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Riverside, California anchors the Inland Empire about an hour east of LA, a mid-size city of roughly 320,000 with a real downtown and a lot more sprawl than newcomers expect. UC Riverside drops tens of thousands of Highlanders just east of the core, so the student energy clusters around campus and Canyon Crest before fanning out across the city. You've got the historic downtown grid, the Mission Inn district, and green escapes like Mount Rubidoux and Fairmount Park when you need to get off campus. The Box Springs hills frame the eastern edge, and Festival of Lights turns downtown into a holiday spectacle every winter.
The blocks right around campus, packed with students who want to walk or bike to class and skip the commute entirely.
A leafy, slightly more residential pocket just east of campus, popular with upperclassmen and grad students who want quiet streets but a quick ride in.
The historic core around the Mission Inn district, good if you want walkable nightlife, museums, and the Metrolink station over campus proximity.
Here's what you need to know about getting around Riverside.
UC Riverside students ride the Riverside Transit Agency buses free with their U-Pass. RTA Route 1 connects campus straight to the downtown Metrolink station, where you can catch trains toward LA and Orange County at a student discount. The free U-Pass makes the bus a genuine option for daily campus trips. Farther out, though, transit gets thin and slow, so plan around the bus map.
Campus itself and the immediately adjacent neighborhoods like University and Canyon Crest are walkable and bikeable. The weather cooperates almost year-round, making cycling a comfortable everyday choice. Students living close to UCR can handle daily errands on foot or by bike. The close-in neighborhoods are the easiest place to live car-light in Riverside.
Most Riverside students figure out fast that a car makes life easier, since the city is spread out and built around freeways like the 60 and 91. Zipcar pods on campus cover the occasional grocery run if you are carless. Farther from campus, a car or a carpool with roommates makes getting around much simpler. Students living beyond the walkable core will likely want a vehicle for errands and trips across town.
Common questions from students searching for housing.
It depends on the neighborhood and how many roommates you've got, but a shared room or per-person rate near UC Riverside generally runs about $700-$1,000/month, while a private room in a shared apartment or house tends to land closer to $900-$1,300/month. Splitting a larger place with several roommates is usually how students keep their share toward the lower end.
Browse student housing near each Riverside-area university.