Short break in LA?

[JessyJames]

Looking for a 4-5 night break in October half term. I've seen a good deal to Los Angeles.
Is it too far for 5 days? DS is very keen but I'm not sure about two 12 hour flights so close together.
Has anyone done it and survived?

No but I'm interested to see if it's a viable idea or not.

I've done 2 days in LA before! Not ideal but totally doable, guess it depends on how prone to Jet lag you are. All of my LA trips have been without children though. Think it would very much depend on their ages etc

Hmmm not sure, I've been to LA many times, but always for more than a week and the jet lag is killer.

What do you actually want to do in LA? Will you be hiring a car? The very worst thing about LA is traffic. It took us over an hour to drive from Griffith observatory to the airport, which is about 5 miles.

In just 5 days, and for your first time in LA, you will spend the majority of your time in the car in traffic.

We flew to San Francisco on our honeymoon and the journey was hard. Although you gain time you're bloody knackered when you get there and then you lose time on the way back so struggle to catch up. We also went to LA and I didn't like it. It's so huge and takes forever to get anywhere.

I think you'd be better doing somewhere on the east coast for that amount of time like NYC or Boston.

DS is 16 and very into skate boarding, so LA is the perfect location for him.
We've been to New York and Boston, that's why LA sounded appealing. I think the plan would be to go to Universal Studios, Venice Beach and shopping.
I went there about 20 years ago, but only briefly.

I say go for it - you only live once

@DoneAdulting that's exactly what I was thinking!

Its a heck of a way to go for only five days, you ideally need two weeks. Its also changed markedly since you were last there too.

Choose your base carefully if you do travel there. LA is many conjoined cities in their own right and it can take a lot of time to travel around. The LA metro is ok but is not that extensive. The car there is still king.

I would do more research about what you actually want to do in the days you have there.

Universal Studios there is vast and even at that time of year, the queues can be immense. It would probably need two days to see it all properly.

I've done it. Brace yourself for jet lag when you get home. Just don't surrender whilst you're there. Easiest thing is to arrive late afternoon and have a few drinks/dinner and power through.

For DS might I suggest that Santa Monica will be better than LA for skateboarding/ skating? You can skate from Venice right towards Malibu. It's a great surface.

I'd say too far for so few days. Can you get a similar deal to Miami?

We stayed in Venice Beach, bit of a dump to be honest and really far from Universal where we also went. Santa Monica would be nicer.

It'll be fine for 5 days. The traffic is horrific, but if the plan is Universal and out of the city proper you should avoid the worst of it.
I do SF for 5 regularly, and have to work before, during and after (no, no business class for me)

Just had a five day trip to SF. No jet lag issues made the most of my time. Had a little jet lag once home but was right in a couple of days. The time change works perfectly. Well did for me.

Also done 4 days in Barbados in the past.

Go for it! What time does your flight arrive in LA? When I went, I landed about 10pm so just went straight to the hotel and bed and didn't really have any problems with jet lag. It was a different story on the way back, it took me about a week to get over the jet lag.
I second Santa Monica being nicer than Venice Beach. We didn't actually have a car at all in LA, and managed to get around fine using buses, the metro and the occasional taxi. It's doable !

You will spend half the time in the car stationary on the freeway.

That said, i would do it - i would do 3 nights in Beverley Hill (for Universal - which is pretty compact and can be done in a long day) and 3 nights Santa Monica way which means your handy for LAX on way home. Enjoy! Shopping out with the outlet malls isn't that great tbh. Can you stretch to 6 days?

We did it last year for 4 nights, we saw a festival out there we wanted to go to and the flights were cheap so decided to go for it. As Doneadulting said, you only live once so we went for it.

We flew out Wednesday morning, landed mid afternoon, went to the apartment (Venice Beach), walked up to Santa Monica Pier, taxi'd back (we were absolutely knackered by about 10pm), next morning picked up a car and explored the walk of fame, Hollywood sign, Griffith Observatory, Grammy Museum, Sunset Boulevard (not in that order!), then Friday drove to the festival near Ontario (via a Walmart to buy a tent!), was at the festival Fri and Sat night, drove Sunday to Long Beach (to pass the day away but absolutely loved it there) before flying home Sunday night.
Yes we were knackered when we got home but it was so worth it.

I hope you and DS do it and have a fabulous time x

Also, someone recommended Venice Beach for us to stay, and after booking I read around and lots of people on TripAdvisor said it was unsafe at night, I saw what they meant. As we walked from Venice to Santa Monica at around 6pm it started to feel a bit dodgy, there was an awful lot of homeless (I aren't saying all homeless people are dodgy etc.) and a fair few others looked and acted like they were on drugs, I am generally chilled out anywhere but I wouldn't have wanted to have been there once it got dark.

When we got home and mentioned to the friend that it wasn't great at night where we stayed he said "Oh yeah I got mixed up, I meant to say stay at Santa Monica and don't go around Venice at night" D'oh, oh well it all worked out fine