Need info about the Los Angeles area

[steve185]

My wife and I are traveling to LA for medical purposes. I have never been there. We will have to go to Downey, Costa Mesa and Newport beach. Which would be the best location to stay out of the three places?
I will have a few free days and would like to do some driving, but will need to return to the hotel each night, any recommendations? Any places I should avoid? How far up the coast towards San Francisco can I get in 5 or 6 hours?
Thanks
Steve

[PeteT]

Newport Beach for the hotel hands down. It is the by far the nicest of the three. Costa Mesa is right next door. The drive to Downey won't be too bad but make sure you leave plenty of time for morning traffic. You would be able to make it to San Fran in about 7-7.5 hours from Newport driving on Interstate 5 (boring) longer if you go up the coast or the 101. Try to enjoy yourself if possible, the weather has been outstanding for the last few weeks.
Pete

[Noah930]

Newport Beach will be the prettiest of the three communities listed. In general, the closer to the ocean, the nicer the neighborhoods.

To the north there's great sporting driving up in Angeles Crest Forest (look at the mountains just north of La Canada) and the hills of Malibu (look for Mulholland Highway and all the offshoot canyons). PCH is scenic from Santa Monica on northwards towards Ventura. If you go for 5-6 hours straight north on PCH you can get pretty far up the coast--close to San Francisco, even. But you won't be able to make it back to your hotel that night. If you just drive for 2-3 hours in one direction, you could make it to Santa Barbara. Ortega Highway and Mount Palomar are drives to your south. San Diego would be 1-2 hours to the south (each way).

Best of luck with the medical concerns.

[daepp]

- Newport Beach - high end, safe, beautiful, expensive, not far from Downey, next door to CM

- Costa Mesa - non conforming, still nice, not a vacation spot

- Downey - more busmies/commercial area

5-6 hours north? You have Santa Barbara, every bit of it is awesome, probably 4 - 5 hours north

San Luis Obispo/Buelton - ever see the movie Sideways? Wine country, GREAT driving roads. SF is 9 + hours north.

[Tobra]

Sorry you are traveling so far for medical stuff, I presume it is a family member and wish you luck.


Hearst Castle is about as far North up the coast you get in that amount of time, assuming not much traffic. That is a long ass day driving up and back. It is awesomely incredible though.

[Laneco]

Steve,

If your time allows, a visit to Cars and Coffee in Irvine is a really neat event. It's huge and everything you've never seen in your life just drives in. On Saturdays, I think it starts around 7:30 a.m.

angela

[Cdnone1]

Hoping for the best on your medical stuff.
If you bring a bag of Coffee Crisp bits or some Imperial cheese I'll buy you lunch
Steve

[Tobra]

You really ought to look up some LA pelicans if you have a bit of time.

[Hugh R]

You will be south of Los Angeles and with 4-5 hours I'd advise you go south to Laguna, La Jolla, or San Diego, maybe inland to Escondido. Not as pretty as going north, but the drive north would be time consuming. You'd spend an awful lot of time in traffic to get north of LA.

[look 171]

Go to Cars and Coffee and drive down the cost to La Jolla for lunch and maybe Tour San Diego. Cars and Coffee will get your car stuff out of your system. If you are looking just to drvie, there's the mountain, and the ocean. They are just 2 hour apart. Santa Barbara is really nice this time of the year. If you want to drive up Pacific Cost Hwy, try to stay on the freeway and start north from Santa Manica. It is a pretty drive up to Santa Barbara and still be back to your hotel by dinner. The drive gets a bit better and with less people on the road north of Santa Barbara. Just watch for weekend traffic on PCH from Santa Monica. Everyone's doing it. It can get backed up for miles. I mean miles. If its not rush hour, during the week is not bad. If you're one of those guys that have to need to wear out the edges on the tires of that rental, then go for a drive up Mullholland. You will get stuck behind someone during the daytime for sure. Like someone said, you can go wear out those tires on Angeles Crest Hwy north of LA. Do take a right and stop by Mt. Wilson and have a quick look down at Pasadena. It is a very nice view of our San Gabriel valley. This time of the year, you can see a long way. I think its worth a short stop. Go back the 5-6 miles and continue up on over to the other side. You must be careful there's cop or two on that stretch before Mt Wilson. After Wilson, you can open up a bit. Usually, there's no one on the road during the week. 9-10:am is a good time. Before that, people use that road to come into town to work.

[Zeke]

Agree with exploring the Orange County area, especially the coast line. All the way to San Clemente, back north to Dana Point, Laguna, all with restaurants, shops and attractions. The Newport harbor area is splendid and expensive. But all the nice places to eat up and down the coast can be pricey. San Juan Capistrano is the most historic of all places OC and right down there by Dana Point.

If your medical needs involve Hoag Memorial, it's on Newport Ave which runs right down the middle on Costa Mesa. There are plenty of hotels and motels on Newport and it is very freeway friendly for the trip to Downey. All the name brands from Motel 6 to a much nicer level hotel.

If you're landing at John Wayne Airport, you're right in the middle of everything and there are a bunch of hotels in that area too. It's kinda close to a city called Irvine which is just a little inland and offers everything you could want. Except any kind of history. It's a "planned community" and looks like it.

Expect huge traffic going both ways (to the north) during rush hour (which can be all day some days).

