Celebrities love Santa Barbara’s beauty, proximity to LA and the ocean

A quick overview of Santa Barbara

The central California city with the year-round Mediterranean climate weaves a fascinating history of indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and then US history. This three-minute overview touches on the city's layered story, distinct architecture, and many celebrities.

Over 400 tech companies call Santa Barbara home

The city boasts a strong talent pipeline from UCSB, established tech companies like Sonos and Procore and dozens of startups. Search for any company in Santa Barbara with this regularly-updated directory.

Hollywood alternative Flying A Studios was housed in Santa Barbara for a decade

Founded in 1910 in Chicago, the American Film Company moved west to Santa Barbara to shoot cowboy westerns. For a decade, the studio was prolific, putting out an average of 242 films a year but collapsed within a decade due to a lack of vision.

University of California Santa Barbara produced 6 Nobel prize winners

The public school system is ranked as the eighth best by Forbes, and 56 of its faculty are members in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. See more figures on the school here.

Santa Barbara County features seven designated wine regions

Grapes are notoriously fickle about where they grow and cannot be cultivated just anywhere. That’s what makes the county’s seven American Viticultural Areas so unique and cool—from the Santa Ynez valley to the Los Olivos District.

Soaps launched the careers of countless Hollywood A-listers

Soap operas may not be considered high culture, but many actors who would go on to win television and film’s highest honors got their start with soaps. That includes Julianne Moore (“As the World Turns”), Morgan Freeman (“Another World”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“Santa Barbara”), and Michael B. Jordan (“All My Children”).

How Los Angeles got its palm trees

Los Angeles is known for its warm weather and palm trees, but the latter haven't always been part of the landscape. As Hollywood's movie industry grew, so did the number of palm trees. As this article points out, most of the city's palm trees were planted in the 1930s through an unemployment relief program.

The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill galvanized the modern environmental movement

In January 1969, an oil platform off the coast of Santa Barbara ruptured, releasing roughly 3 million gallons of crude into the Pacific. The spill killed over 10,000 seabirds, dolphins, and seals, coating 35 miles of coastline.

Disney keeps one street in Burbank pristine for shooting suburban scenes

Nearly every home on Keystone Street is owned by Disney and is often used when the company shoots movies set in idyllic suburbs. Even non-Disney projects, like the horror classic "Halloween," have used the street for filming.

The annual “Fiesta” parade features the largest equestrian parade in the US

Every first week of August, Santa Barbara welcomes tens of thousands of tourists for Old Spanish Fiesta Days festival, a five-day event downtown celebrating Spain’s legacy in the town. A capstone moment is the annual equestrian parade, honoring the region’s horse tradition with hundreds of the animals.

The Madison Avenue Walk of Fame

In Hollywood, the most prominent celebrities get “stars” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now, industry events producer Advertising Week has created a virtual walk of fame for the biggest stars of the ad world, from the Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Bear to the Energizer Bunny.

Hollywood’s best scandals

With all the money, power, and beautiful people in Hollywood, it’s no wonder there’s no shortage of scandals. This list highlights 10 of the most salacious ones, from Marilyn Monroe’s affair with then-president John F. Kennedy, to the mysterious death of starlet Natalie Wood in 1981.

The world's largest Torrey pine is in Santa Barbara County

Torrey pines are extremely rare—believed to be endemic to just two pockets of California coast. In Carpinteria, to the southeast of Santa Barbara, stands the Woodholme Torrey pine, the world's tallest at 126 feet, first planted in 1883.

The bison with mystery origins on California's Santa Catalina Island

Bison roam the 75 square-mile channel island of Santa Catalina about 25 miles south of Los Angeles in the Pacific. It's not clear exactly how they got there, but one theory says 14 of them were dropped off as part of a Hollywood film production. Generally beloved by the locals and vacationers, their numbers ballooned to nearly 600 but dwindled amid resource scarcity. What now? See the state of conservation efforts here.

Reporting on the Santa Cruz storms

The Pulitzer on the Road podcast interviews prizewinners for insights on their work and takes a deep dive into issues relevant to the awards. This episode focuses on Lookout Santa Cruz, a digital California-based outlet that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its coverage of the devastating storms the region faced in early 2023. Lookout’s reporters discuss the importance of local news coverage.

Take a peek inside those $225,000 Oscar gift bags.

Even the losers will win big at the Academy Awards, thanks to all of the free swag. Here’s what they’ll take home this year.

Explore old photos of Estée Lauder's life

Despite her humble upbringing, Estée Lauder's love of beauty and glamour helped propel her social climb. Lauder became friends with many elites over the course of her life—including the late Princess Diana—owned homes in the Hamptons and the South of France, and turned her family business into a cosmetic empire. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

In 1924, elephants from the Central Park Zoo marched in Macy's inaugural parade

Enormous balloons didn’t make an appearance until 1927, and the parade wasn’t televised until 1948. But no matter the decade, a visit from Santa Claus has always been a highlight.

See the collection and interior of Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum

The museum hosts hundreds of the artist’s paintings and many personal objects. Follow along while a curator shares context behind some of her iconic works and offers insights into O’Keeffe’s life and career.

The myth of Santa Claus has partially caused a consumption-oriented holiday season

Yahoo pulled together a humorous collection of social media posts from people who seem to have forgotten that the holidays aren’t only about getting presents. The article is a sobering reminder to spend time with loved ones and show gratitude during the special season.

Tourists are significantly influenced by pop culture

A 2024 study from Expedia Group found that two-thirds of tourists said movies and TV influence where and how they travel.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are noted fans of Norman Rockwell

The famous film directors are admirers and collectors of the American painter. Lucas, in particular, relates to Rockwell’s process, which resembles casting for a film. In 2010, the Smithsonian American Art Museum introduced a Rockwell exhibit showcasing works from Lucas’ and Spielberg’s private collections. This video from that exhibit features both directors talking about how and why they became interested in acquiring Rockwell’s work.

At the 100th birthday of Route 66, a look at what makes it distinctive

The iconic road from Chicago to Santa Monica was first laid out by Cyrus Avery, a member of the highway board, in the 1920s. Before the interstate system was created in the 1950s (rendering the route a tourist route), Route 66 became the site of major roadside attractions, food stops, and lore as early American drivers explored the countryside by highway. This visual-rich essay showcases its origins and how the route stands today.

The 1992 Olympics changed Barcelona

Barcelona wasn’t always a global tourist hotspot. Before hosting the 1992 Olympics, the city’s coastline was blocked by factories, green spaces were scarce, and tourism was minimal. But after securing the Olympic games, everything changed.

Performance artist Laurie Anderson had an unexpected pop hit with 'O Superman'

Anderson was a working performance artist in New York through the 1970s and pressed a small run of the song—an idiosyncratic, vocoder-driven piece that sounded unlike anything on pop radio. Thanks to a push from influential British DJ John Peel, the song became an unexpected hit, propelling Anderson (and her art) into the mainstream.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.