• WHERE Santa Ynez Valley, California

• HOW MUCH $525 per night, including breakfast, dinner, and horseback rides

• MORE Visit the Alisal's website

Illustration by Peter and Maria Hoey

GETTING THERE To get to the Alisal Guest Ranch and Resort from Los Angeles, take the 150-mile scenic drive up Highway 101, much of it along the coast. Stop at Rincon Point, one of California's most acclaimed surf breaks, where on a good day you can spot a couple of pros riding the waves. Just past Santa Barbara, head northwest on Highway 154 and take a detour up to Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park, a sandstone grotto with rock art by the original inhabitants of the area. Enjoy sweeping views of Santa Barbara and the Pacific Ocean. Back on Highway 154, wind your way over San Marcos Pass and the beginning of Santa Barbara's wine country. The ranch is just past Solvang, off Highway 246.

BEST MOMENT Getting firsthand instruction on Santa Maria-style barbecue techniques from the Alisal chef, Pascal Godé, and Frank Ostini, owner of the Hitching Post II restaurant (featured in the 2004 film Sideways). Alisal's biannual BBQ Bootcamp features tastings from local breweries and wineries, plus opportunities to create your own spice blends and cook your own barbecue dinners. 

FAVORITE CHARACTER After a horseback ride past rolling hills and glassy lakes, Chris Henrich, wrangler and cowboy poet, regaled us with stories and verse as we ate a breakfast of flapjacks, eggs, bacon, and biscuits and gravy around a fire. Alisal's cowboy-poetry tradition began with Texas native Jake Copass, who worked on the ranch from 1946 until his death in 2006. 

LOCAL LORE Alisal has been a resort since 1946, but it was a working ranch for more than a century before that. Once a Mexican land grant, the 10,000-acre property was a cattle ranch for most of the 1800s and early 1900s. In its early days, the resort was a popular getaway for Los Angeles celebrities; Clark Gable even got married there. 

WHAT'S GREEN In addition to offering horseback riding, Alisal has developed a cycling program that includes guided tours of the area. Advanced mountain-bike rides traverse oak-dotted hills overlooking the Santa Ynez Valley. 

WHAT'S NOT GREEN The two 18-hole golf courses require extensive maintenance and irrigation. 

PLANET-SAVING OPPORTUNITIES Food not eaten by guests doesn't go to waste; it's fed to Alisal's farm animals.

This article appeared as "The Central Coast by Horse or Bike" in the January/February 2016 print edition of Sierra.