If you like Mexican food, there is a dive on Newport right at the end of the overpass going over Pacific Coast Hiway (which everyone calls PCH) about 1/2 a mile from Hoag. That's just one of 100's of little gems to be found.

Going to a new area to you as big as SoCal is, you can use the help of your friends here on Pelican. We literally number in the 100's if not a couple 1000. We know the best spots, so just throw out your needs and desires.

[speeder]

What Hugh said.

CA. is a beautiful place but it's extremely populated along the coast and getting long distances quickly is impossible unless you're traveling at 4am. Pretty much from the Southern U.S. border to Santa Barbara is solid people and cars, millions and millions of them. No different from driving through any other huge metropolitan area.

Pretty destinations to the south like La Jolla and Laguna are a smarter bet unless you have some significant time (extra days) for driving. Be safe and have a good trip!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Downey is a dump. Some nice parts, but by-in-large you won't be missing anything.

Take a ride over to Palos Verdes peninsula. OC and north San Diego county are pretty fun. Seaport Village (S.D.) is a fun way to kill a few hours. Some cool shops and stuff there.

If you have the chance to get out of the LA Basin and get north up towards Santa Barbara or the central coast (Hearst Castle, Paso Robles, SLO, etc.) it's well worth doing. That part of the state is my favorite and is dear to my heart (I've had the chance to spend a lot of time up that way, but unfortunately never the chance to move/live there).

Coastal Marin county is pretty cool also.

If I ever move back to CA (assuming it gets its head out of its arse and/or survives the impending collapse/insolvency it's facing) I'll go to either San Diego area or the central coast - I wouldn't go within 75 miles of LA. I'd also consider the central mountain areas near the National Parks - but finding work out there is pretty tough even in good times. CA has some amazing stuff to see/do and most of it isn't in LA.

[Zeke]

Jeff, I don't think you have the capability to post about CA without editorializing. And unless you can change yourself, you will never agree with living in CA. You can't escape CA even by living in Yosemite or Shasta. Santa Barbara or Marin (not for you because it's astronomically expensive), Palos Verdes or the better parts of San Diego, all have the basic CA problem base.

But CA can be a great place to spend some time and that's what this thread is about. If I had to travel for medical reasons, I can think of plenty of places I'd rather not go if CA was on the list. And that would include downtown LA on the list (meaning I'd go to LA before some other places I've been).

[speeder]

CA. is not a good place for *glass half-empty* type people. Neither is Paris/London/Rome/Sydney/Hong Kong/NYC/etc./etc/etc.

[steve185]

Thanks so much for the travel information. We will be there the third week of December and I will have a weekend free. So. we plan to do some sight seing outside the city.
Steve

[Zeke]

3rd week in Dec has Christmas written all over it. For a free show of lights, visit Roger's Gardens in NB on Jamboree. That's next to NB's Fashion Island which is a very nice high end mall with plenty of displays of its own. Not to mention stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus . Couple of good restaurants there too. Beware of massive holiday crowds. People come from miles around to see the lights.

Shop Fashion Island

Of course there's South Coast Plaza a mall so big and famous that they bring bus tours there. If you have little ones, check out the merry-go-round.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Naples is great to walk around during the holidays. Lots of very cool homes over that way that are all decked out. For an extra show, do the Gondola Ride out of Seal Beach some evening. I swear the people in some of those homes spend more on their Xmas lights than most people make in a year!

[scottmandue]

Go south young man!

Whereas north = Solvang, Morro bay, Heart castle, etc. are some of my favorite places to vacation you will be much closer to Laguna beach, Naples, Encinetas, San Diego... all nice places to see.

(as milt says) Fashion island in Newport is a fun outdoor mall to walk around... the rich folk walk their dogs there... great people watching.

[911Freak]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

You will be south of Los Angeles and with 4-5 hours I'd advise you go south to Laguna, La Jolla, or San Diego, maybe inland to Escondido. Not as pretty as going north, but the drive north would be time consuming. You'd spend an awful lot of time in traffic to get north of LA.

Yes, this

You can get up to Santa Monica and then up to Malibu for some awesome driving up in the SM Mountains including Mullholland etc but you'll be sitting in traffic for hours just to get through all the traffic on your way back. I used to do this drive often but the traffic on the drive back was a huge buzz kill.

I'm in Playa del Rey (adjacent to LAX & El Segundo), my office is in Lakewood, I avoid that area at all costs due to the high risk of an accident or hitting debris from all the trucks driving the 710 to Long Beach Harbor. Stay clear of that area if possible. The 405 and back roads are slightly better, avoid the highways after 3pm if possible.

Cars and Coffee is a must do, and you'll probably meet a couple Pelicans there as well..

I'd suggest following the recommendations posted above and explore the area south, you can take I5 towards San Diego and find amazing scenery and driving roads. San Onofre state beach next to Camp Pendleton is beautiful, Laguna Beach etc.

If you'll be commuting from Downey to Newport Beach area the 105 is the secret gem of a highway, you can go west to the coast almost any time of day from Downey and avoid the nasty traffic. I use it all the time as part of my drive out to Santa Anita. In fact the 105 takes you right to the beach in El Segundo where Pelican is! Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach are great places to go for dinner too.

If you do decide to take on the traffic and head up to Malibu/Mullholland area and want some company or someone to show you around the area PM me and I'll grab the 911 and meet up for lunch and some spirited driving. You take the 105 West and you'll be right on the coast.

Hope all goes well on the medical stuff!