Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A user equipment (UE) may initiate handover from one base station to another. The handover procedure may not include random access channel (RACH) transmissions, and thus may be a localized RACH-less handover. The UE may initiate handover to a new base station based on the relative location of the UE and the new base station, some predetermined time, or based on the characteristics of the signals from each base station.