Escape the smoke: Weekend getaways you can take today and Saturday

Firefighters are battling four fires in the Southland today. Danger has not passed yet for the Palos Verdes Peninsula and La Cañada Flintridge fires. More than 1,000 people have been evacuated from Palos Verdes. The Morris fire was 45% contained by Thursday night. The Cottonwood fire in Hemet began Thursday evening and has burned 1,000 acres in the San Bernardino National Forest.

Many are trying to save their homes and stand by to see whether they will be evacuated. But for those in the Greater Los Angeles area who just want to get away from the smoke for the weekend, here are some options:

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.: Flght and hotel packages from Burbank (BUR) to Phoenix (PHX), departing today through Sunday, are available on Lastminute.com starting at $229 per person based on double occupancy. (If you know Scottsdale, you can view your hotel options on a map.) The lowest price luxury option was the Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort, less than two miles from Old Town Scottsdale. The cost for two people including flights, hotels, taxes and fees was $457. If you wanted to stay at a Westin, prices started at $301 per person. The five-star Boulders Resort from the Waldorf Astoria Collection started at $343 per person and the five-star Fairmont Scottsdale was $348 per person.

ASPEN, COLO.: Flights between Los Angeles (LAX) and Aspen (ASE) are $248 round trip on United for this weekend. The deal is good for departures after 7 p.m. today or any time Saturday and returning Monday or Tuesday. We saw this deal on Airfare Watchdog, an easy place to find destination fares for “This Weekend.” Note that flight and hotel deals will pop up from Booking Buddy. I found the deal by flying Saturday and returning Tuesday and searching through the Priceline option. The round-trip fare came to $269 after taxes. Next I searched Hotels.com for rooms and found the Gant Destination Hotel & Resort for $161.25 per night, down from $215. The Innsbruck Luxury condos were also on sale for an average of $157.50 per night.

LAS VEGAS: If you want to brave the drive to Las Vegas, usually pretty thick on a Friday night, Expedia led me to several last-minute hotel prices for tonight and Saturday night including TI ($119), South Point ($91), Stratosphere ($73), Golden Nugget ($89), Hard Rock ($219) and Planet Hollywood ($124). Rates mentioned are per night, on average, pretax.

CARLSBAD, CALIF.: Bring the kids to Legoland. Inns of America Suites is a popular family-friendly hotel near the amusement park. I’ve had friends stay here and recommend it to other friends. The rooms are good sized and reviews on TripAdvisor say it’s good value with reasonable rates. I checked prices this weekend just for Saturday night and room rates started at $159. Here are more family-friendly hotels in Carlsbad.

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

Photo: Smoke fills the air from a 2-day-old brush fire north of La Cañada Flintridge. The blaze started Wednesday near the Angeles Crest Highway around mile marker 29. Credit: Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Time

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 11:38 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Arizona, Colorado, Deals, Las Vegas, Last Minute, News, Tips & Advice, Rocky Mountain States, San Diego, Summer, Weekend Getaways. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.