FVC: Sort of Santa Barbara

The weather is rubbish, the rooms - student dorms - are brown and basic, you eat in a student cafeteria and you can hear the people upstairs doing it. And you need to wear a dorky ID necklace the whole time. It's the best vacation ever!  And this is our seventh year!

We're staying in this part of Santa Barbara...

...not this part

I love telling unsuspecting bods about the Family Vacation Centre (FVC) at the University of California, Santa Barbara on the Isla Vista, 15 minutes north of Santa Barbara. You may have read about the FVC on my blog last year here, here, here and here. We're back again and as the sign on the door says, enjoying "the best vacation since having kids."

Unsuspecting Bod: Sun, surf and swimming all day long? And it's on a place called Isla Vista - the views must be amazing!
Me: Actually it's been foggy and chilly most years, the sea is cold and you get tar on your feet. And views... none unless if you walk out to the cliffs.
UBod: So Santa Barbara University, beautiful campus? And what about the rooms?
Me: University: Plain and stark. Beds are hard, rooms noisy. 
UBod: So the Isla Vista? Cool little student town?
Me: Actually scrappy, dirty and kinda ugly too.

At this stage U Bod starts to move away. Then the "Aha" moment - you tell them the kids are looked after all day by the funnest, peppiest, cutest students who envelope them in phantasmagorically fun days of surfing, crafting, zoo-ing, singing and tennis.

Tallulah with the caped-counsellors

Meanwhile the parents are taken shopping, golfing, hiking, painting, biking, surfing and wine tasting. The food in the caf includes wood-fired pizzas, fresh Asian dishes and fruit and veges. The dorms may be simple but we have four bedrooms with a living room and bathroom. For years we have come with five other families who are great friends and because no one has to host, cook, clean or look after each others' children - we depart even better friends.

And the best of all, the kids are utterly free. They wake up, leave the rooms on their own, get on their scooters and bikes and we only sight them as a passing flash. Cy barely changes his clothes all week and for breakfast he fills a bowl with nuclear reactive-looking mix of Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms, pours Coke over the entirety with a generous chaser of Dr Pepper.

Cy! Put your helmet on!

The fogs clears, you walk to the cliffs to see the sea, then around the corner to get your latte from "IV Drip" and prepare for the wine tour. Oh it doesn't have the glorious orange roofs, the sumptuous stores and the stunningly palm-treed beaches that you see in the travel brochures. But for us, the FVC is the best of Santa Barbara.

Leadbetter Beach, Isla Vista

Now, don't forget to enter our Giveaway - a pair of handmade gold and silver hoop earings from Metal Earth Studios worth $310! The lucky winner will be drawn - randomly - this Friday August 12th.