<p>What would be some cheap options to travel between these cities (occasionally to visit family, no car)? Amtrak offers a 20% discount and seems to be a great value, but I wanted to get some more advice/tips. Thanks!</p>
<p>Sign up at Southwest Air Lines for their notifications of special fares. Often it’s cheaper than Amtrak.</p>
<p>Sign up for all the airlines alerts that fly between the two—
Amtrack will take a LONG time. A good airfare these days would be about $100 round trip—more likely to find $150 regularly.</p>
<p>My husband flies up frequently to SF on Southwest. He likes flying from Burbank to Oakland and then taking the BART. Oakland is a more reliable place to land as SFO gets fogged in a lot. Also, there are flights from Burbank all the time to Oakland.</p>
<p>When my daughter was at school near San Francisco she found quite a few students drive down regularly and was able to pay for gas money in exchange for rides. She used an on-line ride board posted thru her school. It was nice because they often times would drop her directly home or very close to it.</p>
<p>How about the LA-SF Chinatown bus? [Chinatown</a> Bus Ticket From $1 cheap bus tickets New York Chinatown Bus Washington DC Chinatown Bus Boston Chinatown Bus Philadelphia NYC Philly](<a href=“http://www.chinatown-bus.org/]Chinatown”>http://www.chinatown-bus.org/)</p>
<p>DD goes to school outside SF. Lots of kids in the area with cars travelling to LA. Probably pretty easy to get rides when you want them. Amtrak is very slow and expensive.
Agree with all that SW flights are the best option.</p>
<p>Although Amtrak’s train purportedly runs on a 12 hour schedule between LA and San Francisco: it NEVER arrives on time, and it doesn’t even arrive in SF – it takes you to San Jose, where you have to change over to the Caltrain, or Oakland where you catch a bus, that ends up dumping you in a not spectacular area of SF in the middle of the night. I’ve done this twice, so trust me! And it’s not cheap. If you have plenty of time and want to do it, do it once. When you can look out and see the coast – spectacular scenery most of the way up. </p>
<p>There is a super cheap bus that goes between LA and SF (I’ll have to look up that info).</p>
<p>If you don’t mind spending 6 1/2 to 7 hours sitting on your behind driving, you can drive. Won’t be expensive so long as you’re not driving an SUV. Make it 12 hours if you take Hwy 1.</p>
<p>Personally, the best and least expensive (other than driving) is flying up and back. It takes just an hour, and if you book in advance, will cost about $120 round trip. Most fly Southwest, but Virgin America is not giving Southwest a run for its money. If you plan to go often, you’re best off just getting a Southwest FF card (free) and after 8 or so trips, you get a free flight. W/Southwest, there are no set seats, so you need to learn the art of getting your online boarding pass – you do it once and you’ve memorized how to do it. Simple!</p>
<p>I forgot to mention, because you said you had no car, the above driving comment was if you know how to drive and rented a car, but thinking of the costs in renting (about $16 +/day with all their stupid add ons) it probably would end up costing more than flying.</p>
<p>Thanks so much to everyone for the advice! I appreciate your time.</p>