Weekend Getaway – Jalama State Beach

Our honeymoon in Europe left my husband and I full of a desire to continue exploring the world and having new adventures together.  While we would love to skip off to Europe on a monthly basis, our current schedules do not allow for it so when we returned home we began searching for interesting weekend getaways from Los Angeles.  We knew we wanted to push ourselves out of our comfort zone so we agreed that we should try camping rather than stay in a hotel.  The only question left was where.

I came across Jalama State Beach while researching dog friendly campgrounds and was immediately struck by the amazing natural untouched beauty of the area.  Located just sixty miles up the coast from Santa Barbara, Jalama Beach is situated on a jagged piece of coastline far from the main highways and busy beaches of the area.  Beautiful beaches are a dime a dozen in Southern California, but ones this isolated are practically non-existent.  A few Google image searches in and I was sold.  I quickly reserved a camping spot thirty feet from the beach and we began preparing our overnight trip to the secluded paradise.

Now I should admit right here that neither my husband or I are big campers.  I camped as a child and worked at summer camps during high school so had slept under my fair share of evergreen trees and starry night skies, but in case you couldn’t guess that was a long time ago.  It had been even longer since my husband went camping.  We knew we were going to be completely out of our element, especially since we would have Lola, who has definitely never been camping, in tow.  But hey, bring on the adventure!  We loaded up the car on a Saturday morning and set off up the coast.

After stopping in Santa Barbara for firewood and s’mores ingredients we followed the directions provided by the campground down empty road after empty road.  As we got further away from civilization and were surrounded by rolling hills so green we both questioned whether we were in Ireland, it became clear we were in for something truly special.  As we finally reached the top of the final hill before the campground and saw the breathtaking coastline below us we were confident we had come to the right place.

We set up our tent and headed to the general store to feast on hamburgers that we were told were possibly Southern California’s best kept secret.  That was no exaggeration…the burgers were ridiculously good!  I don’t know what’s in their special sauce, nor am I sure I want to know, but trust me that it was amazing.

Once sufficiently full and happy we took Lola for a walk on the beach.  When Lola and I lived in Carlsbad (in the San Diego area) we frequented the Del Mar dog beach and let’s just say that Lola was NOT a fan of the ocean in her younger days.  She doesn’t really like to get dirty and hates getting her paws wet so I wasn’t expecting her to have too great of a time running around in the Pacific.  I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Lola ended up having THE TIME OF HER LIFE and looked happier than I have ever seen her racing up and down the beach with me.  She got fully engulfed by waves a couple of times and took it like a champ.  She had a huge grin on her face the entire weekend, behaved herself inside the tent and was an all around superstar.  We were really proud of her for adapting to a new environment so well.

After s’mores by the campfire, being lulled asleep by the crash of ocean waves, yet another fabulous meal from the general store the following morning, and several more walks on the beach we packed up the car and our and headed home to reality.  Though we had only been gone for a little over twenty-four hours the peace, quiet and zero cell reception of Jalama Beach left us feeling rested, rejuvenated and more ready to take on the week than we had felt in a long time.  We already miss the place and will definitely be returning to Jalama Beach for further weekend adventures as our schedules allow.