We recently hired a car with Alamo at LAX and plumped through prebooking for the smallest and cheapest. On arrival they wanted us to trade up to a bigger car (apparently a Focus not being a family car).

When we got outside to choose a car there were only huge cars anyway, so there's no point in paying for the upgrade. There were also lots of Prius sitting there as midsize cars but, because the European families were scared of the unknown, went unpicked. Read up on them before you go if you want a trendy midsize car.

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For $3 an MTA daily travel pass allows you to range as far and wide as you like via bus and metrorail train. Riding the bus is not only by far the cheapest way to get around (and out of) LA, it's also the best way to experience the city's fantastically complex social, racial and cultural mix. Passes can be bought from bus drivers or at Metrorail stations. Journeys can be planned in detail ahead of time by using the MTA's excellent website (www.mta.net).

www.mta.net/default.asp

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Although LA is known as the city of the car the whole area has got a well developed public transit system consisting of light and heavy rail, subway and buses. It's cheap too -- you'll pay a fraction of the cost of comprable journeys in England. It pays to plan in advance, though, because it can be quite confusing if you don't live there (the fare structuring is very different from the UK as well). Also, tourists seem to get pushed onto high cost transit - for example, there's a light rail station adjacent to LAX but you'd never know it from the signs at the airport, all which would much rather have you use a cab or shuttle bus.

(Sitting in a hire car in heavy traffic on a freeway rapidly loses its gloss. Think "M25 with poor quality concrete surface"!)

www.mta.net -- it links into other transit systems, also try web searches.

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Taxis can be collected from the lower level of the main terminals. Providing that you use an authorised cab bearing the official airport seal, prices to key destinations should be fixed and on clear display. Alternatively, a free train service runs to the Aviation Station on the green line of the metro light rail network.

www.los-angeles-lax.com

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Not great ones for public transport, Angelenos nevertheless have one of the cleanest, most efficient metro rail services in the Gold Line, running on smart German-built trains from the majesty of Union Street station through the backyards of some of the city's historic Latino areas before it emerges in the middle of the freeway and comes to a halt in Pasadena. In Pasadena there is nothing to do other than turn around and head back to Union Street.

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