Continuing on our road trip the second leg of our tour was SANTA BARBARA!! To read about our 24 hour adventure in LA read here.

As we drove out of LA along the coastline (101 highway is the most direct route), one of the next landmarks is Santa Barbara 😊

When we were planning our road trip along this route from LA to San Francisco, as many of you may do, it is difficult to decide where to make pit stops! Planning for a trip is one of my favourite parts of the process! This blog post is to help you decide if you should stop in Santa Barbara.

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Help me decide – should I visit Santa Barbara?

This is really up to you and your preferences. Below was my personal thought process:

• Trip length – how long is your trip? We were only there for 1 week so we had to carefully look at all our different stops. Santa Barbara appeared to offer the most variety as our stop afterwards was Yosemite.
• Time leaving LA – we left LA at golden hour and it was our first drive on the road trip so we didn’t want to drive for too long and in the dark. Santa Barbara was 1.5 hours which is the perfect pit stop.
• What are you interests – if you are looking for a quieter place with a beach, good wine, fresh food & quaint town then Santa Barbara is the place for you!

After our one day in Santa Barbara we both agreed that we would have to come back here for a couple days on our next trip!

Delicious Food

If I were to judge Santa Barbara off it’s food, this place is a winner! It was one of the best meals of the whole trip and did not disappoint!

The Lark is a modern American sharing plate style place, all their food is farm to table from the local area.

My recommendations are the crispy brussel sprouts and the buttermilk fried quail. You will not be disappointed! I must say the brussel sprouts game in California is on point!!

We were lucky to get a table on the terrace after a 2 hour wait – we got drinks at a bar nearby whilst we waited. If you plan to go I’d recommend making a reservation.

Whilst walking around the town, on the same street were so many other cute places we wished we could visit if we had more time.

Wine 😊😊😊

I knew California was a large wine producer but I didn’t know Santa Barbara was! It was such a pleasant surprise seeing many cellar doors serving wine flights! This would have kept my soul happy for days!

We bought a couple bottles to take home with us, in fact we opened one the other week and was great to reminisce this trip 😊

Quaint Town

Wow Santa Barbara is such a cute town with lots of boutiques it was so much fun to explore.

We wanted to get breakfast so went to find açai bowls for an organic restaurant called Backyard Bowls. They were massive and so refreshing to have on the beach!

We also stopped by a grocery store to get some staples before our next drive of the trip.

The Beach

And don’t forget the beach! You can drive up to the lighthouse which is at the end of a dock and gives great views of the coastline.

The beach itself is so long and sandy and has some cool art installations along the beach road as well!

Let me know if you have visited Santa Barbara? What did you think about it in the comments below

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Don’t miss the full road trip!

Part 1: LA

Part 2: Santa Barbara

Part 3: Monterey

Part 4: Yosemite

Part 5: Napa, Sonoma Valley & San Francisco