Santa Barbara Wine Tour - Self-Guided GPS Audio Tour
- 4–9 hours
- Free cancellation up to 24h before
- 2 languages
- Instant confirmation
Highlights
Drive Santa Barbara wine country yourself, with a GPS audio guide that plays automatically as you go. Your booking unlocks the whole region in the free Wine Trails app: pick your date and starting point — Solvang, Los Olivos, Buellton or downtown Santa Barbara — choose the cellar doors you want from 63 across the valleys, and the app builds your personal route with turn-by-turn narration. 86 stories cover the county's people and places: as you roll past the Santa Ynez Valley's tasting rooms you'll hear how, in 2004, a film called Sideways turned these quiet rooms into international pilgrimage sites overnight. No group, no schedule, no guide — pause for a long lunch in Los Olivos, replay anything, and the audio keeps working when the signal drops on Foxen Canyon Road. You'll need a car and a designated driver; tastings are booked and paid directly with the wineries.
Inclusions
What's included
- Email and in-app chat support
- Regional stories on the six AVAs, transverse ranges and the Sideways effect
- In-app map covering Solvang, Los Olivos, Santa Ynez, Foxen Canyon and Santa Maria
- GPS audio narration across 56 mapped Santa Barbara wineries and 16 points of interest
- Free content updates as new stories and wineries are added
- Trip planner to build and reorder your own tasting day
- Full offline download: every audio file saved to your phone before you leave wifi
- Buy once, no expiry, unlimited replays
- One purchase covers everyone in the vehicle
What's not
- Wine tastings and cellar-door tasting fees (paid directly at each winery)
- Food, meals and snacks
- Transport, vehicle hire, fuel and phone mount
- Mobile data required for the initial tour download
- Winery appointments and reservations where required
- Gratuities
Itinerary
Founded in 1911 by Danish-American settlers who bought nearly nine thousand acres; the name means sunny field, and around two million people visit each year.
A village of roughly eleven hundred people carrying more than thirty tasting rooms along Grand Avenue and Alamo Pintado.
A relaxed Los Olivos storefront pouring Pinot Noir and Syrah, and one of the highest-rated rooms in the village.
Estate wines from the family's Ballard Canyon ranch, poured on Grand Avenue.
Leonard and Brooks Firestone bought 300 acres north of Los Olivos in 1972 and built Santa Barbara County's first estate winery.
The actor-turned-vintner planted his 714-acre Foxen Canyon ranch in 1988.
One of the county's first biodynamic vineyards, with Greek heritage and 45 acres of Rhone varietals on Foxen Canyon Road.
The scenic back road linking the Santa Ynez and Santa Maria valleys, running past Foxen, Fess Parker and Rancho Sisquoc.
A working cattle ranch on an 1845 Mexican land grant, the only intact grant in California, which planted its first vines in 1968.
Santa Barbara's first biodynamic estate, on Refugio Road south of Los Olivos.
Founded in 1975 and still known for the Sauvignon Blanc program that made its name.
A by-appointment ranch in the warm eastern AVA, where Bordeaux varieties ripen in temperatures up to twenty degrees above the Sta. Rita Hills.
Cancellation
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.
Know before you go
- Meeting point
- These are self-guided wine tours, so these are just where a user can drive in from. The user can start from wherever they are at.
- Pickup
- Everyone meets at the starting point; there is no pickup.
- Ticket type
- Mobile or paper ticket accepted
- Operated by
- Wine Trails
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- By giving your phone number you agree to receive up to 2 texts from Wine Trails about this booking (your tour link and a tour-day reminder)
- Msg & data rates may apply. Msg frequency: max 2 texts per booking. Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help
- Before you travel: download the free Wine Trails app (iOS or Android) and create your account while you are on wifi
- Unlock your region in the app: tap Redeem a booking or code, choose Booked online, then enter your Viator booking reference (starts with BR-) and the last name on the booking
- Download your tour over wifi before you drive: coverage in wine country is patchy and the offline download keeps the narration playing
How it compares in Santa Barbara
- Its from-price is 89% below the median of the 19 day trips we list in Santa Barbara.
- Its length is typical for the group.
- By number of reviews it ranks 16 of 19.
- The operator lists free cancellation on it.
About Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara is a Spanish-style city on California's central coast, set between the Pacific and the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Santa Barbara sits on a south-facing shore with the Santa Ynez Mountains rising right behind it. After an earthquake in 1925, the city rebuilt in a uniform Spanish Colonial Revival style, with white walls, red tile roofs and arches, and the County Courthouse, with its clock tower and mural room, is a showpiece of the style. Old Mission Santa Barbara, founded in 1786 and known as the Queen of the Missions, stands on a hillside above town.
Top-ranked sights in Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Waterfront, Santa Barbara County Courthouse, Stearns Wharf.
Special offers in Santa Barbara
Was/now prices come from the operator, never from us.
