LAX FAQ
1. The white zone is for loading and unloading only, no parking.
2. Dude, you need a car in L.A. There is no viable public transportation.
3. Buses, shuttles, and vans (Oh my!) can be found under colored signs. Your ride leaves from whatever colored sign is furthest from the terminal you landed at. Rental car shuttles are under the Purple Sign. Hotel shuttles are under the Red Sign. Inter-terminal, parking lot, and Green Line (see #2) shuttles are under the Blue Sign. By the time you figure this all out, you will have concluded you were born under a Bad Sign.
4. There is no landside food, except there is a halfway decent food court at the International Terminal. The other terminals have invariably execrable food, all skyside.
5. T4 (AA) has F and elite check-in lines and security, but your rental car shuttle will only stop 200 yards beyond it.
6. If your intent is to go sightseeing or vacationing in L.A., under no circumstances should you stay at a LAX airport hotel. There is nothing in the neighborhood to see. This goes double if you have kids.
7. If you are on a layover and you have but a few hours in L.A., you can probably visit Santa Monica or Marina Del Rey by taxi or city bus.
UPDATE: FTer Wayan provides this
first-person account of leaving LAX by 4P and returning by 830P, and of getting lucky (as lucky as a guy can get in 4 hours?) in Venice Beach:
7:17 pm To the delight of the entire bar, the two hotties order shots, lime, and salt and then proceed to do body shots off each other, licking the salt of each other's ample bosom. I immediately dial American Airlines and try to change my flight to the next morning.
7:21 pm My phone is taken from me as my face is shoved into a warm caress of boobage and salt, I have entered the Body Shot Zone. Time, space, flesh melds into a cornucopia of lights, sounds, tastes as salt, lime, tequila, sweat, and saliva mix.
8. The Sepulveda Tunnel should not be attempted on foot.
9. You can walk to Park & Fly aka Park One (pnf.com) or the Radisson Hotel from T1 or T7. You can even walk to In-N-Out Burger. Park & Fly gives 10% off if you show your WN Rapid Rewards card, and 15% off for DL SkyMiles.
10. The Encounter Restaurant (the landmark Theme Building in the middle of the airport) is pretty good. You can park there while eating. It was never designed or used as a control tower. The building is sometimes referred to as "the spider." It does not rotate.
11. The best bar near the airport is the rooftop bar at the Radisson.
12. You can nearly always get a room at a LAX airport hotel for $50-$60 (instead of $150-200 rack rate) on priceline.com . But you have to pick "name your own price," not their bogus "shop and compare."
13. You can nearly always get a rental car for $15-20 on priceline.com . Rent an economy class car and upgrade at the counter. See #12.
14. You can often park for free on 98th St (behind the Radisson Hotel). Read the signs carefully. Note: This is where TSA agents have to park, and you could be fighting one of them for your parking space.
15. If you know you're going to drive the I-405 after you land, be sure and eyeball the traffic while the aircraft is on final approach.
16. The Greater LA ATC system is notoriously fragile and will fail -- totally messing up air traffic for the entire Western U.S. -- if someone digs up a cable, there is a power outage out in Palmdale and the generator runs out of gas, or for any number of reasons.