Santa Barbara, Calıfornıa

Santa Barbara calls itself the American Riviera, and from the bluffs above East Beach, with mountains behind red-tile roofs, it's hard to argue. But that uniform sweep of terracotta and whitewash isn't a Spanish hand-me-down - it's a civic decision. The 1925 earthquake flattened downtown, and the rebuild enforced the Spanish Colonial Revival look block by block, inventing the old-world charm visitors now photograph as though it always stood there.

Long before that, the Chumash had lived along this coastline for more than 9,000 years, and their presence still threads through the ground the mission and courthouse were built over - in place names, the Presidio's foundations, the story circle near West Beach.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours walk State Street to Stearns Wharf with that layered history in your ear, past Prohibition-era hideouts and the Hotel Californian, into the Funk Zone, where the city's scrappier side lives. Head north, and a driving tour trades the Sideways fantasy of swirling glasses for real Santa Ynez terroir.

Earbuds in. Let the coast set the pace.