Yes, it’ll take you about an hour and a half longer than driving, but that comes with a pretty remarkable perk: an ocean-hugging ride along the Gaviota Coast, a 76-mile-long undeveloped stretch of rugged shores just past Santa Barbara that’s otherwise largely inaccessible by car. The Central Coast city of San Luis Obispo is the farthest destination where we think taking the train is still a competitively practical option. Round-trip Amtrak fare $72 three alternative departures available per day from Glendale, Burbank, Van Nuys and Northridge From there, it’s a quick trolley ride ($2.50, day pass $6) to Little Italy, Petco Park and the Gaslamp Quarter or a short bus ride to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, or you can walk across the street to Broadway Pier and take the ferry to beachy Coronado ($7). On the San Diego end, you can opt to get off in Old Town, steps from the state’s first European settlement, or-more likely-at Santa Fe Depot, situated right along the Embarcadero. If you’re looking for a beachy pit stop along the way, scope out the sand in Oceanside or Solana Beach. The train follows the 5 for much of the way with one scenic advantage: Once you pass San Juan Capistrano, you’ll travel right on the beach for much of the journey, or at most mere blocks from it (until you reach Torrey Pines, when it heads back inland). If there’s one “seriously, don’t bother with a car” nearby trip, it’s this one: You can reach San Diego and many of its closer beachfront neighbors in notably less time than driving sometimes, with about 10 departures a day and no need to worry about traffic getting past Camp Pendleton or parking prices in San Diego.
Round-trip Amtrak fare from $62 alternative departures available from Glendale, Burbank, Van Nuys and Northridge The Amtrak station also puts you right next to the Funk Zone, a dense cluster of winery tasting rooms best tackled when you don’t have to worry about driving home (you can sample all 28 of them for $200, though you probably shouldn’t in a single day).īoth directions of the Pacific Surfliner schedule offer morning, afternoon and evening trains, though there’s a slightly larger gap in deparatures between the latter two. For slightly farther destinations, you can take advantage of bike rentals, bus connections and Zipcar spots, all right at the station. Once in Santa Barbara, you’ll be let off only a couple blocks from the beach and Stearns Wharf, and even closer to the southern end of State Street, the city’s Spanish-Colonial shopping district. You’ll hug the Central Coast on the final quarter of this easy Pacific Surfliner trip to arguably California’s most scenic coastal city.
We think they’re still worth exploring, though, which is why we’ve covered many of them in our day trips guide. Therefore, we’ve limited our picks below to the very best of the best-and outlined why a couple of notable destinations didn’t make the cut.Īlso, there are a number of nearby cities reachable by Metrolink (Ventura, Oxnard, Claremont, Orange, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and Solana Beach) that we consider commutes more than proper trips while they may offer an afternoon diversion and a change of pace, you haven’t really left the L.A. Just because you can take a train somewhere doesn’t mean you should: A route that only runs at night, takes hours more than a car ride and costs more than a flight isn’t really something we can recommend. We’ll admit, though, that Southern California’s train trip options are relatively limited-at least using our pretty particular criteria. So the routes we’ve selected below, all via Amtrak, feature pretty stunning coastal scenery, as well as worthwhile cities waiting for you at the end. But road trips aren’t your only option: If you’re willing to put in a little bit of extra time and planning, there are a few train trips from Los Angeles that are even more spectacular than their car-based counterparts.Īs with standout automobile excursions, we think the journey is just as key as the destination when it comes to train trips.
When it comes to wanderlust, it’s tough to compete with the call of the open road in Southern California.
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