fly out of LAX. My son will drive us from Carson to train. MY question is can we rent a car near the train station in SD or will we need to go to the airport. If so, how far away is that and how hard is it to get there. Is there a better car rental in SD? Thanks for your help.

The train ride is pretty relaxing (just don't be looking at your watch). The Airport car rental places are off/site shuttle. So they are up the road (north) about a mile. They probably have car rental info in the Sante Fe Depot (there are kiosk of tourist info). Enterprise will pick you up . Or taxis are waiting curbside(Santa Fe Depot)....

Hertz lists the train station as location in San Diego. My husband has used it twice with no problem. There is not an actual desk at the train station, rather you pick up a special phone (I could be wrong on whether you call on your own phone, but my husband isn't here to check),and call the number listed in your confirmation. Hertz will then pay for your cab ride to either their airport desk or their desk at the Marriot Hotel near the convention center. Both are just 5 minutes away. Paying for your cabfare saves you the expense. Rates from the train station were very good on both occasions.

well a third option woud be to rent the car in la and drop it in SD. driving down to SD gives you flexibility and lets you stop along the way.

we looked at that but the drop off charge is alot. over 150.00 more unless you know something we don't but thanks for the thought

poolqueen is that $150 more even if you account for not having buy train tickets?

What is the difference in airfare between SAN & LAX?

train is 29.each each plane was 134 each and car was 150 plus car was more out of LAX what are we missing on the way?

I'm confused.

I was trying to help you think of things in terms of total trip cost.

I don't even know where to start now???

how many people on this trip?

$26 per person for a train tickets quickly approaches $150 if you have 4-5 people on the trip.

Which departure airport has the $134 savings per person? If LAX that might swing my opinion to just drive back to LA.

If you take the train you will be able to get a rental car no problem. As you probably know since you posted this question you DO want a rental car for San Diego. It is not a great city for public transportation.

sorry for the confusion. there are 2 of us and we will get a car in SD. Heard it is easy to get to airport from train station to rent car. We already have flight out of SD so we can't do round trip to LAX.

sounds like a good plan. From your original post it sounded like you were still wanting options.

Have a great trip.

thanks we couldn't have done it without help from all of you. my OP was before I made reservations. thanks again.