Santa Barbara, California: A Great Spot for a Beach Getaway!

If you have never been to Santa Barbara, California, you are missing out on a real treasure. So much of California is heavily touristed that it is difficult to find a place whose genuine charm persists despite commercialization. My husband and I had the pleasure of stumbling upon this beautiful city on our honeymoon. We took a three week trip throughout the west and up the coast of California using only a Froemmer's Guide and Atlas for recommendations.

We decided to stop in Santa Barbara completely by accident. It was the Fourth of July, and we knew we wanted to have a picnic on the beach, but we had no destination in mind as we headed north from a campsite on the outskirts of L.A. I was driving, and getting frustrated that we had no gameplan as the afternoon hours rolled by as we traveled up Highway 1. We had been calling hotels from the car with no luck because of the holiday. When I saw the signs for Santa Barbara, I told my husband to find a hotel in the book and try to find us a room that didn't cost a fortune. He called the Franciscan Inn, where there was one room available at $130.

When we pulled in, we had a feeling we would not be disappointed. The entire town's architecture has a Spanish flair to it. Between the red tiled roofs, palm trees, and flowers as big as our heads, we knew we had made a good decision to stop. We checked in to the hotel, which was complete with flowering trees, a jacuzzi, pool, and decorative fountains. The room was charmingly quaint and homey, like checking in to the spare bedroom at your Grandma's house. The hotel is only two stories high, and spread out among several buildings with access directly from the sidewalks. The weather was so perfect that we could just sit with our door open, with a privacy screen composed of giant flowers hanging from a tree outside our room.