Sabrina S
Hendry’s Beach Sunset (Photo: Mark Weber)
By Sabrina K. Sangha
It should be no surprise that our beautiful Santa Barbara has won another accolade, this time being rated as the “Best Small City” in the U.S. in the Conde Nast Readers’ Choice Poll.
Santa Barbara is a wonder for its magical sunsets, coastline location, and pleasing places and people. It is hard to imagine a place better than the coastline, where the colorful skies and beach vibes set alight pure joy to start each day.
Our California coastline city is visited by approximately 7.2 million visitors annually. To outsiders, we’re mostly known for our prestigious wineries, hotels, resorts, lively restaurants and nightlife after hours. Moreover, many of the well- known hotels and resorts have won “Top Hotels is Southern California” according to Visit Santa Barbara, including the well-known Ritz Carlton Bacara and the Four Seasons Resort: The Biltmore Santa Barbara.
In addition, Santa Barbara has been ranked highly amongst other phenomenal cities including the glorious wine countryside of Napa, California (#12), the scenic Sedona, Arizona (#6) and the historic city of Alexandria, Virginia (#4).
According to Kathy Janega- Dykes, President and CEO of Visit Santa Barbara, “Santa Barbara has a way of making travelers feel like they’re in a little pocket of paradise when here”.
Our beach town has previously been featured in the top 15 among several other cities in the nation. According to the recent issue of Condé Nast Traveler, the November issue illustrates Santa Barbara as being a paradise amongst many others, highlighting the offerings most locals already know.
We are also home to the 5th best national public university, UC Santa Barbara, and one of the best-rated community colleges, Santa Barbara City College.
In the heart of the city, the average traveler is delighted to be present in such a paradise. The city truly delivers a spectacular vision with extraordinarily scenic mountains and the ocean surrounding the area. The southern county is a perfect getaway destination for travelers and visitors to explore, as it has been by many.
Furthermore, many locals can agree that the city has proven to be so much more than just home, but a true paradise. Entirely, the city awaits future visitors and welcomes future tourists to explore and experience the paradise for themselves.
” Entirely, the city awaits future visitors and welcomes future tourists to explore and experience the paradise for themselves. ”
But then go home.
Supply and Demand is what it boils down to. My advice to anyone who will listen is to purchase a home and pay it off as soon as possible. In some cases, it pays to stretch your payments out over many years, but talk to a certified financial advisor/planner about that. SB has never been cheap, but to those who say that they cannot afford to buy here I say “try again.” By which I mean, don’t go out for dinner all the time (especially for sushi…and if you do, maybe just a few times a month rather than a few time a week), wear out your shoes before buying another pair, tix to the bowl….uh-uhhhh, second car/motorcycle….no-no-no, stop your obsessive Amazon purchases….gym memberships? Go for a long hike. Drinks at Joe’s? Buy your own bottle for 1/10 he price. Keeping up with the Jone’s? Forget about the Jone’s. Vacations? Make it a staycation. It’s called a “sacrafice,” but I like to call it a TRADE OFF.
I thought the “best city” accolade came from the National Association of Vagrants and Drifters, otherwise known as Condé Nasty. The mendicants do seem to call Santa Barbara home.
LMAO! I’m sure the “Conde Nast crowd” refers to living either in Moneycito or above APS…!
My out-of-area clients always mention the streets filled with aggressively panhandling vagrants; and many times wives have come back and just chosen to sit and wait for their husbands, rather than continue shopping on lower State Street where they felt uncomfortable. SO glad I moved my business further uphill, out of the combat zone.
PR puffery. Leave us alone, tourist bureau.
If you can’t afford to live here, why bother? At least don’t complain about your own choices. Accept the trade-offs and dump the resentful attitude.
If we’re the Best,
the others must be pretty bad!..
Income inequality wasn’t measured. Santa Barbara would rank in the bottom 10%.
Well the lead line, first sentence is not exactly correct. SB is #15 on the list. We all know that we live in a great place, and so do the tens of thousands of tourists who visit here. The Paradise Tax can be a little daunting at times, and then you go for hike or hang out for a sunset at the beach and forget the mortgage/rent payment.
I’ve got to believe that %99 of the people wanking about Santa Barbara really have a bunch of other sh*t going on in their lives. Is it really SB that’s go you so down? I’m guessing not. What’s really wrong?
Find some peace people. Chill out. You’re not happy with you life, where you’re living, etc., make some f’ning changes. You’ve got nobody to blame but yourself in most cases. If not, then deal and move on.
wank wank wank
@2:56pm – Right on! That can be said for almost ALL negative commenters here!
I do love Santa Barbara, I choose to see beyond the trash that is left by tourist and vagrants.
They come here yes, and spend money, enjoy the magic of Santa Barbara, then leave. Most of the vagrants here don’t brother you. I see the same year after year. It’s the new ones younger ones who are on drugs and get aggressive, turn them in, they’ll leave.
I love how Santa Barbara does so much for the community, there’s always something happening Andy lots of people turn out for it, so I’m not the only one enjoying it.
Take a walk say hi to a stranger give a smile. Look at the Beauty here.
Others pretty bad? Where in heavens name does that come from? I don’t like some of the choices SB has made but still love my hometown and have to say it really is beautiful. Great place for vacations. It has depended on tourist $$s since the 1870s. Don’t like tourists, pick a non-touristy city.
Aren’t we smug. What a bunch of hooey. Best university, best community college, best sunsets, best facade of a real city. We like BS’n our selves. Santa Barbara is an early California experiment in boosterism. Read Sinclair Lewis and see what was being done by small town America at the time SB decided to become “Spanish.” The only profit or benefit made from such PR stunts as this is to the tourist industry. Please don’t exalt such phoniness.
I agree with A-15……..enough of the self-adulation and preening………this city is operationally dysfunctional but let’s put some lipstick on this porcine and tell everyone nothing to see here except ‘ isn’t this a beautiful city ? ‘…….