So, I oddly have never spent more than a couple hours in Santa Barbara during my life in California. I stopped by SB late one night to eat at FreeBirds (for a famoud burrito of course)- and another time during a soccer tournament (I think?)- and once to interview with the Marine Science Graduate Program at UCSB. It’s only 2 hours away from LA…I’m surprised I haven’t visited more often!
Well I got the opportunity to go with some friends up to Santa Barbara for the weekend- so of course I said YES PLEASE! We ended up leaving around midnight on Friday- and got there around 2am so we could just wake up to the ocean in our backyard 🙂
Luckily my friend Marisa is family friends with a person I’m pretty sure everyone knows from an old popular tv show (sorry can’t say who!)- and basically this house was drop dead gorgeous, huge, and cozy! We were in a gated community with homes all along a little strip of rocky ocean shore. Life was great- I felt lucky to be able to enjoy this opportunity with great people 😀
Nelson- who was the one who was going to Santa Barbara in the first place for a wedding and invited us along- actually went to college at Westmont (which is in SB). He played baseball for them- so we headed to Westmont on Saturday to watch his old baseball team in the playoffs.
We had a great evening downtown – Santa Barbara sure had some interesting people and crazy bars! I had lots of fun meeting new friends, and shooting some pool 😉
Throughout the weekend went antiquing (I got a new lamp!), strolled along the beaches, and just enjoyed not having to do ANYTHING. Nelson also decided to take a couple amateur model photos of me..waiting on him to edit them so I can show you guys! A mini-vacation was just the thing I think we all need once in a while.
Here are some photos from this fun weekend. Let me know what you think 🙂
Photography + Science = Chanel 
Some really nice photos, looks like a beautiful place :-). Hoping to use my air travel discount to travel to various points in the US so I think I’ll put this on my to visit list :-).
Thank you! It really is gorgeous- I can’t wait to go back there. Yes there are tons of CA spots you should put on the list 🙂 San Diego, LA, and Santa Barbara are musts!
Haha thank you for the recommendations! I can’t wait to get started. I’m certainly going to be visiting many places around Asia! :-).
Where do you live right now?
I live in Nottingham, England. I’m currently in Southampton doing conversion training onto the Airbus A320. After that’s complete I’ll be moving to Qatar :-).
Lovely! That looks like an amazing hideaway. I just booked a trip to California in August. We were thinking of making Santa Barbara our first stop! We’re flying into LA and driving up the coast to San Fran, then inland through some parks. It’s been years since I’ve been there, but it’s so beautiful. I can’t wait! Thanks for the photos- it made me really excited for my trip! 🙂
Yes Santa Barbara should definitely be on your list! Be sure to check out the old Santa Barbara Mission, as well as the Biltmore Hotel (as seen in many movies and is GORGEOUS!). Well have an excellent trip! I’m jealous… wish I could take some time off to drive up the coast too 🙂 I’m getting Monterey Bay withdrawals (you should make a stop there too!).
I’m so jealy!! The trip sounded/read like a great time, and the pics are beautiful! Please keep up the awesome posts so I can live vicariously through you as it turns to winter down here. 😉 The great part of winter is that we’ll get to go snowboarding on Mordor in the upcoming months! Woot! Miss you!!! xx
It was an awesome trip! Keep warm in NZ girlfriend- I’m so stoked to have you two back stateside in December 😀 Miss you too! Much love.
I like to ride Amtrak from San Diego up to Santa Barbara. One of the best train trips in the nation.
I think I’ve done that only once before with my Grandma- but we went from SB all the way up to Monterey Bay! It was so gorgeous 🙂
That was probably the Pacific Surfliner. Sadly, it now stops at San Luis Obispo. 😦