A Scenic Drive from Santa Barbara to Santa Monica
9/26/20243 min read


Santa to Santa
As our time in the US comes to an end we set off on our final US journey from Santa Barbara to Santa Monica and even drove by Santa Claus Beach. The scenery was great and the road was back to hugging the coast so a nice way to end our driving. We enjoyed a stop at Malibu Beach and walked on the front, wow some amazing houses there. We tried to guess which famous people might live where as seen online the likes of Brittany Spears, Matt Damon and Miley Cyrus had homes in the area.
As usual we made lots of stops for pictures, being a shorter drive we were able to amble along and still arrive in Santa Monica early afternoon. The hotel let us check early (probably because we'd upgraded las minute to a loft with a mezzanine...aren't we fancy) and then we set off to return the hire car.
Hire Car fun
When we booked the hire cars my concern was over Thrifty as they are classed as a budget line but to be fair other than a bit of confusion over getting 2 drivers this went fine. They provided a GPS unit in the car and returning the car to the airport was really easy. Avis didn't work so well, we had booked to return the car in Santa Monica close to our hotel and again requested GPS. The GPS turned out to be just an internet based unit that clipped to the vents so no better than our phones. Returning the car proved slightly stressful as we couldn't find the drop off location. After a couple of laps round the block of the address we'd been given, we asked a valet guy who said that drop off place had shut 2 years ago. We found another place and finally got rid of the car!
Karen did most of the driving (as not a good passenger) and we both liked the Hyundai Santa Fe better than the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Better ride, better seats/space and better gadgets. Although the Santa Fe beeped when you went too close to the centre line/edge of the highway nothing better than Karen also pointing out "Edge" 200000 times while I was driving.
Exploring Venice Beach
We walked back from the car hire place along the beach, calling at Santa Monica pier for some photos of Route 66 sign. This was the only busy area which really surprised us. The beaches were pretty empty. The walk along the front was fun as so much going on with people trying to sell stuff and others busking with various levels of competency. No muscle men working out. We finished our walk through the canal area which is gorgeous but again strangely quiet, we looked at the value of the hoses and didn't see any cheaper than a few million dollars!
One marina, two marina.....
The next morning we had a walk around Marina Del Ray or as it turned out the Marina Maze. They are all really nice, again very quiet, with a great mix of boats. Sinking sail boats up to some amazing luxury boats. However getting out of the marina proved a struggle as we just came across further marinas. We were glad to finally escape although we did get shouted at for walking on some freshly laid tarmac, I think in our relief of seeing an end of the marinas we missed the signs and rope which sectioned off the newly laid road! We finally found the beach and settle in for an late afternoon snooze after another 10000 step day.
Tequila, Tequila
We finished the day with another Mexican meal and enjoyed sharing a flight of Margaritas. This was 4 cocktails; a standard margarita, 2 fruity ones and one with chilli and hot spices round the top of the glass. All nice and very strong. When we complete of US summary we will probably include some quotes but one of Karen's favourites is "shall we have a starter" and we then get a massive amount of food which we can't finish, this happened here again!