San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo is a city in San Luis Obispo County in the Central Coast region of California. San Luis Obispo is often referred to by its initials "SLO" (often pronounced "slow") or "San Luis." The city is centered around one of the best-preserved examples of 18th century Spanish architecture, Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa. Just 20 minutes north of Pismo Beach on Highway 101, SLO is the mid-point between Los Angeles (200 miles south of SLO) and San Francisco (230 miles north of SLO) and has also been known as the one of the best "one tank" stopovers between the two cities.
San Luis Obispo has a one terminal airport. Scheduled flights are available to and from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday service only) on United (operated by SkyWest as United Express), American (operated by American Eagle), Delta (operated by SkyWest as Delta Connection), and USAirways (operated by Mesa as USAirways Express.) Due to rising energy costs, both Delta and American have announced they will no longer be servicing San Luis Obispo. Prices start around $200 for a ticket purchased separately, but are much less expensive when combined with flights going through San Francisco or Los Angeles. Air Charter or air taxi is another alternative, where you can catch flights to San Diego for the weekend, or to any large or small airport. Air charters and air taxis fly point-to-point, at the departure time, departure airport, and arrival airport of the passengers' choosing. Prices start around $150 for a seat on flights that might already be going to your destination, or go from $1,000 to $10,000 or more for a custom-chartered flight where you hire the aircraft to fly you directly to your destination, any time you want to go. On-demand flights, and seats on flights already chartered to/from San Luis Obispo are offered by Pacific Air Taxi. Air taxi flights have a much shorter check-in time (typically just 15 minutes) than larger airlines, so you can just arrive and go. Travel time for an air taxi flight is usually 80 minutes from SLO to Sacramento.
By car is the best way to go if you want to see the surrounding areas of San Luis Obispo. SLO does have a city transit system but it ends its service at 10 pm on the weekdays and even earlier on the weekends. There is also a trolley linking some of the hotels on Monterey street to the downtown area, but it operates very short hours and doesn't travel to much of the city.
Bars - The downtown area has numerous bars along Higuera street south of Santa Rosa ave, owing to the large student population. They are all an easy walk (or stumble) from one another. These start to become active around 10:00 pm and on weekends will generally be quite busy up until 2:00 AM. Options range from Martini lounge to Irish pub to wannabe LA nightclub.
