What’s the Cheapest Way to Visit Los Angeles?

Will a Visit to Los Angeles Put a Huge Dent in Your Budget?

Los Angeles is expensive. As a resident of Southern California, I can categorically say that I spend a lot of money on living expenses, but I do so because I love the city and everything it offers me. I’ve lived here for more than two decades, and I wouldn’t live anywhere else (well, for the foreseeable future anyway; I may retire in a different country, but that’s decades away from now!).

If you’re not from California, or you’re not familiar with Los Angeles, some of the only things you might know about it is that it’s full of Hollywood people, home to Disneyland, and costs a lot of money. Everything here is expensive, from gas to eating out, especially with the crazy inflation that the United States has experienced in the past few years (as I write this).

Sometimes, you just can’t avoid those price increases. Los Angeles was quite expensive years ago, but it’s kind of bonkers now. However, you don’t have to have a millionaire’s bank account to visit the City of Angels. You don’t even have to consider yourself well-off to have an amazing time in Los Angeles. There are some simple decisions you can make that will have a huge impact on the overall price of your trip.

For example, one of the easiest ways to take a huge chunk out of the size of your budget is to travel in the middle of the week and when tickets are less expensive. Although Los Angeles welcomes tourists all year long, you’ll find that it’s less expensive in the fall when the kids are back in school, and the beaches aren’t so warm anymore. Plus, staying overnight in a hotel on a Wednesday will almost always be cheaper than staying on a Friday night.

For the purposes of this article, I’m combining all of the counties that surround Los Angeles into the same giganto-mega-city-area. So you’ve got Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, and San Bernardino Counties all referenced here as “Southern California.” Realistically, it’s possible to stay almost anywhere in these counties and call it a Southern California vacation. San Bernardino does go quite far to the east, however, so the outer reaches of that county might be a little too far out to be considered a convenient distance to Los Angeles.

(note: some of the links here are to websites with which I am an affiliate, and your purchases help fund my website!)

The Best Cheap Areas of Los Angeles for Cheap Vacations

Traveling in the middle of the week will help you get the lowest price on plane tickets, but the next best option for saving money is staying in one of the less expensive neighborhoods. Yes, all of Los Angeles is expensive, but not all of it is that expensive. If you’re willing to rent a car and drive around in Los Angeles, you can get a much cheaper hotel in the San Fernando Valley than you can over the hill in the Los Angeles basin.

(yes, that’s The Valley, where Valley Girls come from!)

If you’d rather stay on the southern side of the metropolitan area because you’re thinking about going to Disneyland, which is in Orange County, consider staying in Riverside, which is southeast of Los Angeles and east of Anaheim, Orange County, where Disneyland is located. There are quite a few little towns along Interstate 15 in Riverside County that offer much less expensive hotel options than the hotels right near Disneyland.

Anything in decent distance to Disneyland is going to cost you an arm and a leg each night, but if you’re willing to take a jog eastward or stay closer to the desert, you’ll find lots of excellent hotel deals with prices less than half of what you’ll pay next to the Mouse House. The further you travel inland, the less expensive you’ll find the lodgings are, but that’s not too surprising, right?

If you’d rather stay close to the big tourist attractions in Los Angeles, like the Hollywood Sign, Venice Beach, or the Rose Bowl, the key is to look at the small communities right next door to those major points of interest. For example, if you want to see Old Town Pasadena and take a jog around the Rose Bowl, don’t stay in Pasadena. Head south and stay in San Gabriel or Alhambra.

Similarly, if you want to skate down Venice Beach and take a stroll along the Santa Monica Pier, stay clear of Venice and Santa Monica for hotels. Head inland and choose a short-term rental or small motel in the Palms or Culver City neighborhood. They won’t be as cheap as staying further to the east in the desert, but you’ll be close enough that you can actually ride a bike to the coast but not pay beachfront property prices.

Food in Los Angeles is Awesome But Expensive

You’re gonna pay A LOT for food in Los Angeles. Even if you’re visiting a little family-owned establishment that’s been around for seventy years, you’re gonna feel it in your wallet when you sit down for a bite to eat. Even if you try to save money on food by staying in a rental or hotel with a kitchen or kitchenette, the grocery stores here will knock you for a loop, too. Food is just expensive here.

