,Blue Ink wrote

+1 for the Santa Barbara area; aside of the beach, the Los Padres National Forest provides some amazing scenic routes.

i always forget which one was the one but there are two roads one of them was much better

East Camino Cielo / West Camino Cielo

one is loaded with wikked Hair pin turns the other  is not.

one has amazing views and at the top some places you can day hike and climb rocks and you see the whole coast line and Santa Barbara below.

on the way out if you look back at this one rock it looks like a big stone face.