Sometimes a day or weekend trip is all you need to unwind and break up any monotonous routines that have set in your life. A fun day trip or even a weekend trip if you live in Los Angeles, is taking the Metrolink trains to various destinations outside of the city. Metrolink has weekend fares for $10, which allows you to ride anywhere Saturday and Sunday for $10 a day.
So, if you do just a day trip on Saturday, it's only $10 for that day, no matter how many times you hop on or off the train. Keep in mind that Metrolink services are often limited, so depending on the line you take, it may only be round trip.
Also, if you live anywhere near a Metro Rail station, which is different than Metrolink, you can take Metro Rail to Union Station and purchase a Metrolink ticket at Union Station. Metro, which includes both bus and rail is an agency of Los Angeles County. I briefly discussed the difference between Metro and Metrolink in my Best West Coast Airport Transit post.
Metrolink, is a five county commuter rail line which operates the Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange County. Unfortunately, since rail travel isn't part of Southern California culture, Metrolink's train schedule can be limited.
With that said, one of the more popular weekend line is the San Bernardino Line. An enjoyable day trip would be to go from Los Angeles Union Station to Claremont Village. Claremont Village, next to the Claremont Colleges is a very walkable and charming neighborhood with lots of small shops, cafes and local restaurants.
There's even a hotel (Hotel Casa) in walking distance if you want to make it a weekend trip.
Plus, because there are several trains that run this route, you can make a pit stop at the Covina station. Although there are not as much to do at the Covina station compared to Claremont Village, the shops, which are about a block and a half south of the station are still worth a visit if time permits. You can grab a drink... or two at Bread & Barley (you're not driving). Then, head over to Claro's Italian Market to pick up some Italian staples before hoping back on the train again.
The San Bernardino Line is probably the easiest to do a day trip to both Claremont Village and Covina before heading back to Los Angeles Union Station.
You can easily hop on the 10:38am train and be in time for lunch at Claremont Village. While on the train, you can look on your phone and decide where you'd like to eat and drink, since you're not driving. Metrolink does not have Wifi on their trains, but your cellular service should be sufficient with good coverage regardless of your carrier. There's lots of trains that will take you back to Los Angeles, so you can take your time in Claremont. You can check out I Like Pie Bakeshop for some delicious savory and sweet pies. Or have a nice sit down lunch at Union On Yale. They have a great patio if it's not too hot outside. Maybe walk over to Bert & Rocky's Cream Company for some ice cream. You can walk all this off by visiting several boutique shops in the area or take a stroll over to the Claremont Colleges. These are seven colleges all in one area.
However, if you also wanted to stop by Covina on the way back to grab a few beers and/or snacks, that's also very easy. You can leave Claremont at 3:21pm and arrive in Covina by 3:37pm. Covina has a quaint downtown-ish area with a few mom and pop shops, restaurants, bars and cafes. Once you're done, you can either hop on the next train at 6:37pm or linger even longer and wait for the last train at 8:37pm.
As I mentioned at the top of this post, because of Metrolink's schedule, this won't work for all their lines, but it does work for the San Bernardino Line. So, take advantage of cheap weekend train tickets, and skip the traffic, the parking and high gas prices. Oh, and I've been a Metrolink rider off and on for over 20 years now, and from my experience, most trains are on-time! There's been a few delays here and there and one really bad delay that I recall, but their service overall is impressive. I have much more negative experiences from driving (traffic, hostile drivers, crashes, more traffic, running into sooo many red lights, no parking, etc). Plus, with Metrolink, you can always get real time tracking from their website if you want to know where your train is at.
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