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New Website Provides Interesting Guidebook For Road Trips From South Coast

Carpinteria State Beach is one of the spots on a new Top 50 road trip spots website

Coronavirus concerns have turned the summer vacation season into the year of the “Great American Road Trip.”  Many people concerned about traveling overseas or getting into a plane to fly cross-country are now looking at places they can drive to. 

The timing of the surge in road trips is perfect for a new, free online guide. The 50 Great Public Lands Destinations - Santa Barbara and Beyond is for Central and South Coast residents thinking about hitting the road.

It's the creation of Deborah Williams, a lecturer in the Environmental Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara.  Williams has been an attorney for the National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and teaches c;lasses about public lands at UCSB.

Williams is from California, and grew up around Santa Barbara County.  After living in Alaska for decades, she returned to the Santa Barbara area.  Williams says after looking around for a list of nearby places to explore, and not finding something helpful, she decided to take on the project.

Williams says from beginning to end, the project took about four years.  She hopes that the website will provide people with information about parks in our backyard, as well as public lands worthy of a short to medium road trip.

While Williams says she doesn’t have a single favorite.she says there are a number of must-see things on the list.  The UCSB lecturer says the project was in the works years before the coronavirus crisis, but she says she’s glad it was ready to go live this summer, just as people are looking for safe day trip or vacation options.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral. 
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