LisaMS

First of all, thanks for all the info I've gotten thus far to help me with my trip to CA the end of this month.

Husband will be in conference in Anaheim, and after conference we have decided to drive to San Diego for a couple of days. It was a toss up between San Diego or Santa Barbara and somehow we chose San Diego. We hope to hike Torrey Pines State Reserve and go to Balboa Park/zoo; do some walking or trolley touring around the city.

Now another question. We will have a free day Sunday before the conference begins. Would a day trip to Santa Barbara be too much for that day? If so, any suggestions for how to spend that day? What about a drive along 1 through Huntington, Newport, Laguna Beaches and making our way to San Juan Capistrano, making a loop back to Anaheim? Would that be doable/better? We aren't interested in theme parks. More interested in nice scenery and people watching.

logandog

I am sorry I missed your other posts, but have you considered Amtrak from Anaheim to Santa Barbara? We did it last year and had a wonderful day.

LisaMS

Funny, I just ran across something about this googling. So when you get to Santa Barbara, are you within walking distance of things? What did you do while in Santa Barbara? Do you have a report somewhere on the board? This would be nice for dh so he didn't have the stress of driving.

logandog

The Amtrak station is very well located. It's on State street which has a tourist trolly. We walked to the pier for lunch and took the bus up to the Mission.
The rest of the day was shopping on State Street with a good seafood dinner before catching the train back to Anaheim.
The last 20min. of train to SB runs along the coast and is beautiful.

dwooddon

I also enjoy the trip to Santa Barbara on AMTRAK. Be sure to check the schedules on Amtrak.com, though. Not all of the trains northbound from Anahiem go all the way to Santa Barbara. Some do, some don't so you need to be sure which you need to take.

MaureenB

Huntington, Newport and Laguna are some of our favorite spots in southern Cal. Fun people watching, pretty sunsets, funky shops, art galleries, expensive homes (go to Balboa Island and walk around!). Eat at The Crab Cooker in Newport for great fresh grilled shellfish, in a fun atmosphere.
>-

mlgb

If you want a different kind of scenery, you could go to Anza Borrego State park. It's about 2 hrs each way.

You might get lucky and catch some wildflower blooms that time of year.

Check desertusa.com for reports.

LisaMS

mlgb, I was trying to figure out the other day if I could fit that into our schedule. lol Thought about fitting it in on our way back to Anaheim from San Diego. Might be better on the Sunday, huh?

There are so many things I want to squeeze into this short trip. lol The biggest problem is narrowing down which are priorities for me (and I guess dh ;-) )

Maureen, I'm going to go to Newport, Laguna and Huntington one way or another; whether it be by myself while husband is in conference or with him on the way to SD or on that Sunday.