Once you pass San Simeon, the steep and rugged coastline of Big Sur will be replaced by flat beaches. Like this beach, the San Simeon State Beach.

If you have time, we recommend a sidetrip to Paso Robles on Highway 46. You will pass wineries (like this), which offer wine tasting and excellent food. It is astonishing how quickly the landscape changes once you leave the shoreline.

Morro Bay is a small, yet busy tourist village north of San Luis Obispo. Its main attraction is the Morro Rock. It serves as climbing area and provides shelter for sea birds.

This is the Oso Flaco Lake Natural Area, which is part of the fascinating Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve, west of Guadalupe.

The Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve is a wonderful place to watch nature, like these pelicans who were looking for fish at the shore.

But the Preserve serves also as a beach for those brave people who are not afraid of the very cold water of the Pacific Ocean (usually kids). :-)

The Lompoc area is best known for its flowers ("The Flower-Seed Capital of the World"), and this is just one of the many flower fields to be discovered.

You may want to consider a brief visit in Solvang, the Danish community between Lompoc and Santa Barbara. But do not expect to see any real Danish culture here. It may look a bit like "Denmark plus Holland with a touch of Norway" and thus be very different from the US, but it is just closely related to reality. For visitors from Europe it's presumably a waste of time...

...time, that you probably want to spend in Santa Barbara, the chic city north-west of Los Angeles. You see its Mexican roots everywhere, giving the city a very relaxed image. Please note that it is hard to find accommodation on weekends, so you better be there early to find a room and see the village.

At the harbour, you will find Stearns Wharf, which hosts restaurants. Access for pedestrians is free.

The sun goes down behind Santa Barbara, seen from Stearns Wharf, and all you can do is stare at the scene and think "can it get any better now?".

Once the sunlight has gone, the streets of Santa Barbara start to fill with cars and people, who all have a good time under the palms and red roofs of the city center.