merittraveler

I'll be in LA for two days before boarding heading to Australia. Hotel is next to the airport and offers free shuttle service. I've never been to LA, so I'd like to check out the beach and downtown.

Found a car rental for $65 total. Hotel charges $17 to park. Then gas.

Should I rent a car, or just use Uber?

cbn42

From the airport, you can take the Flyaway shuttle to downtown (Union Station). In the downtown/Hollywood area, public transit is adequate. There are buses from the LAX area to the beach, or maybe your hotel shuttle will take you. If not, Uber will be cheap. I wouldn't bother with a rental car for this.

mlshanks

I might not do either. Checking out the beach can be done by local transit bus.

Downtown? Take the Flyaway bus to Union Station & use the subway and local shuttle buses to get around.

ginoa724

Transiting LAX-SNA off a TATL w/ overnight layover. For 2 pax, what is the best/cheapest option to get from LAX to an SNA-area hotel?

TWA884

My preference would be Uber, Lyft or a one way car rental.

bzcat

Just uber.

SNA is impossible to access by public transit so there is no reasonable "cheap" way to get from LAX to SNA.

cbn42

You can use shuttle2lax.com. Should be $37. During busy hours you should get a van pretty fast, but I wouldn't recommend this after 8 pm or so because you'll be waiting a while.

warrenslo

Rent a car! Shuttle services between SNA and LAX are terribly expensive, Uber can be $100+ for that distance during peak periods, Lyft not sure about...

LAX and SNA are considered the same region by Avis, picking up at one and dropping off at the other is not considered a one way rental, so you don't get penalized on daily rate and still have unlimited mileage.

Remembering when United/Skywest used to have a flight from LAX to SNA...

jackal

The key word in bzcat's post is "reasonable." Yes, it is impossible to get from LAX to SNA reasonably by public transit, but it's not actually impossible.

Uber (without surge pricing) will cost probably $50ish and can take anywhere from ~45 minutes to two hours, depending on time of day and traffic.

However, if price is a major concern, there are some ways to do it by public transportation--but it's only really convenient and cost-effective at certain times of day.

Assuming the timing works, probably the best bang for your buck would be to take the LAX FlyAway bus (every 30 minutes, $9) to Union Station and transfer to a Metrolink Orange County line to the Santa Ana stop ($9.25). Between the two, this will Ttake about two hours, depending on train schedules. From Santa Ana, you're looking at about an $8-10 Uber ride (about 10-15 minutes). So you can cut your cost in half but at the cost of it being a bit more than twice as long en-route (unless there's traffic, where the times can end up being much closer--and Uber can cost more if traffic is slow, too).

(You can also take Metrolink one stop further to Tustin, which is slightly closer in mileage to the airport, making for a potentially cheaper Uber ride, but you'll take more surface streets, so it ends up being about the same.)

This only really works if you are traveling on a weekday and can get to Union Station in time for the last 6:40pm Metrolink Orange County Line train. Orange County Line schedules really only work for the evening-commute hours; outside of that, options become much more limited/expensive (Amtrak).

To drive down costs even more, you can take public transit from the airport to Union Station for $1.75 (plus $1 for the reusable TAP card), instead of the FlyAway bus for $9. Board airport shuttle bus G and take it to the Aviation/LAX Green Line station. From there, it takes about an hour to get to Union Station via the Green, Blue, and then Red/Purple line. You can also connect to SNA airport by bus from either the Santa Ana Metrolink station or the Tustin Metrolink station for about $2, though it takes 2-3 times as long as the Uber ride. Still, it would be possible to get from LAX to SNA for $13 in about 3.5 hours or so (at the right time of day, of course).

And for the uber-cheapest (not Uber-cheapest!) option, you can actually get from LAX to SNA purely by bus+light rail. For the price, you can't complain--it's $1.75 for the L.A. Metro buses/Green Line and then $2 for the Orange County (OCTA) buses--so you can get between the airports for less than $4 (plus $1 for the reusable TAP card). It involves several transfers but is a more direct route than going via Union Station, so it actually takes about the same time as going via Metrolink (3.5 hours or so).

All of these options can be teased out of Google Maps, so I would suggest using that to help you plan your journey if you want to use public transportation.

That all said, clearly, all of these options involve significantly more time and hassle than driving and are only really worth pursuing if you're on a really tight budget. Up to you, though--I just wanted to make sure you knew that Uber wasn't the only way and that some options did exist if you really do need the absolute cheapest way to transfer.

tphuang

Haven't been to LAX in a while, but I heard the traffic around the airport has gotten really bad. Getting in on a friday evening, just wondering if it takes a long time to get an uber. Does it make sense to do rental car in the airport?

TraveltheWorld

Uber should take about 10 minutes for T4. If you're in a rush, you can walk down to T7 and take the uber from F which allows the drivers to skip almost all the traffic.

Colin

When arriving into Bradley, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, I always use Ride Service F.

When arriving into T1, T2, T3, I'll walk to the Hyatt Regency.

carlosdca

Depends on what you are doing and where.

10 years ago, I would have said, if you are going to be visiting different parts of town, definitely rent a car, LA is a car-centric city.

Nowadays, you can probably do all your getting around using Lyft (or any other ride service) and it will be cheaper and less stressful than renting a car.

If you are going to be doing long commutes (like from Orange County to the Valley) then it is a different story and car might make more sense.

What places are you visiting, where will you be staying?

tphuang

around convention center, will probably try to go do touristy stuff and maybe go to santa monica. Unlikely to go as far as orange county. I guess lyft or uber is probably the easier thing to do now.

Flying out on Sunday, just trying to figure if I should leave from LAX or LGB, since I heard that traffic around LAX is pretty bad these days.

Colin

Pico Station adjacent to Downtown LA Convention Center to Downtown Santa Monica Station adjacent to the Pier is direct Expo Line train in ~40 minutes.

If staying in DTLA, an Uber/Lyft to LGB will be $45 & an additional 15 minutes vs. $30 to LAX (outside surge pricing).
LGB is cute as hell, worth it if nonstop option available. Totally not worth a needless connection to use LGB rather than LAX.

Arrivals into LGB can't use Uber/Lyft directly from airport property. 10 minute walk off property would be required.