Exploring Remote Jalama Beach and Lake Cachuma (Santa Barbara County)
March 6th – 13th, 2022 (7 nights)
The California coast is beautiful in late winter / early Spring and provides the perfect transition from winter desert camping. On this trip, we were accompanied by a number of friends:
- one family of three and a friend plus their Great Pyrenees dog in a rented 27’ motorhome
- neighbor friends couple in their RPOD trailer
- friend couple from Oxnard in their Class A Southwind 32’ motorhome
For this adventure, we chose two beautiful campgrounds in Santa Barbara County. The first campground we visited was Jalama Beach, a remote beach location about an hour north of downtown Santa Barbara and close to Vandenberg Air Force Base. Since the drive from San Diego to Jalama Beach is a long one (about 5 hours), we decided to break up the trip by stopping for lunch in the small beach town of Carpinteria along the way. We discovered, by chance, a park above the beach called Viola Fields (which happens to be a sanctioned model aircraft field!). There’s a nice bluff trail here which looks down over the sea and the Carpinteria Seal Sanctuary. There were lots of seals to view during our visit!
After a nice lunch in our Scamp, some drone flying and Frisbee games over Viola Fields, and a leisurely hike along the railroad tracks to the Seal Sanctuary overlook, we headed back onto the 101 North toward Santa Barbara. Following an hour and a half drive and the 14.5 mile curvy road from the freeway to the coast, we arrived at the remote Jalama Beach Campground at around 4 p.m. We chose a no-hookup site (#72, $30/night) close to the sand (2nd row) with some ocean views. The wind was howling (Jalama Beach is known for being very windy) and we spent the evening in our friends’ rented motorhome playing the game Sequence for the first time (which we really enjoyed). The location is very isolated and there wasn’t any cellphone service or HDTV signals. However, we were able to log onto the free campground WiFi and use the internet and make phone calls (using WiFi calling). The internet speed was decent for simple browsing, internet, and phone calls (at least for my phone).
Jalama Beach is located on a beautiful wide sandy beach and the campground has around 107 campsites (with 31 sites having electrical hookups). There are water spigots throughout the campground and a free central dump station. The beach is great for all sorts of activities, including walking, surfing, kite flying, surf fishing, fat tire e-bike riding, rock collecting, and more! Jalama Beach has a grill restaurant that serves their “world famous” Jalama Burger. We tried the burger and it is very good and juicy! We road bikes, flew kites (including my new Scuba Diver kite!), explored during the day and played games and watched movies at night (and had a campfire and made s’mores one night)! I flew my radio-controlled CR Climax sailplane over the bluffs one afternoon. Riding bikes on the sand is super fun, especially since the beach goes on for over a mile! One thing to be careful of though is tar on the sand. As we discovered, it is very difficult to remove tar from shoes (our friend recommends rubbing olive oil and leaving on the tar for several minutes and then rubbing off). The best defense though is to take a pair of beach shoes or flip flops that you just use when on the sand.
Following a couple of relaxing days and nights at Jalama Beach (and some beautiful sunsets), we packed up and headed to Cachuma Lake (around a one hour drive). Cachuma Lake campground is very large and is located on one side of the lake. Our site, #106 ($45/night), has full hookups and a partial lake view. We walked the campground with our friends and identified some nice looking dry camping sites with beautiful lake views for possible future visits (#315, #313, #455, #453, #289, #288, #230, #231). We arrived in the afternoon and had a nice lunch at the HOOK’d Bar and Grill (with outdoor seating overlooking Lake Cachuma). There is a tackle shop (sells fishing licenses too) and a boat ramp near the restaurant to accommodate fishermen. Lake Cachuma is a big fishing destination featuring trout, bass, and crappie. Our friend rented a pontoon boat and caught a rainbow trout during our stay. There are plenty of trails for hiking and biking around the campground. Our friends told us they took a fantastic nature walk with a park host on Saturday after we left (sign up in person at the Nature Center). Additionally, there are guided lake cruises by Lake Cachuma park naturalists on Saturdays and Sundays (Adults $15, Kids $10). Reservations should be made as early as possible as these tours sell out. Lastly, there is a world class Frisbee golf course that is very expansive. Frisbee rentals can be obtained at the Lake Cachuma store (which also has a gas station and propane refill station). Overall, we had a relaxing stay for a few days and nights at Lake Cachuma. The campground was pretty quiet and it seemed there were a number of snowbirds camped out here for several months.
The last stop on our trip was at my cousin’s house in Santa Barbara, located only about 30 minutes down the CA-154 from Lake Cachuma. We had fun walking within the Douglas Family Preserve, strolling Shoreline Park, having lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Santa Barbara (Taco Pipeye), and exploring the Ellwood Monarch Sanctuary. The highlight of our trip to Santa Barbara was seeing my cousins and having a nice dinner with them in downtown Santa Barbara.
On this trip we learned that one doesn’t have to travel very far to have a fulfilling getaway if the holiday is combined with beautiful locations, close friends and family, and fun things to do together (like games, hikes/bikes, kites, and meals). So, don’t hesitate to book a quick trip close by and make sure to pull the above elements together to ensure a happy adventure! RV there yet?
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