I took advantage of the July 4th holiday, took off the 4th – 5th, and used points to fly to LA for a few days. I flew into Burbank, a delightfully small airport, and attended my friend’s barbeque. She lives on a mountain, so we had an amazing view of fireworks all around. I also had fun going to a dog beach with three pooches and two human friends.
I stayed in Marina Del Rey Thursday night, at a hotel right next to the bay. Friday, I had planned to head to Venice Beach. I noticed scooters parked everywhere – either Lime Bike or Bird brand. So here’s how I rode scooters around Venice Beach:
- Download the app and set up payment. I used the Bird app, and it was easy to set up Apple Pay.
- Find a scooter! The Bird app shows scooters near where you are located. Where I was, there were always lots of scooters around.
- Unlock the scooter. You just scan the barcode of your chosen scooter to unlock it. If it has low battery or anything wrong with it, the app will let you know so you can pick another.
- Ride! You kick a few times to get started, and then hold down on a lever to move the scooter. It’s pretty easy! There’s a brake. I thought the scooters went pretty fast so I never went at top speed – also riding with lots of
- Park and lock. When I got to the boardwalk or someplace I wanted to walk around, I would let the app know. The Bird app has you take a photo to make sure you have parked the scooter in an appropriate spot (near a bike rack, not blocking a pathway). Then you can leave it behind!
- Get the next scooter! When you are ready to ride again, you can grab another scooter, and so on and so forth!
There is a bike path along Venice Beach where you can ride your scooter (see photo for view from the path), which was really nice and honestly beautiful. It was fairly hot for California, at least, and feeling the ocean breeze while riding the scooter. I used the scooter to head to Abbott Kinney street as well, and found a nice matcha shop where I could relax with an iced matcha latte.