The Best Hot Spring Near L.A. Costs $2 and Isn't Very Hot

Five springs ranked on the drive from downtown L.A., the price at the gate and whether you have to book.

The best hot spring within a day's drive of Los Angeles costs $2 to park, takes no reservation and sits half a mile up a trail from Highway 101. It's also barely hot. I put it first anyway.

The test is the drive from downtown, the price at the gate and whether you have to book. On those three, Glen Ivy, the closest and best known, lands third. The famous wild spring in the high desert isn't free, and it lands fourth.

1. Gaviota Hot Springs, Gaviota State Park. The trailhead is a cul-de-sac just off the 101, 30 miles west of Santa Barbara, according to the trail guide Hikespeak. It's a mile round trip with 400 feet of climbing, and parking is $2. Old cement walls split the spring into pools. The top one is deep enough to sit in and too small to swim.

Hikespeak says the water is "more warm than it is hot." That's the defended hot take: the water loses, the gate wins, and the test was the gate. Nothing else on this list costs less.

2. Agua Caliente County Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. San Diego County charges $5 for day parking and $7 a person for the pools if you aren't camping. The county's online reservations are for campsites, and its page lists no booking for a day swim. There are three natural mineral pools, plus an indoor pool that's adults-only from 9:30 to 10:30 every morning.

The park's season runs from Labor Day weekend to Memorial Day, so it's open now. It loses first place on price alone: $12 for one person against $2 for a whole car.

3. Glen Ivy Hot Springs, Temescal Valley. It's the only spring here that posts a drive from L.A.: about 60 miles, roughly an hour, by the resort's own count. That's the good news. An October weekday pass starts at $75 and weekends run $95 to $105, according to Glen Ivy's price page, though a $50 weekday sale lasts through Oct. 30.

Passes are sold by date on the resort's booking page, and guests must be 18 or older with photo ID. The money buys 19 pools and water features. A robe for the day is $30, which works out to 15 trips' worth of Gaviota parking.

4. Deep Creek Hot Springs, San Bernardino National Forest. It's a public, noncommercial spring, but the shortest route starts at Bowen Ranch, private land where parking runs about $10 a person or more, cash only, according to the guide site CaliHotSprings. The same guide puts the spring about 2.5 hours from L.A., the longest posted drive here. And that fee is the guide's estimate. The ranch's own price couldn't be checked.

San Bernardino County describes the hike as a descent of about two miles, roughly 40 minutes down and slower coming back up, in country that swings from 20 degrees to past 100. The springs are day use only. CaliHotSprings warns visitors not to put their heads under the water because of Naegleria fowleri, a rare amoeba that's sometimes fatal.

5. Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort, Avila Beach. The Central Coast resort rents 24 private mineral spring tubs on a wooded hillside, up to eight people a tub, in booked slots from 8 a.m. to a last reservation at 10:45 p.m. It's $25 a person per hour Monday through Thursday and $30 Friday through Sunday. Peak dates cost $35, and Thanksgiving week, Nov. 21 to 29, is one of them.

It posts no drive from L.A., and it's the only spring on this list that runs a meter. Two people, two hours, a Saturday: $120. Towels are $3 extra.

Source: hikespeak.com, retrieved October 20, 2026. Other sources: sdparks.org, glenivy.com, glenivy.com (2), calihotsprings.com, main.sbcounty.gov, sycamoresprings.com.