 | Carpinteria Beach and the Tarpits |
| Santa Barbara, California Print Leave a comment |
Description
Carpinteria is a small beach town just south of Santa Barbara. The main strip, Linden Avenue, has a fun festive feel to it, and leads to Carpinteria Beach. Families gather for the day with large colorful umbrellas and tents, and a bountiful supply of shovels, buckets, and bodyboards. There's an exercise area just behind the dunes where kids can hang and climb.
As long as the estuary isn't flowing into the ocean, the water at Carpinteria Beach is some of the cleanest in the area. It's nice to swim if it's a warm day. The weather in Carpinteria can be foggy and overcast though.
Walk east down the beach and you pass a popular campground and RV park. If you are interested in camping, I'd recommend only the sites right by the beach on the grass where the tents are. The RV sites are situated on an ugly parking lot with no views whatsoever- more like camping at your local liquor store parking lot!
Near the campgrounds, there is a pretty wooden bridge over an estuary, and some informative plaques about wildlife. At the east end of the beach, examine the tarpits! Here, gooey oil seeped up out of cracks from long-ago earthquakes and covered a wooden and brick structure. It's a strange sight. Carpinteria, in fact, is named for the Indian "carpenters" who built their plank-style canoes here using tar to bind the wood together.
There are showers and restrooms at this beach.
If you're thirsty or hungry after all your exploring, it's pleasant to sit outside at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at 4991 Carpinteria Avenue. They have some nice tables out by the street. I've also heard that Zookers Cafe is good- it's at 5404 Carpinteria Ave.
It's fun to take the Pacific Surfliner train to this beach. The train stops right by the beach. Kids love to ride a real train and you can make a morning of the trip!
Photo Gallery
Click on photo to see large versionBoys play on Carpinteria Beach. |
Rows of beach umbrellas and rows of sandcastles! |
Tar oozed up and covered large rocks. |
Tablecloth and even a vase of flowers at Carpinteria campgrounds! |
Two seals bobbing around in the water at Carpinteria State Beach. |
Looking past the dunes toward Linden Avenue. |
Directions
From the 101 Freeway southbound, exit at Carpinteria Avenue. Follow Carpinteria Avenue until you come to Linden Avenue and turn right. Head to the end of Linden Avenue and grab a parking in the lot or along the road. Parking is free.
From the 101 Freeway northbound, exit at Casitas Pass and turn towards the ocean. Turn right on Carpinteria Ave, and left on Linden Avenue. Park along the road.
This is an interactive map, you can zoom and move it.
Visitor Ratings
Overall Visitor Rating: 
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Hope 11/05/2009 22:54 | One of my favorite childhood memories... |