If you’re able, I would seriously consider stuffing your suitcase with snack food. You can bring all sorts of protein bars, canned tuna snack packs, and mixed nuts from your home state or country, which should be cheaper than what you’ll find in Los Angeles unless you live in one of the pricier European countries. For example, if you’re from Iceland, you might find the food in Los Angeles is on par, cost-wise, with the prices you’ll see at home.

But if you’re from almost anywhere else in the United States, you’re going to pay more in Los Angeles to shop for food and visit restaurants than you will almost anywhere else. If you bring protein bars and other snacks with you, those items can usually serve as one of your meals for the day, which can help you avoid eating out for every single meal.

Los Angeles does have an amazing foodie scene, though, so I’d do some research before you arrive to find the best restaurants in Los Angeles for your favorite type of food. Try to visit a great restaurant at least once, and you’ll discover why people here eat out so often, much to the detriment of their budgets. Always bring more money than you think you’ll need for food. There’s a good chance an impulse buy will catch you, or you’ll just end up spending more money than you anticipated on it.

You Don’t Need to Do Disneyland & Universal Studios

Can you visit Los Angeles and skip the major tourist attractions? These days, it feels like you have to take out a mortgage just to get beyond the front gate of Disneyland and Universal Studios. Sure, they’re each an awesome experience, but a single ticket will set you back anywhere from $150 to $200, and that’s not even including the food, the parking, the tours, and the souvenirs.

If you can manage it, the big-ticket items in Southern California are tons of fun. But you shouldn’t put your Los Angeles vacation on hold because you can’t afford a ticket to see the home of Mickey Mouse. You can see dozens of famous Los Angeles landmarks and venues for virtually nothing. You might pay a parking fee here and there, but a lot of the coolest places to visit in Los Angeles are free.

For example, it doesn’t cost a dime to walk onto the Santa Monica Pier. If you want to ride the roller coasters, it doesn’t even cost that much, and you can buy just a few tickets for a few rides rather than spending your life savings on an expensive pass. Seeing the Hollywood Sign up close is also free, or you can pay a modest parking fee in Griffith Park to access some trails that lead along the hills for great views of it.

You can visit any one of the dozens of beaches up and down the coast for free, you can touch the star of your favorite actor on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for free, and you can even visit the brightly lit shopping plazas outside Disneyland and Universal Studios for free (they’re called Downtown Disney and Universal CityWalk, and they’re fun for food and shopping near the parks).

Choose a Walkable Neighborhood and Hang Out for a Week/Weekend

I think one of the coolest and most relaxing ways to experience Los Angeles is to act like a native for a week and forgo the big-ticket touristy things in favor of a week of strolling around a neighborhood, getting to know all the restaurants and parks and such. If you have a bit of extra money to spend on your lodgings, consider one of the adorable little inns in Manhattan Beach. The community has its surfer dude beach vibe on lock.

I think one of the coolest and most relaxing ways to experience Los Angeles is to act like a native for a week and forgo the big-ticket touristy things in favor of a week of strolling around a neighborhood, getting to know all the restaurants and parks and such. If you have a bit of extra money to spend on your lodgings, consider one of the adorable little inns in Manhattan Beach. The community has its surfer dude beach vibe on lock.

If you live in a small town or you’re not used to traveling around a giant city, Los Angeles may feel like a true culture shock to you, and you’ll definitely feel some sticker shock when it comes to the prices out here. The gas is more expensive, the food is astronomical, and the housing (for those who live here) requires having a fat inheritance, a cushy job, or a house that someone in your family bought prior to World War II.

But the news isn’t all bad. You’re just trying to take a vacation here, right? And you can definitely do so, even if you don’t have a giant budget for your Los Angeles vacation. You can easily create affordable, walkable neighborhood-focused vacations within Los Angeles that take you no further than the immediate borders of the community you’ve chosen to visit.

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