So I've been spending more time in the Linea ecosystem lately and bridging ETH back and forth has become a regular thing. Here in the US most people I know still route everything through centralised exchanges but I'd rather handle it directly. Anyone done the ETH to Linea route recently and found something that shows the full cost upfront without any mid transaction surprises?

Fee transparency is the thing that varies most between options on this route. The decent ones show you exactly what arrives before you confirm anything. Gas cost visibility is the part that catches people out most often, some platforms are upfront about it, others aren't.

The Linea network has matured enough that the bridging side has improved alongside it. A solid bridge for the ETH and Linea route needs to handle both directions cleanly, whether you're moving from Ethereum to Linea or back the other way. The platforms built specifically around this route tend to process it more reliably than general purpose bridges juggling dozens of chains at once. Track record and rate transparency are the two things worth checking before committing to any particular option. One built around this specific route is here https://defiway.com/bridges/bridge-eth-linea-ethereum .