How to plan for the 2028 Olympics

Official ticket access runs through draws and registered sales. Subscribe to the LA28 list and use the official platform. Public inventory in the first draws was thin because of presale, and later drops still go to people who registered early. Resale sites are somebody else's guide.

Short-term rental calendars for July 2028 started opening in 2026, so watch them. A hold you can cancel is worth having. A non-refundable loft bought before you have tickets is how people pay handsomely for a Games they cannot get into. How far ahead to book applies here with a two-year fuse.

Many hotel brands only list about 13 months ahead, so expect July 2028 rooms to appear in mid-2027 and then vanish quickly near the venues. Downtown Los Angeles connects well, while Pasadena, the San Gabriel Valley, and the South Bay are the cheaper belts and you pay for them in ride time. Book one base you can return to every night.

Flights are expected about a year out, around July 2027, so set an alert now and buy at your ceiling, since buying in the first hour the calendar opens rarely helps. Open-jaw tickets, into one airport and out of another, only pay off if both ends serve the zone you sleep in.

The Games use venues across a wide footprint, which makes a morning in one cluster and a night final in another a two-hour ride on a good day. Sleep where the Metro, or a repeated shuttle, reaches the events you hold tickets for. Organizing by day is that map test, and it puts geography first and sports second.

Event days belong to the event. The morning after a night final is slow by design. Neighborhood walking in Los Angeles goes on the days with no session, the way a weekend in the city works: one area at a time. Planning around any big event is the same order of operations with the Olympic dates filled in.

Tickets in one zone and a hotel in another because the listing photos were better. Two sessions on opposite sides of the county with 90 minutes between them. A 6am flight the morning after closing. Buying 2028 flights in 2026 from a screenshot of a fare that cannot be ticketed yet.

If you only get four days of the Games, pick one cluster of venues and treat the rest as television. That is a full trip. Stacking Santa Monica, downtown, and a far valley venue into the same Saturday is how the medal session starts from a parking garage.

Read the Los Angeles destination page for neighborhood trade-offs before you fall for a loft. The listing photos will not tell you which zone you booked.