When planning your vacation in southern California, you may decide to spend a little time at Six Flags checking out the thrill rides; after all, there are almost 20 coasters at this north L.A. County attraction. Your thought may be to spend a couple days here and adjacent Hurricane Harbor, and then head off to some other spots in SoCal. It makes sense to spend a night or possibly two near the park. You will want to remember you will have to drive north for about 40 minutes to reach Magic Mountain hotels when leaving downtown Los Angeles and a longer drive than that to the theme parks in Orange County.

If you visit the official website of Six Flags and click on the Lodging page, you will find Magic Mountain hotels information. Some offers by hotels include packages that are a combination of admission tickets to the park as well as hotel accommodations and perhaps breakfast. If you are pretty sure you have found the hotel you would like to stay at on the website, call and see if they offer admission discounts. Most sell discounted tickets for guests at the desk where you register.

You may be able to save on parking fees because many of the hotels in the area provide shuttles that go to the main gate. Choose a hotel that includes breakfast so you can fill up before departing. A snack around lunch time will help to save some cash.

If you find hotels near Magic Mountain, you can take a break in the afternoon when the temperature is up at Six Flags. Little ones can take a nap and older kids can play in the hotel pool. After resting a bit, cooling off and a good dinner outside of the park, returning for a few hours after the sun is down will be enjoyable. You will want to make sure of the time they close and not have a huge dinner because the roller coasters at Six Flags Magic Mountain can play havoc with a full stomach, if you understand my meaning.

If your plans for this vacation include other Southern California attractions, you need to figure out where the best place to find a hotel room will be within the area. If Universal Studios or Disneyland are going to be on your agenda, you may prefer to go to Six Flags at the beginning of your trip. This will take care of those in your party that are addicted to the thrill of these rides and then they can have fun on the rest of the trip.

You will also find some exciting rides at Knott's so you might want to stay overnight in Valencia, near Magic Mountain hotel after enjoying your day at the park. Then you could head down to Orange County.

If you spend a half a day the second day at Hurricane Harbor, you will be ready to leave very early afternoon, so you can get a move on and catch I-5 heading for Los Angeles, San Diego or Orange Country. If staying out of the traffic during rush hour is important, you will want to be gone from Los Angeles by 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. to be sure (which quite frankly, it's not that bad if you do end up in some traffic at rush-hour).

More than likely you will not want to drive to a hotel in Valencia from the Los Angeles beaches or Orange County every day if your vacation is a week long. Now if you are planning to see the sights in the area of downtown Los Angeles or Hollywood, that is close enough where you could stay in Valencia the whole time you are there. It's a 3-hour trip from Six Flags Magic Mountain to San Diego if the traffic is not heavy. Hopefully, this background information will help you decide where you want to stay.