Wikimedia Commons/Channel City Camera Club
It’s California’s best working waterfront
Santa Barbara Harbor sits with the Santa Ynez Mountains at its back and the Channel Islands straight ahead.
More than 1,100 slips hold commercial fishing boats right next to million-dollar yachts, and palm-lined Cabrillo Boulevard runs along the edge of it all.
You can walk the waterfront, grab seafood pulled from the ocean that morning, or hop on a boat headed for whale country. The water here is calm, the fish are fresh, and the best parts take some exploring.
Wikimedia Commons/Wgreaves
A yacht owner paid to build the whole thing
Back in the 1920s, a man named Max Fleischmann needed somewhere safe to park his yacht along Santa Barbara’s open waterfront. He put up money for a breakwater, and the city matched it…