Hotel Advice Needed!

Hi there,

Myself and a friend are landing late on the 26th July at LAX. We need to go to be Long Beach airport the next day to get our hire car.

Can anyone suggest any good (and safe) places to stay in LA or if you would recommend making the journey down to Long Beach when we land and the stay there.

Any general advice on affordable, safe hotels in a good location would be great too!!

Cheers

Hotel Advice Needed!

If you%26#39;re coming in late, it would seem that the best choices for an overnight stay would be either at a hotel near LAX (take a free shuttle bus provided by most of the area hotels) or stay next to Long Beach Airport (and use the same free shuttle into the airport in the morning).

There is nothing to really see or do between Long Beach Airport and LAX so there%26#39;s no point in staying anywhere in between.

Must you pick up the car at Long Beach Airport? Most rental companies have offices at LAX as well?

Deciding which place to stay depends on how tired you will be when you arrive (essentially, how late is ';late';). If you take a shuttle van from LAX to a hotel at Long Beach airport, it could take as much as an hour and a half because you will have to wait for the next shuttle to arrive at LAX and then it might take time to fill up the van with additional passengers and additional time to drop off some of these passengers before the shuttle reaches your destination. If you feel that adding an additonal 1-1/2 travel hours to your trip is ok, then I%26#39;d opt for staying at Long Beach airport, the first night.. But, ideally, I%26#39;d try to switch the pickup point for your car to LAX.

Good luck!

Hotel Advice Needed!

Agree with HopSkip - you%26#39;ve got to find a way to hire your car anywhere else but Long Beach. The journey alone would take hours, and cost a small fortune. There are car rental companies all over LAX - you might have to rent a car to go get your rental car.

That%26#39;s like asking us where to stay at Heathrow to get your car at Gatwick.

cheers for this.

I think the main reason behind it was because we weren%26#39;t sure where we were going to be staying and that we couldn%26#39;t pick up our car when we landed. (because of the time)

reading what you wrote really does make it obvious that we made a stupid choice! I think we will try and change it!

Any advice on hotels though and areas of LA to avoid?

There are a number of popular areas of interest to tourists in Los Angeles:

1. Downtown (city centre Los Angeles)

2. Hollywood

3. Beverly Hils

4. Santa Monica

5. Sunset Strip

Each area has its own personality. Check out our FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (faqs) section -- located at the top of the L.A. FORUM topic list. -- for a description of the neighborhoods as well as answers to 9 other popular questions.

Here%26#39;s a quick link:

tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g32655-i61-k528354鈥?/a>

Cheers!

If you land too late to hire a car, then just pick one up the next day from an agency near your hotel. Every neighborhood has many, many, many car rental agencies. You%26#39;ll just take a taxi or shuttle to your hotel (wherever you decide to stay - see the above post), then walk to the car hire the next day.

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