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Located 33 miles West of Santa Barbara on US Highway 101. Take US Highway 101 to Gaviota Beach Rd.
The place is beautiful and the campground and facilities are very nice/well maintained. the beach is secluded and small, and it is very close to the Santa Ynez valley for wine tasting. I enjoyed our time here but cant say i would come back unfortunately. It was VERY windy, like 20-30mph winds, this is more of a RV camp to be honest because i guess the winds are very common and happen almost everyday. It was nice during the day but at night it picked up and was hard to cook/get things done. it left so much sand in the tent and it was not enjoyable to sit by fire. would rather camp at Refugio which is more protected from winds.
It's a beautiful place BUT it's very windy! Extremely windy and the sand hurt because of the strong wind. Plus sand kept getting in my eyes. Most tent campers lost their tents because of the wind and my motorhome felt like it was going to tip over, considering it weigh over 15,000 pounds! The best time to go is from 10 am to 3 pm, when it's less windy. I felt unsafe at night because people put on bonfires and the sparks flew for hours because of the wind. I liked that there's a small store. One of the 2 host was very friendly. I loved that we had plenty of space and neighbors were not very close to us. Restrooms were clean.
Gaviota is a charming beach with very little traffic during the week. There is plenty of parking and clean restrooms. The half mile trail overlooking the beach has lots of picnic tables along the way. A variety of seabirds stop here in the morning. It's a quiet place to fish or just walk along the ocean. Ground squirrels are seen along the path. There is handicapped parking. No dogs are allowed.
