What took us so long to get to Santa Barbara? Smack between the beaches and mountains, with cliffs, the Channel Islands, and a relaxed vibe, in just one visit Santa Barbara easily makes the list as one of our favorite cities in the United States.
We stayed at the Hotel Californian, with the “n” at the end of the hotel name meaning we had to check out, even if we never wanted to leave. We packed a lot into our four nights in this spectacular city. And yet there’s still many reasons to go back. I feel like we could write one of those pre-COVID airline magazine articles, “what to do with four nights in Santa Barbara.”
We flew from Reagan National direct to LAX so we could have lunch with our close friends of 20 years. Gene and Cindy Laporta had moved to Santa Monica, so first we stopped there to check out their fabulous apartment with ocean and mountain views, just like you don’t get on the East Coast. We drove up to Duke’s in Malibu and had lunch with Gene and Cindy at a table just above the crashing surf. It was a gloriously fun lunch spot, catching up with them since they’d moved to Cali in December.
Next we drove up to Santa Barbara in time to get drinks at a bar overlooking the ocean with our friend of 33 years, Charlie Leonard. Charlie had given us pointers on things to do, so our itinerary was as much his as it was ours.
We had a few minutes in the spacious one bedroom room at the Californian, which feels like it is fresh from a movie set in a funky, hip coastal town. We’re not those kind of people, but it is neat to see how the hip half live. After that, we Uber’d up to Coast & Olive for dinner. The only hard part of the meal was deciding what to eat and, of course, what wine to order.
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