Lacey & Tommy
Things To Do
Stearns Wharf
Across the street from our venue lies the iconic Stearns Wharf. You'll find a handful of restaurants, shops, and the Ty Warner Sea Center at the wharf. You can book a dinner or whale watching cruise with Celebration Cruises, or just take in the sweeping views of the ocean before you and the Santa Ynez Mountains behind you.
Chaucer's Books
Support our favorite independent bookstore! Truly the stuff of dreams: books stacked atop shelves and along aisles, nooks aplenty.
Santa Barbara Adventure Company
Santa Barbara is a roughly one hour boat ride from several islands in the Channel Islands National Park--one of the most ecologically diverse sets of ecosystems in the country. Santa Cruz Island, Santa Rosa Island, and Anacapa Island are all nearby. On the islands you'll see crystal clear waters for swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, and sea and sea cave kayaking. You can make a day trip to swim and hike the islands or book a campsite. This archipelago is inhabited by adorable island foxes, and has been host to extensive discoveries of pygmy mammoth fossils, which you can see and learn more about at The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. The islands also boast the earliest paleontological evidence of humans in North America: the fossil of a man from the Late Pleistocene who may have even cohabitated the island with mammoths 13,000 years ago was found on Santa Rosa Island. This is a local company with information, guides, and trips abound!
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Lacey has been going to this small but mighty museum since she was a child, and now it's one of our favorite ways to spend an afternoon. The lushly wooded grounds nestled in the hills are worth the visit in their own right. The museum features exhibits on archeology, paleontology, marine life (that one features a life sized giant squid model which gave Lacey nightmares as a kid) a planetarium, interactive and educational areas for children, and one of the largest extant collections of Chumash basketry. While you're here, the butterfly pavilion will be home to hundreds of live butterflies. Our favorite details are the bird eggs which marked the first pieces of what was then The Museum of Comparative Oology and the hand painted murals in the Bird and Mammal Halls, which were painted by renowned California plein air artists in the 20th century. Albert Einstein visited the museum in 1931 and remarked that he could see that 'this museum has been built by the work of love.'
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
This is truly such a stunning way to see local flora at its best, and to support a local gem!
Santa Barbara Zoo
Excellent for children and animal loving adults, this is a manageably sized but jam-packed zoo. It's consistently rated as one of the nation's best small zoos! You'll see local and far-flung fauna alike.
State Street
State Street is the heart of downtown, and it's home to a diverse array of restaurants, shops, bars, and movie theaters. It's quite pedestrian oriented, so you'll want to park in one of the paid lots you'll find on side streets nearby or just walk there. It's right next to our venue, and just across from the pier.
McConnell's Fine Ice Creams
There are a bunch of locations in town (and a few scattered across LA), but this local creamery is a must-stop every time we're here. Every single flavor is bananas good, and we highly recommend the Salted Caramel sauce on more or less anything, or maybe just in a bowl by itself.