Santa Barbara has always been noted as a unique slice of California coast. Its southward facing location tempers the climate, and the hills that roll into the Pacific lend a distinctly Mediterranean feel to the community. One of Santa Barbara’s signature sights is the tall palms that line Cabrillo Boulevard, crowning the coastline. That’s where you will find Hotel Oceana Santa Barbara: right on the ocean, just up from State Street, near Stearn’s Wharf on the West Beach.

It’s fitting that Hotel Oceana sits on land once occupied by one of Santa Barbara’s first luxury hotels, The Potter, which was destroyed by fire in 1921. You can still see the Potter’s grand promenade lines by ancient palms that bisect the property. From the ‘30s through the ‘50s, other hotels like La Playa, The Beachcomber, The Sandy Beach, and Ocean Palms took up residence on this magical plot. Today, those quaint and comfortable California beachfront hotels are now combines onto one – and are undergoing yet another makeover – as The Hotel Oceana Santa Barbara.

The Oceana is exactly what you hope for in a traditional beachside retreat. The grounds are spacious. The rooms are crisp and clean and combine an old beach charm with modern amenities like flat screen TVs, imported Egyptian cotton linens, down comforters and pillows, Aveda bath toiletries, and either CD players or iPod docking stations. Two pools with cabañas and a European Continental breakfast complement the Oceana’s offerings, and with the Pacific’s “Cóte d’ Azur” spread before you and the vibrant city of Santa Barbara behind, you may as well be getting away to the French Riviera – without jetlag or a passport.