In the days after Halloween, everyone is asking everyone, “what did you do?” Regardless of what shenanigans you got yourself into in your sexy nurse/kissing booth costume this year, you might want to mark your calendar to spend next year in the place where class meets crass – the culture-laden party town of Santa Barbara.



This wine-country college town goes off each year on the 31st (and for a few days before and after), but it’s got more going for it than just partying. Here are 5 reasons SB kicks butt in the Halloween department – as well as a few others.

5. The partiers. Maybe everyone we ran into was just having a good night, but it seems like the relaxed atmosphere in SB makes strangers a little nicer, bartenders a little friendlier, and friends a little easier to come across – especially when they’re dressed like horny flashers. (Yeah, we remember you, dude.) If you’ve never hung out with a couple of Ninja Turtles and the cast of Sesame Street, or made friends with someone who was dressed as binary code, it’s not something to pass up. It also could have been the alcohol. (But we doubt it.)

4. The proximity. If you live in LA (if you don’t and you’re still reading this blog, you are awesome), Santa Barbara is only a little farther than you’d drive to get to Disneyland or Magic Mountain. It takes less time than it takes to go to the DMV, and the scenery is a bit nicer. Allow for a buck 30 after you get off work, and you’re on vacation before it even gets dark. And yep, the bars will still be open.

3. The town. Strangely enough, the world still exists during the day on Halloween weekend, and Santa Barbara still has stuff to do to fill those long hours of daylight while you’re waiting for the next adventure of inebriated thrift-store Batman. You can rent bikes at the top of State Street, check out the sidewalk art show on Cabrillo, eat at one of the seafood places on Harbor Way, patrol the shops downtown, or even try out some of the town’s renowned wine-tasting rooms. Just make sure the head start you’re getting from that wine doesn’t turn into a brick wall at sundown, pardner.

2. The collegiate costume innovations. We’ll just list the best ones we saw: Keith Richards, Horny flasher (with moving part), Inspector gadget complete with Gadget copter, sexy stewardess with molesting pilot, creepy Alice in Wonderland cast, Tootsie Pop owl, actual Tootsie Roll, binary code, case of Pabst, Charlie Chaplin, dead Disney princesses, Mario and Luigi, Mr. Peanut, Satan on fire, Grover and Elmo, the Ninja Turtles, Aladdin, swine flu and about 400 baby-toting bearded guys from The Hangover.

1. Isla Vista. Everything listed above is part of the regular, downtown part of Santa Barbara. We weren’t even in this place (so it couldn’t have been that cool), but if Isla Vista, next to the UCSB campus, is known as the Mardi Gras of Halloween, you can imagine what it’s like. Partiers travel huge distances and rent out all the hotels in the area just to take part in the craziest holiday known to the college world. If downtown SB is too tame for you, this place should be right on the mark. Happy next Halloween.

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Tags: halloween, santa barbara