A getaway year in review

Only accessible by boat, the island is a quick ferry ride from Fisherman’s Wharf and an especially good day trip for San Francisco visitors. When they arrive on the island, they’ll find a quiet, peaceful, almost idyllic landscape with pretty coves, modest hills and picture-postcard vistas of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin County. Dozens of historic buildings also portray the rich military history of the island. For more information on Angel Island, phone (415) 435-3972 or visit the website www.angelisland.org.

If you’re headed for the city, you could hardly do better than Santa Monica, which we are naming our Best Big City Getaway due to the incredible variety of activities, all in near-perfect weather year-round.

On one recent weekend, we checked into the Hotel Oceana, a completely updated, upscale lodging on Santa Monica’s picturesque Ocean Avenue, where our third-floor suite had spectacular views of the ocean and, in the distance, Catalina Island

This hotel proved to be ideally located near the beach as well as the popular Downtown Third Street Promenade shopping district.

Over the course of the weekend, we visited nearby Hollywood — and the fascinating if not well-publicized Hollywood Museum — and discovered Will Rogers State Park with its historical buildings and great hiking trails, just three miles from Santa Monica. For more information on Santa Monica, phone the Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau at (800) 544-5319 or visit www.santamonica.com.

Our Most Unique Travel Adventure for 2008 was a trip to Santa Barbara without our car. It’s tough to pry the car keys from us Southern Californians but, in the interest of the environment, we gave it a try. It turns out that Santa Barbara’s Car-Free program makes it easy and offers lots of incentives that make it well worth your while to try visiting Santa Barbara by train or air. Our trip on Amtrak from San Diego went off without a hitch, and we were amazed at how much we could do without our car.

For more information on car-free Santa Barbara, go to www.santabarbaracarfree.org or phone (805) 696-1100.

For more information on travel in California, visit www.californiaweekend.com.