Getting Around Los Angeles Without a Car

Can You Visit Los Angeles Without a Rental Car?

I’m going to give it to you straight. Visiting Los Angeles without a rental car is possible, but it definitely requires some extra planning when creating your itinerary. It is not easy to get around Los Angeles without your own set of wheels, no matter what other travelers might try to tell you. Yes, you’ll see buses and public transportation options all around the city, but the problem stems from the significant land area that the southern California metropolis covers.

If you want to drive between major points of interest, you’ll often have to drive somewhere between 15 and 30 miles, and maybe even further. Sure, you could cover those distances on a bicycle, but the bike lanes and bike-friendly paths around Los Angeles are quite inconsistent, and you usually need some previous experience riding around a city to feel comfortable getting from a place like Griffith Park to the Santa Monica Pier.

Which, by the way, the distance between those two attractions is around 17 miles, which you can certainly cover on a bicycle, but which is just one of several large distances you’d likely need to travel during your vacation in Los Angeles. Are you thinking about visiting Disneyland and then going to visit the Rose Bowl in Pasadena? That’s about 45 miles.

And given the Southland’s lack of connectedness for its public transportation, it’s not like you can easily jump on a train and get wherever you want to go. There is a metro system with buses, a little bit of subway, and some areas with trains, but taking these different options will add a fair amount of traveling time to your day. Sure, you can treat it as an adventure, but should you really take four buses, a train, and 30 minutes on foot to get from one side of LA to the other?

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

Does Los Angeles Deserve Its Car-Centric Reputation?

Los Angeles definitely deserves its reputation as a car-centric region, with many residents owning more than one vehicle. You’ll have the 1975 beater, some old car from the 90s, a more recent sedan, and your new car, all sitting on the street, clogging the parking, or lined up end-to-end in your driveway. Los Angelinos don’t just have a car. They often have multiple cars, and it shows with the daily traffic jams on the road.

Now, you might assume that taking alternative transportation in Los Angeles will help you avoid the traffic jams, but in terms of time investment, you’re probably looking at the same amount of time, if not more, when you choose to ride the bus over renting a car. Los Angeles has made some strides in its public transportation infrastructure, but those options are often only viable when you have all day, or you’re just going a mile down the road.

Personally, I’ve owned one car the entire time I’ve lived in Los Angeles (well, one car at a time, I should say), and I actually rode my bike (both motorized and foot-powered) for many years. A few of my places of employment were within bicycling distance, and another took about 30 minutes on a motorized bicycle, and I often traveled that way while commuting to those locations.

However, that hasn’t always been the case. At one time, I lived in Hollywood, went to school near Los Angeles International Airport, and had a job in Woodland Hills. It would have been absolutely impossible to reach those three separate places on a bicycle or on foot because of the significant distances involved. And yet, all three of those locations were entirely in the City of Los Angeles. It’s just that the distances made driving a car the only viable option.

Los Angeles Without a Car is an Adventure

I don’t mean to come off as wholly negative with this particular post, but I do want to make it abundantly clear that walking around Los Angeles, or even riding your bike, is a rather monumental task unless you’re only staying a few days and don’t plan on venturing more than a few miles from your hotel, motel, or rental.

If you’re looking for a whirlwind adventure and seeing some of the best tourist attractions in Los Angeles, riding your bicycle means putting some planning into your rides and routes, as well as the time investment required to cover so many miles. Yes, you can ride your bicycle from Knott’s Berry Farm to Huntington Gardens, but it’s 30 miles and will probably take you almost three hours to cover the distance.

If you’re quite interested in visiting Los Angeles in such a way that you’re always on the go and moving, a bicycle could give you that feeling of accomplishment. But again, it’s important that you come to Los Angeles already prepared to thread your bicycle in and out of traffic, whether that’s the sedate kind along the coastline in Venice or the busy sort in Downtown Los Angeles.

If you really want to see Los Angeles and all the surrounding areas on a bicycle, you can also consider renting an e-bike or taking a bike tour. There are some shops around the county that rent out e-bikes, and they make it a bit easier to cover long distances, but bear in mind that you might need to find an outlet to charge your bicycle should you try to cover a significant distance.

Focusing On Specific Neighborhoods on Your Los Angeles Vacation

One option available to you when you visit Los Angeles without a car is to treat the county as if it were an entire country. The government and economy of Los Angeles are huge, just like the square miles that the metropolitan area covers alongside the counties of Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura. If you think of Southern California as an entire country, you can arrange your stays in such a way that you go from place to place for a few days, which might mean you can realistically use public transportation from your lodgings or hotel.

For example, after you land at LAX, you might head up the coast to Santa Monica and take a few days to hang out by the beach, visit the Santa Monica Pier, walk the Venice Boardwalk, and even head up the coast toward Malibu (you can certainly ride your bicycle from Santa Monica to Malibu, and the ride is beautiful even when you’re in line with the traffic).

Your next stop might be Downtown Los Angeles, where you can walk or ride to places like the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Grand Central Market, and the Staples Center (okay, fine, the Crypto.com Arena. I can’t get out of the habit of calling it the Staples Center!). As long as you’re aware of your surroundings and able to walk a few miles, you can actually get around Downtown pretty easily on foot.

Other options for mini-stays within Los Angeles and its surrounding areas include staying in Orange County (that’s to the south of Los Angeles) to visit places like Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland, or staying in Hollywood, so you can walk the Hollywood Walk of Fame, see the Chinese Theater, and get pictures of the Hollywood Sign.

Taking Rideshare and Taxis Around Los Angeles

One feature of Los Angeles that will probably make getting around without a car a little easier is the huge presence of rideshare drivers in Southern California. There are probably hundreds of thousands of people driving for outfits like Lyft and Uber, as well as traditional taxi services. You can get picked up absolutely anywhere and easily get to where you want to go without having to drive.

All you have to do is pay for the privilege of being driven by someone else. Yes, the cost of getting around by taxi and rideshare can get a little expensive, but it’s a highly viable option when you’re not otherwise renting a car. The airport has a huge area built specifically for rideshare pickups, so getting a car to take you wherever you want to go is really straightforward. You won’t find yourself wandering around, wondering where your driver is when you get off the plane.

It’s also nice sometimes to let someone else deal with the traffic jams because sometimes the traffic is so heavy that nothing moves for a few minutes, even if you’re on a freeway. If you’re concerned about the cost of your taxis or rideshare rides, you can always combine those rides with public transportation.

There is a train system in Los Angeles that can get you to a few specific points of interest throughout the county, which means you can sometimes take off some of the distance you’d otherwise travel in a taxi and complete those miles on a train or bus instead. Don’t forget to look into free shuttles from your hotel or lodging, too. Some places will pick you up from the airport for free, which can reduce your transportation costs while visiting and taking tours of Los Angeles.

---

---