Showing Off the Best of Santa Barbara for My Sister’s Weekend Visit

A few weekends ago my sister came to visit us in Santa Barbara. Like me, she is also a UCSB alumni. Also like me, she did not explore many of the fun things to do in down town Santa Barbara that I have only found living here as an “adult”. As such, we spent the extended weekend visiting some of my favorite places in Santa Barbara, including Sanford Winery, Santa Barbara Fish Co., Rattle Snake Canyon, the Santa Barbara Zoo and a few other SB treasures. These are the places in Santa Barbara I love going as a local and enjoy sharing with friends and family who come to visit us!

There are so many great hiking trails in Santa Barbara. I plan on writing a full SB hiking blog post soon, but a few of the best hikes in Santa Barbara area are San Ysidro Falls, Rattle Snake Canyon, Inspiration Point and Jesuit Trail.

It was a super foggy Saturday morning that we took my sister up Rattle Snake Canyon – personally my favorite hike in the area. While we mist the great views due to the cloudy weather, the river along the trail was flowing well making for beautiful cascades.

The wild flowers were also out in full force that weekend. The dew created some sweet photo opps.

We even found a banana slug on the trail. It was the first time I had ever seen one in the Santa Barbara area!

One of the few great things Santa Barbara has more of than hikes are awesome wineries. Since October, I have been on a mission to visit all of the wineries in Santa Barbara and write about my experience and each tasting room’s wine. While I have yet visited all of the wineries, I do have my earlier favorites, including Silver Wines, Deep Sea and Sanford Winery – all great for different reasons.

Sanford’s tasting room was where I ended up taking my sister as I think it is a great representation of “traditional” Santa Barbara wines, has a great atmosphere and was walking distance from my house. I wrote about our fun visit and the great wines we tried HERE.

That evening we went for a happy hour at Santa Barbara Fish Co. Which has the best happy hour in Santa Barbara. $5 20 oz. premium beers, great food and the best part…. Happy Hour is every day from 4pm-8pm! Plus it is a great atmosphere with friendly servers. It’s my go to happy hour spot.

*Special thanks to my co-worker buddies for first bringing me here!

To finish off a great weekend I took my sister to the Santa Barbara Zoo before she headed home Sunday morning. Alena and I are members there and I go 3-4 times a month. I love it. Since I am a member and get to bring a guest for free, we just took a quick walk around the Zoo, enjoying the animals and the park like setting before the weekend crowd arrived. It was a cloudy cool day and the animals were pretty active. We even saw the lion on top of his rock roaring at the Giraffes!

It was a wonderful weekend with my sister, and I enjoyed getting to show her some of my favorite things that I have discovered since I moved back to Santa Barbara. If you are planning a weekend trip to come visit Santa Barbara give these fun spots a try and let me know what you think.

You can even hit me up and we can meet up for a drink or a hike.

Cheers!

Alan Evans

P.S. Here are some great spots I didn't mention above, but I love to show people and visit myself!

• Brophy Bros on the Santa Barbara Harbor - great views, good drinks and the best clam chowder I have ever had (and I love clam chowder!)
• Alice Keck Park - gorgeous landscaping that includes a nice pond with turtles and ducks, just don't feed the animals! It makes them sick.
• The court house tower - the best non-hiking view in Santa Barbara
• The Beach! - Campus Point and Arroyo Burro are our favorites for sunset walks
• Mission Rose Garden - beautiful flowers and great views of the mountains and the Santa Barbara Mission
• Santa Barbara Fish Market - the best fresh fish served up in an old school environment, where you can buy fresh oyster and sea urchins to snack on right there on the Santa Barbara Harbor.

P.S.S. - It was UCSB alumni weekend, so of course we made a visit to Isla Vista for some FreeBird's Nachos, a pitcher of beer at Sam's to Go and a visit to new UCSB library. Gotta love a trip down memory lane and to see the party lives on among fellow Gaucho Alumni!