California Dreaming (Santa Barbara)

Member Name: flodombey

Product:	Santa Barbara
Date:	21/06/09 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gorgeous beach town, great foodie destination, beautiful beach

Disadvantages: Expensive for property and rentals

I have been lucky enough to visit the beautiful coastal town of Santa Barbara a couple of times when visiting friends in California, it is a really lovely place and well worth a visit if you are in the area.

It is easy to see why many celebrities choose the Santa Barbara area to settle in, only an hour or so north of Los Angeles on the coastal route Highway 101 and referred to (with good reason) as the American Riviera. The beach is gorgeous, the surrounding area is full of green rolling hills coming down to meet the stunning blue pacific and the town itself manages to mix an amazing array of shops, bars and restaurants with a cool and offbeat surfer town feel which lulls you into a relaxed state of mind.

The beach is lovely soft sand and there is a lovely concrete path which follows the edge to enable cyclists, runners, rollerbladers and walkers to feel as close to the beach as possible for miles. It is quintessentially Californian and the path is often busy with people getting their exercise and working on their body beautiful whilst listening to their ipods and nattering away on their cell phones (thats mobiles to us Anglophiles!).

The pier (Stearns Wharf) is well worth checking out, especially at dusk time to watch the stunning sunsets, on the actual pier is a restaurant called the Harbor Restaurant which is pretty good and offers some stunning views to accompany your meal, there is also a smaller bar and food place right at the end which does basic seafood dishes and offers some great local wines at good prices.

You can actually drive your car onto the pier to enable parking at the Harbor restaurant but its such a nice walk that we never bothered. Look out for the pelicans that gather to squabble over fish and the odd bits of food thrown by tourists.

State Street is the main shopping street in Santa Barbara and the end of it is right opposite the pier so you cannot miss it. In true American style it is a long straight street absolutely packed with bars, restaurants and shops, from boutiques to the quintessential department stores and chains we have grown to know and love. You can also find tattooists aplenty and the odd art shop, it is quite the arty beach town, akin to Brighton in the UK.

The sidewalks are often busy on State St and watch out for the many skateboarders you will see. Some of the little side streets are well worth exploring and have some interesting smaller shops and quieter squares in which to grab a coffee and a bagel and just people watch.

There is a university campus nearby for UC Santa Barbara and it means that there is quite a studenty atmosphere in some of the bars of an evening.

You can reach Santa Barbara easily enough on Greyhound bus or train from the rest of the state. Both bus depot and train station are fairly central and easy to find and every time I have visited by public transport I have found the staff to be helpful and the vehicles to be clean and run on time. Driving it is highly recommended however, due to the lovely views along the pacific coast highway.

It is about an hour north of LA but a good few hours south of San Francisco making it a real favourite with Hollywood stars. Celebrities who have homes in the area include Catherine Zeta Jones & Michael Douglas, John Cleese, Steven Spielberg and Kevin Costner. Unfortunately I have never managed to spot any celebs on my visits!

I would absolutely love to retire here, in fact of all the many places I have visited in the world I always feel like I left a little bit of my heart here on my first visit as a wide eyed 19 year old in 1998 and that its really where I should be living. Spiritually it just really ticks every box for me, wonderful food and drink, great atmosphere and a wonderful beach to boot. What more could you ask for? Somehow, unless I win the lottery I cannot see it happening, houses here are very expensive and rent is also high.

If you are in California or doing any kind of west coast road trip then try and visit Santa Barbara if you can, it really is a great town to wind down and chill out in.

Summary: A great place to visit and a place I wish I could afford to live in!