Imagine London, Sydney or Buenos Aires - great food, great shopping, great culture. Now shrink it to about 20 square miles. Delete traffic and noisy, crowded streets. Keep the pedestrian-friendly, easy-to-get-around part plus the great architecture. Add wine. Now surround it with beautiful mountains, rolling valleys and miles of beautiful beach. Welcome to Santa Barbara!

This upscale studio offers a queen size bed as well as a sleeper sofa. With year round gorgeous weather, head out of your ground floor unit to the pool, tennis courts, or beach for a day of relaxation.

Whatever your passion, there's always something to do in Santa Barbara, which combines big city culture with backwoods outdoor adventures, all set off by a culinary tradition that puts its name and flavors on the lips of food and wine critics across the country.

Love the outdoors? Ride horses, wind or waves! Patron of the arts? Explore our galleries and year-round arts events. Shopping? Food? Wine? Wellness? Family fun? It's all here, to explore on your own or with guided tours, served up in a laid-back elegance that's distinctively Santa Barbara.

Scuba gear - check. Hiking boots - check. Lousy weather - uncheck! Clear skies, sunshine and year-round mild weather put smiles on the faces of visitors who love to explore a destination inside and out, with the emphasis on "out."

And if you think we're all about the beach, think again. Santa Barbara is an equal-opportunity water, land and air destination. Sure, surfers and boogie boarders can ride the waves, and kayakers can dip their paddles, but head for the hills and you can be almost 2,500 feet above sea level, hiking to the hot springs of Gaviota Peak, horseback riding in the Santa Barbara hills or rock climbing "The Y" at San Ysidro Canyon. If golf is your game, Santa Barbara's many world-class golf courses will beckon with their rolling fairways and panoramic views.

Across the Santa Barbara Channel, you'll find Channel Islands National Park—a string of five islands uninhabited by people, but home to a variety of unique animals and plants found nowhere else on Earth. From Santa Barbara Harbor, take a short boat trip (keep an eye out for dolphins, whales and seals!) to enjoy a day of guided sea kayaking, hiking or snorkeling along this mystic coastline.

Just as destination golf is so much more than the links, world-class shopping is a symphony of sights, scents and sounds. It's the vistas as you move from one venue to the next, the perfume of flowers mingling with the smell of steaming strong coffee and fresh-baked croissants, the splash of fountains under glassy blue skies. It's the fun and familiar artfully jumbled with experiences surprising and new.

In short, it's shopping Santa Barbara, from the bohemian vibe of The Funk Zone to the genteel cobblestone walkways of State Street to sunny expanses of plein air plazas and promenades.

With a mélange of shops and galleries featuring the names you know and love, Santa Barbara serves up shopping as only The American Riviera® can!

The beautiful El Escorial Villas at East Beach is a lushly landscaped resort-style condominium complex at the beach. With its pleasing Mediterranean architectural style, El Escorial Villas offer luxurious amenities including a sun drenched year-round swimming pool and spa, two lighted tennis courts, a health club, library, barbecues and clubhouse. It is ideally located just a half block from Santa Barbara's vast sandy East Beach, adjacent to the Santa Barbara Zoo and Bird Refuge, and a short distance from the fine dining and shopping of both Montecito and Santa Barbara.