LA Area info needed

I may be headed to the greater LA area in the next couple days for a quick over night trip. Santa Ana specifically.

If I have to stay over night at a hotel, what area/s are better (safer) to stay in? Have a connection with a hotel I can use? Areas to avoid? I'll be traveling in/out via 91 & I-15 from the Las Vegas area, so anything along that corridor is helpful.

 

Best part of Santa Ana is south coast metro, part closest to the beach and mall. The immediate Downtown Santa Ana has gentrified, so it’s not too bad. Hard to throw a rock and not hit a Double Tree in Santa Ana. Along the 55, Orange is nice and has a cool downtown that’s olde-tymey. Along the 91, Yorba Linda is one of the richest parts of OC, so nice...corona ain’t bad. Hope this helps.

 

Helps greatly, thanks!!

Picking up a new car. Just want it to still be in the parking lot when I get up to leave in the morning...

 

Nice... what are you getting? Pics or it didn’t happen!

 

The Taco is staying home, thats mine!

Husband is getting a new Cooper. With his work schedule though, I'll be making the run over there, doing the papers and driving back.

I love my truck. Theres a very short list of cars I actually like and like to drive. But man, I love driving his current Cooper! (trading this one is for a new one).

 

Things changed rapidly. Im leaving tonight and staying in Barstow at the Marine Corps Logistics Base. I'll be in Santa Ana in the morning and (hopefully) driving all the way home tomorrow evening!

I know only a couple responded (ok, I think one?? Thanks folks...) but a bunch of you have viewed. I do thank all those who took a moment to read. I know LA is a huge area and not everyone can be familiar with it. Peace and see yall down the road!

 

Yeah... thing is, its not LA. Its orange county
@WileECoyote knows it best that I know of. He used to live there.

 

See. Theres something I didnt know. I learned a loooonnng time ago that New York didnt always mean City. Ever since, Ive been good about not assuming location when someone says theyre from NY. I ask where? Upstate? Western? City? It means a lot to them not to get lumped into the City.

I need to learn more about this LA/Orange difference now.

 

La county starts at the north of 605 frwy, anything southern or west is orange county.

 

No wifi at the moment so links will have to do.
https://www.google.com/search?clien...263j46j0i131.cXSnLgy0kbc#imgrc=YtNoPB45_qvrfM:

http://www.stonebrowndesign.com/uploads/9/7/6/9/9769402/losangeleshighwaymap.png

 

Didn't read other posts but: Santa Ana is actually OC, not LA, just FYI. Weather has been poopy, but you can stay down in Huntington Beach, Newport, Costa Mesa. Those are all a quick trip North to Santa Ana. Above Santa Ana, parts of Anaheim (near Disneyland) is close too. Plenty of hotels around. Unfortunately can't help you out with any hookups of the sort or connections with any. Good luck!

 

The distinction between "L.A." and OC is only really important to natives of Orange county; I was often mystified at how many people I met when I lived in OC (late 90's-early 2000's) who had lived in the area for over 20 years and seemed to think that crossing the 605 meant entering a world that was some mix of the movies "Colors" and "The Road Warrior". For people in L.A. county (native and transplants) it's a factor for trip timing and navigation, but not a distinction that many really care about. For people north of Santa Barbara or East of San Bernardino (who often seem to think that Disneyland is literally in the shadow of the "Hollywood" sign) it's more or less a non-factor, and anyone who's never lived in the area doesn't bother making such distinctions.

In general, the "LA Metro" area seems to most commonly be defined as a large chunk of five counties (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino), and actually includes somewhere in the range of 100-200 individual cities and a few dozen neighborhoods within the City of L.A. which are allowed to list differently on their mailing address (Playa Del Rey, Westchester, Eagle Rock, and Sunland to name a few). It's a huge area with a total population bigger than 47 or 48 of the 50 states, but it's what most people refer to as "L.A."

 

To an extent, sure. When I think LA, I'm thinking actual downtown LA, Hollywood, etc., which is at least 45 minutes with no traffic from Santa Ana. I always forget how far LA county stretches, since Long Beach is part of LA, but it is nestled right up next to Seal/Huntington which is OC. County lines are confusing down here...

 

So true, I still don't know where I am half the time

 

MCLB Barstow ??? , You'll be only 45 miles Northeast of me

 

I know I'm not much help but holy shit can there be a more complicated area? I live in Canada where if I drive 5 minutes I'm wolf and grizzly food. Props to anyone who drives themselves in and around the states and knows at least 25% of what they're doing.

 

With typical Friday/Saturday evening traffic, Hollywood can be 45 minutes from Downtown L.A. (maybe 5-7 miles distance) these days, and the 405 makes that look like racetrack half the time. Last time I tried to go down to OC, it took me about an hour and 45 minutes to get from LAX to Westmister/HB on a friday afternoon (the return trip took under 20 minutes later that night).

I first moved to L.A. in fall of '92 (4 months after the riots) to go to college at USC, then I moved down to Buena Park after I graduated. Having come from Montana, where the significant-sized (15k or higher population) towns are all about 100-120 miles apart and we used to go to Spokane WA to get "into the city", it mystified me how many people in their mid-late 20's who'd lived their entire life in Anaheim were terrified at the thought of ever entering any part of Los Angeles county. Now I've been back to living in L.A. county since '05 and very rarely have any reason to go back to OC. The "orange curtain" is a real penomenon, and very wierd to anyone who didn't grow up behind it.

 

One of the weirder things for me was getting sent to Seattle for a couple years when I worked for Boeing. During the 8 years I lived in MT, people tended to think of Seattle as a metropolis on par with Chicago; after 10 years in L.A. it seemed tiny to me, I lived 3 blocks from the space needle and could be completely out of town in 20 minutes on the highway.

Where I live now (partly because it's close to the beach), if I try to leave town during the daytime it's at least 2-3 hours driving just to get out of "L.A" in any direction (or 35 minutes if I leave at midnight).

 

Welcome to the west side

 

I guess that's the nice thing about going farther and farther north, takes less time to leave the city the farther you go. I drive down from the north into Vancouver BC every couple years or so and once I hit Chilliwack on highway 1 it just gets crazy. Traffic starts piling up. Once you hit close to Langley it's even more traffic, and car accidents everywhere. Makes me appreciate my ability to leave town in a split second (in comparison)