Montecito Hot Springs in Los Padres National Forest — Attraction in Montecito

It took us about an hour to get up, but we rarely hike so took a few short breaks. Two tricky areas: after about 30 min of hiking, you’ll reach a very wide dirt path that leads up and to the left, or you can veer right on a smaller path to a small creek. Go right for the hot springs.

When you reach the sign with graffiti, turn left and you’ll see a river/creek with strands of white blue material streaking through it. You cross it and hike up and will be to the hot springs in 10 min.

Very fun! 100+ degrees in top hot springs and tepid 80ish in lower ones. There were 20ish people but everyone got their space/privacy and rarely had to share a hot spring. So fun!!! No problem with street parking near where other cars were. Just below...

This is a shaded hike with fantastic peek-a-boo views of the Santa Barbara coastline. The hike is easy most of the time but does require some scrambling across boulders and occasional crossing over the creek. The hot springs are enjoyable but often crowded. They are shallow and smell of sulphur but relax the muscles. If you enjoy natural hot springs (no chlorine and sitting in a sandy and rocky natural creek bed) it’s worth a visit to soak in multiple pools of varying temperature. All uphill on the way to the springs, then all downhill on the way out. Parking is challenging, so arrive early or plan to add time to your hike by parking farther away and walking to...

Hanging in SB for a few days. Found this hot-springs hike 20 minutes from our location

Lots of pools over good a distance. Plenty of temp options. People were cool. Was there on a Wednesday in AM. Parking was filling up by 9

Trail is moderate and could be slippery when wet. Roughly 2.5 miles round trip. When hiking up the last sign to the trail was missing. Look for the water on right with white algae. Warm to touch. The trail crosses here and foes up to the springs. If you follow the pipe it will take to to another “capped” hotspring. You can see on my google map picture.

Highly recommend a warm soak if you have some time. Great gem...