My weekly budget is around $500. A friend of mine stayed at a hostel in NY and had a bad experience although the place actually had good reviews so I'm a bit hesitant.

-Somewhere I don't need a car so accessible public transport
-Preferable somewhere I can walk around to explore the city

Not Los Angeles.

Somebody's having a rough day.

I'd pick San Diego.

Since you're on a budget and are leery of hostels, look at the Motel 6 in downtown. And don't laugh, it is easily the nicest Motel 6 I've ever stayed in - not luxury by any stretch of the imagination, but a big step up from their normal rooms. It's 5-7 blocks from a trolley stop and the same distance from the edge of Balboa Park. Rooms are around $70/night so it fits your $500/week budget.

https://www.motel6.com/en/motels.ca.san-diego.1419.html

And no, I don't work for them. I just had to find something cheap when I visited a few years ago and found it was way better than I expected.

With no car, I'd choose San Diego.

I'm not sure what happytrailstoyou's comment is about, but Los Angeles is one place that will be very challenging trying to get around by only public transportation.

Seattle, yes. Portland, yes. San Francisco, for sure. But Los Angeles is a city born & bred on car transportation and freeway transit.

San Diego is difficult without a car. IMHO, Los Angeles is nearly impossible (not literally, but the time it would take to get anywhere is ridiculous, given how spread out it is). Just an example - Santa Monica to Griffith Park Observatory - 42 minutes by car without traffic (bad enough for 19 miles), 2 hours 7 minutes by public transit.

I agree that neither of the cities asked about are ideal for tourists using public transportation. (There's lots of cities that are, but not those two!)

I'm surprised that I'm the only person at this forum who has noticed that Los Angeles is a world-class city with several fascinating neighborhoods that are easily accessible by public transport and that can be explored on foot.

LA is a city for the rough and ready. For the adventurous. For those who favor diversity and the unpredictable.

If the point is to cozy up in a coffee shop with a laptop and a cup coffee, that can be done anywhere.

I love driving around sprawling San Diego, but I don't have seen a list of the neighborhoods to explore on foot there or an explanation of how to get to them without a car.

HTtY

I didn't say I don't like LA or find it to have great neighborhoods for exploring. All I said was I wouldn't personally do LA without a car. There are parts of San Francisco I wouldn't do without a car either (Land's End for example). That's not to say it can't be done.

hey, I love LA. I was born & raised there. Doesn't change the fact that it is more thoroughly and easily seen by car.

>>I love driving around sprawling San Diego, but I don't have seen a list of the neighborhoods to explore on foot there or an explanation of how to get to them without a car.<<

Old Town, Little Italy, Gaslamp are all walkable and on the trolley line. Someone else mentioned that Coronado Island is accessible by ferry (there is also a bus that goes over to Coronado). Balboa Park is also not unreasonably far from a trolley stop, and I am sure a bus could get someone there as well without too much trouble.

Rana25, imo a $500/wk budget is going to severely limit your choices in LA, or at least limit them more than in San Diego or elsewhere. Nightly rates for accomodations in some of the places you've mentioned (Malibu etc) start at close to your weekly budget, in fact imo you'll be lucky to get a full week at any place worth staying in LA for that much. So I agree with the others who're steering you toward other cities.

>>Also, it would cost a lot less to do that. Do you know of other safer options that wouldn't cost a lot higher?>>

$500 for a week? Seriously? I guess you you check out the hostels in San Diego. I am totally guessing but I think you can still get a room in a hostel for under $40 a night. Maybe even cheaper.

A rental car would cost you probably $50 a day for a cheap one and gas is pretty expensive.

Coronado is out - they most likely don't allow AirBnB or any kind of short term vacation rentals are probably illegal and I don't think they have hostels.

Public Transportation is actually quite expensive and not easy to get around on - the wait times for buses is long and they take the same routes as cars so you can get stuck in slow moving traffic.

The exception is the trolley but it isn't that helpful for tourists IMHO.

Have you thought about staying for that additional week in San Francisco? the money you would save from traveling to LA or SD might help you enjoy the bay area a little more and maybe plan a trip to southern California in the future?

I love SF and there is so much to do and see their you could spend a couple of weeks and still want to do more.

$500 a week on the coast of California in January is difficult. It would have to be a shared room situation, I think.

I don't believe that type of Airbnb will be outlawed.

Some of the posters above probably have no recent experience with public transportation in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica is served by the Big Blue Bus

www.bigbluebus.com

There is a light rail system here as well as buses, Google Transit works quite well for figuring things out.

The real issue is that "Los Angeles" is huge. But most of it (the San Fernando Valley or South Los Angeles) you wouldn't want to see anyways. A lot of what people call "Los Angeles" isn't actually that (Malibu for example).

If you focus on the west side, Hollywood, downtown for sightseeing it's actually quite manageable by foot and transit. A lot more so than San Diego without a car.

Thanks all! I have busy with classes and forgot to check up on the post.
I know the budget is limited but it seems doable on AirBnB that's why I figured it was ok. I still haven't finalized the plans but I'll get back to you all when I do (after I submit some projects).
Sorry for the delay.