Santa Barbara Tours. So many tours, where do we begin?
For a small town, Santa Barbara offers a large variety of tours. From food tours to wine tours, history tours, boat tours, adventure tours, bike tours, kayaking tours, chocolate tours, docent tours, ghost tours, trolly tours, bus tours, segway tours, so many tours. There are probably even more tours I didn’t even think about. Why is that? Lots of history, lots of wine, lots of food and HIStory is kind of different with each storyteller. Also, experiences are always in style.
When I started Taste Santa Barbara Food Tours, like 10 years ago, tours were a thing, but not like they are now. There were only a few food tours and a lot of other types of tours. Europe has all kinds of tours, the states haven’t always had so many offerings, but that’s changing.
Santa Barbara IS a small town with a plethora of things to do, and so many different tours. It can be difficult to decide what to do and which tour to do, to the point that it can kinda make your head hurt a little. I included some of my favorite tours in town and there are many more.
This is just the beginning of my tours list. Stay tuned for many posts on the tour topic.
I would be a fool to not suggest taking a Taste Santa Barbara Tour. If you are visiting or live in Santa Barbara and enjoy food, fun history and a little walking, you should totally take one or all of our food tours. It’s a great way to enjoy part of your day and be fed.
One of the beautiful thing about our tours is that they are similar, but never exactly the same.
For many years we tried to keep the tours exactly the same. As the tour grew and our tasting partners and guide base grew, the tour began to shift slightly. Our tours are repeatable experiences BUT we change them up depending on the day of the week, the food partners and the guide.
Did you know that we don’t just do food tours? We also offer hold the food tours (history-ish tours), mini food tours, so many different private food experiences and SB walkabout wine tours. We also have the FIRST TACO TOUR in Santa Barbara that we started a few years ago. It is taco-licious and so delicious and fun. Book that one stat.
If you are interested in something that isn’t listed on our website (yet), shoot us a message and we can make magic happen. (this is one big hyperlink to our contact us page – just click)
We love taking history tours created by our friend John with Free Walking Tours Santa Barbara. He was inspired to start a free walking tour company after a trip to Europe! He loves his history, does a ton of research before he launches a tour and is a great story teller. And they are free and so much fun!
Do you wine?
If you are looking for wine and want to do a tour, SB has a lot to offer. Like a lot of choices. So many choices.
When you start your google search for a wine tour in Santa Barbara, you may be a little overwhelmed. Most of the wine tours visit the SY Valley area. There are a lot of them and more popping up and going away.
We are big fans of our tried and true tours: Sustainable Wine Tours, Wine Canyon Tours, Coastal Concierge,Rooted
Maybe you prefer to work for your wine, as in bike then wine. If that sounds
like something you’re into, then you NEED to check out iBike. Disclaimer, you do not bike from winery to winery, you bike then wine.
Want more of an adventure? Perhaps a kayak tour? SB Adventure Company is the tour company for you. Don’t worry, they have wine tours too. Check out all of their tour offerings.
Want a guided SB walking wine about tour? Then shoot us a message, we’ve got you covered.
Do you like Ghost Tours? SB Ghost Tours is our go to ghost tour in town. They offer a few different tour options, some starting with wine….
Ok, let’s move on from the wine.
Do you want to learn so much about the SB Courthouse that you didn’t even know you wanted to learn? Docent tour. Do a docent tour. They also offer self guided tours. The SB County Courthouse tour info can be found here.
Have you heard of local SB architecture Jeff Shelton? If you don’t know his style, you are in for a whimsical, fun tiled filled, cool iron work fun time. You can download a free map to lead you (on foot) to some of his downtown buildings. Link to free downloadable map here.
Ok. It is time to take break. We hope you’ve enjoyed this post and it has helped you in some way. Stay tuned, there are more tour articles to come.
Thank you for reading and don’t forget to book your Taste tour right now and then we can help you book some other fun tours too!