The great thing about the Bay Area is that it has 3 very accessible airports. Palo Alto is about halfway between the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and the San Jose Airport (SJC). A little farther away is the Oakland International Airport (OAK).

The cheapest tickets are usually found on Southwest Airlines. Southwest even offers a Ding! program that provides even better deals than on their web site. Southwest flies to both OAK and SJC, but not SFO. If you need to fly through SFO, please find tickets via one of the online ticketing sites like Priceline.com, Hotwire.com, Orbitz.com, Expedia.com, or Travelocity.com.

The easiest way to get to Palo Alto from Los Angeles is to take the I-5 north, and then the 152 west, and finally connect to the 101 North. Alternatively, one could take the I-5 north, connect to the 580 West, cross the 238 West to the 880 South, cross the San Mateo Bridge (92 West), and finally the 101 South.