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Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 1400 E Cabrillo Blvd, Santa Barbara, CA 93108
Whether you're intrigued by local bird species, behaviors, and habitats, or whether you simply enjoy the beauty of the Central Coast, you'll want to visit this avian refuge. Forty-two acres of terrain feature paths for jogging, biking, and bird-watching, and even those folks who come purely for sport find themselves paying attention to migrating...
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 15 E de la Guerra St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Prior to California statehood, the Santa Barbara region was overseen by Presidio commandantes. The fifth such governor, José de la Guerra, had this home built during the 1820s. The low-slung, colonnaded structure was particularly impressive in light of the simple adobe homes then common. For many decades, the Casa was the locus of Santa Barbara...
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 1387 E Valley Rd, Montecito, CA 93108
Completed in 1925, this gorgeous Spanish Colonial Revival home is the collaboration of owners George and Carrie Steedman and a coterie of designers, architects, and horticulturists. Painstakingly conceived, built, and furnished, the estate is a stunning Moorish and Mediterranean unification of art, gardens, and space. Boasting European treasures,...
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: Painted Cave Rd, 12 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
Just a brief drive from Santa Barbara rests a sandstone cave housing pictographs created by the Chumash Indians. Created with mineral pigments, the drawings are believed to have been religious in intent and date from a couple hundred years back to nearly a thousand years ago. This park is one of the few that actually allows visitors to view...
El Presidio de Santa Barbara State Historic Park
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 123 E Canon Perdido St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Dating from 1782, this military compound is the only extant one of four that the Spanish built in the area. Locus of government and military activities, the presidio was in use until the mid-19th century. In 1963, an historic preservation group instituted efforts to preserve the complex, and now, many of its buildings have been restored or rebuilt...
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 695 Ashley Rd, Montecito, CA 93108
Designed by eccentric Ganna Walska, a Polish opera singer who accumulated wealth (in part) thanks to her six marriages, this estate garden is the product of decades of effort and attention. Its fantastical vignettes feature a wealth of unusual plants, including cycads, which were present in the era of the dinosaur. Other prominent gardens are...
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 1212 Mission Canyon Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Specializing in native West Coast flora, this stunning botanic garden features a variety of habitats. Across 75 acres of terrain are desert, meadow, ridge, and redwood forest vistas showcasing more than 1,000 types of plants. Other displays illustrate how to use similar plants in domestic environments, and throughout the year, concerts, lectures,...
Santa Barbara Historical Museum
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 136 E de la Guerra St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Offering one of the state's best collections of regional history, this museum enjoys a downtown location along with a gracious courtyard and historical adobe buildings. Inside, fine art, western saddles, costumes, and antique toys highlight the collection, and both permanent and rotating exhibits showcase Santa Barbara's past and present. The...
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 113 Harbor Way, Waterfront Center, Santa Barbara, CA 93109
Before it opened as a museum in 2000, this structure served as a training facility for the Navy for more than fifty years. Renovations have given it a new lease, and now, its interactive displays seek to inform visitors about marine life, health, and history. Permanent and temporary exhibits fill the two-story structure and explore the Channel's...
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Category: Best Attractions & Activities - Santa Barbara Attractions & Activities
Address: 2559 Puesta del Sol, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Occupying eleven acres in historic Mission Canyon, the Museum of Natural History boasts a beautiful campus, complete with Spanish-style grounds and buildings. Visitors appreciate the museum's focus on Californian and North American West Coast natural history, and facility highlights include Chumash Indian artifacts, live reptiles, shell and bird...
