8 Secluded Towns In Southern California

Southern California has a stereotype, and these towns do not fit it. Solvang is a half-timbered Danish village an hour from Santa Barbara, with windmills and aebleskiver counters where you would expect taquerias. Julian is an 1870 gold-rush town in San Diego County that gets enough snow to run a Christmas market. Borrego Springs is a desert outpost two hours from LA traffic with night skies dark enough to see the Milky Way. Cambria sits on a stretch of Pacific bluff where sea otters outnumber surfers. The eight towns below all earn the drive from California's coastal cities for the same reason: they break the postcard.

Borrego Springs

Borrego Springs has about 3,400 residents and is the only town in California fully surrounded by a state park. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park covers roughly 640,000 acres, the largest state park in the contiguous United States, with palm oases, badlands, slot canyons, and ocotillo fields radiating from the town in every direction. Borrego Springs has been an International Dark Sky Community since 2009, with strict outdoor lighting rules that keep the night sky among the darkest in the state.

The town runs a serious art scene for its size. The Borrego Art Institute hosts exhibitions like the spring Circle Show and offers pottery and watercolor classes year-round. North of town, Galleta Meadows holds the Sky Art collection, more than 130 weathered-steel sculptures of prehistoric mammals, dinosaurs, and a 350-foot serpent crossing the road, all made by Mexican-American artist Ricardo Breceda.

Big Bear Lake

Big Bear Lake sits at 6,752 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains, about a two-hour drive east of Los Angeles. Snow Summit and Bear Mountain operate together as Big Bear Mountain Resort, with downhill skiing in winter and lift-served mountain biking and hiking on the same terrain in summer. The surrounding San Bernardino National Forest opens onto trails up Sugarloaf Mountain, the Cougar Crest Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail, which crosses the basin to the north.

The lake itself is the longtime draw, stocked with rainbow trout and adding largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and catfish in the warmer months. The Village handles dining and shopping within walking distance of the marinas, with farm-to-table spots like Stella Luna a few blocks from the water.

Julian

Julian is a mountain town of about 1,500 residents roughly an hour and a quarter northeast of San Diego. A gold strike in 1869 built the town, and the Eagle and High Peak Mine still runs underground tours past the original ore-cart rails and stamp-mill equipment. Julian also calls itself the apple capital of Southern California, with bakeries like Julian Pie Company and Mom's Pie House selling whole pies straight off the racks on Main Street.

Cleveland National Forest, the southernmost of California's national forests, surrounds the town with camping, hiking, and horseback trails. The Julian Country Christmas Market and tree lighting in early December are major draws given the town's higher elevation and occasional snowfall.

Los Olivos

Los Olivos has a population of roughly 1,000 and sits in the middle of the Santa Ynez Valley wine region, about 35 miles northwest of Santa Barbara. There is a tasting room every few storefronts: Coquelicot Estate Vineyard pours organic Bordeaux varietals, and E11even Wines specializes in Cabernet Franc a block off the central flagpole intersection.

The arts scene is the other draw. Gallery Los Olivos represents about 50 regional artists across painting, photography, and sculpture. The Los Olivos Wine Merchant Café, owned by winemaker Sam Marmorstein, plates regional cheeses, salads, and entrees alongside its wine list and runs live music several nights a week.

Ojai

Ojai has roughly 7,500 residents and sits in a valley between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, hemmed in by the Topa Topa Mountains. The east-west orientation of the valley creates the "pink moment," the alpenglow that turns the cliff face above town a deep rose at sunset most days of the year. The Ojai Valley Land Conservancy maintains dozens of public preserves close to downtown, and the surrounding Los Padres National Forest opens onto longer hikes, trout streams, and backcountry camping.

Soule Park Golf Course sits at the base of the Topa Topa range, and downtown Ojai is small but stocked with bookstores, gift shops, art galleries, and clothing boutiques along the arcade on Ojai Avenue.

Cambria

Cambria sits on the Pacific between Big Sur and San Luis Obispo, with about 5,700 residents and a downtown split into the Victorian-era East Village and the seaside West Village. Moonstone Beach is the town's anchor, with a one-mile boardwalk along the bluff and sea otters typically visible bobbing in the kelp offshore.

For lunch, Linn's Easy as Pie Café is the local pick, and the original Linn's still operates as a working family farm a few miles inland in Santa Rosa Creek Valley. Hearst Castle is a 15-minute drive north in San Simeon, with 165 rooms in the main residence and roughly 127 acres of gardens, terraces, and pools open to public tours.

Solvang

Solvang, the "Danish Capital of America," has around 6,100 residents and was founded in 1911 by Danish-American educators looking to establish a folk school in the West. The Danish architecture, half-timbered facades, and decorative windmills are intentional design choices written into the town code. Aebleskiver, the round Danish pancakes, are sold by the dozen at counters along Mission Drive, and traditional menus turn up at restaurants like Red Viking and Bit O' Denmark.

The Hans Christian Andersen Museum, on Mission Drive above the Book Loft, covers the Danish author's life and work. Bethania Lutheran Church, dedicated in 1928 a few blocks south, is a working congregation built in traditional Danish village style with a hand-carved altarpiece and a model ship hanging from the nave ceiling.

Lake Isabella

Lake Isabella sits at the southern end of the Sierra Nevada along the Kern River, with about 3,200 residents in the unincorporated census-designated area. The Isabella Peak Loop Trail rewards a steep climb with views back over the reservoir and the Greenhorn Mountains, and the Whiskey Flat Trail along the Kern River is a flatter option.

Just outside town in Bodfish, Silver City Ghost Town is an open-air museum of more than 20 relocated buildings from the area's mining and homesteading days, including a post office, a one-room jail, and several miner's cabins. About 20 minutes upstream, Kern River Brewing Company in Kernville pours IPAs and blondes from a riverside taproom popular with rafters and anglers.

Eight Towns Worth the Detour Off the SoCal Freeways

Each of these towns trades the Southern California stereotype for something specific: dark skies in Borrego Springs, Danish architecture in Solvang, gold-rush mines in Julian, Sierra Nevada peaks in Lake Isabella. None is more than a half-day drive from the major coastal cities, which makes a long weekend in any of them easier than the freeway map suggests.