Santa Barbara, CA

We woke up with a plan to drive straight to Santa Ynez Valley, without stopping in Santa Barbara, as we had been there before on our drive down highway 1. But, as we were driving by, it was just about lunch time, and we decided at the last moment to pull in and spend the afternoon. Santa Barbara is not horribly RV friendly, it is mostly tight streets, hilly and almost all the blocks around downtown have big signs that say “No RV parking anytime”. Boo! We finally found a spot five blocks off of State St. (the main street in Santa Barbara), and parked there.

Our parking spot in SB

I’m really glad we decided to visit SB again, as it turned out to be much nicer than I remembered it being. The shopping district, along State St., stretches for a sizeable number of blocks and allows for long strolls and lots of people watching (it was long enough to have three different Starbucks cafes on the same street). The vegetation around town is super healthy; huge palm trees, trees with massive canopies, flowers and ivy grow everywhere you look. The residential blocks look like they all hire professional landscaping.

Huge palms!

Massive canopies

Flowers everywhere

State St. itself is lined with palm trees, with shops, cafes, bars and other entertainment options.

Walking on State. St

We walked several times up and down State St, then made our way down to the beach. The beach has a large skate park, a pier you can drive your car onto, a long cement boardwalk and cute harbor for boats (mostly local yachts). We ate our picnic lunch and watched yachts and sailboats sail in and out.

Picnic on SB beach

The SB harbor

For more pictures of Santa Barbara, click here.

Happy people watching,

M