Thanks!
it’s in southern California, so it’s part of the region I really would love to see no longer exist. can’t say much more than that.
I grew up in Ventura County. I love it there. Ventura, particularly old Ventura, is a sleepy beach town with damn near perfect weather all the time. Great place to just wander aimlessly downtown and look at little local shops, grab some eats and drinks, hang out on the beach and/or pier, visit the Mission, check out the Old Courthouse, go up on the hill and overlook the city and coastline.
I’d love to live around downtown in an old Victorian.
You are also close to Santa Barbara which is nice, but a different kind of nice. Ventura County broke away from Santa Barbara County in the late 1800s The cliffs just east of Ventura form a natural boundary that was often unpassable in the winter, unless you take the really long way through the mountain passes to the north.
SB has a lot more uniform look … mainly adobe Mission style architecture with red tile roofs. SB is more affluent than Ventura. They both have a Mission and a beach. Both very nice. Some enjoy the more upscale nature of State Street in SB over Main Street in Ventura, some see SB as more snooty than Ventura. SB has more wineries in the back country.
If I had to pick a weekend in SB or Ventura, I’d pick Ventura, personally. Plenty of people would pick SB. It wouldn’t be too hard to split a weekend between the two.
Ventura is more laid back Central Coast atmosphere than “LA” atmosphere. LA really doesn’t begin until you get past Thousand Oaks and into Westlake Village area on Hwy 101 … or Malibu on the coast.
It may help to know why you are asking about it.
My dad lives in Ventura and we usually visit a few times a year. I 100% agree with everything Bearflag says. Main St. in Ventura is adorable, the weather is great year round and there’s always somewhere pleasant to be.
There is, however, a growing homeless population in Ventura (bringing with it increased property theft and pandhandling) and a large artist community (and maybe even some overlap!) so it’s a bit more, erm, “out there” than your standard small coastal town.
I’m mulling over the prospect of moving there, from the Pacific Northwest.
Well, I’m jealous. If I could snap my fingers and have a magically established life somewhere, it would be
Portland
Ventura/Camarillo
San Diego
Monterey
Bay Area
San Luis Opispo
probably in that order. Seattle would probably be in there somewhere if I knew more about it.
The downsides of Ventura County are probably cost and not a whole heck of a lot going there, but just about anywhere on the Oxnard Plain is nice and fairly laid back.
We lived in Ventura and then Camarillo for a dozen or so years. As Bearflag70 says, it’s a laid-back area that’s beachy but not overhyped in the way that Malibu or Santa Monica are. The climate is lovely and other interesting areas, like Santa Barbara, Ojai, or Los Angeles are accessible.
We loved it, and we’d still be living there if there had been more employment opportunities. My husband was laid off from a large biotech in the area, and all the job hunting in the world did not find him a remotely comparable local job, so we had to move to Silicon Valley.
Moving thread from MPSIMS to IMHO.
Ventura native speaking, but I must confess it has been a few years since I’ve been back. If I could afford it and had a job there, I’d go back in a heartbeat. Everything Bearflag said, except the part about not much going on. I was never bored. They have a lot of street festivals, a great Farmers Market, that at least used to actually sell locaaly grown produce rather than 90% crafts like most of them these days. Lots of hiking nearby, much of the city is an easy walk to the beach and about a 15 minute drive to the mountains.
Downside - my favorite local restaurant, Frankie’s, closed a couple years ago. It was one of the first places to anchor the downtown renaissance back in the early '80’s and was just the best place for a weekend breakfast. My husband’s job had him out there about a year ago and he brought me the sad news.
That’s all relative, I guess. Probably not as much going on as Seattle, Portland, SF, or LA. I am also recalling my time there as a child and teenager, so I wasn’t really into farmers markets and the like. YMMV.
Ventura Highway in the sunshine
Where the days are longer
The nights are stronger
Than moonshine
You’re gonna go I know
‘Cause the free wind is blowin’ through
Your hair
And the days surround your daylight
There
Seasons crying no despair
Alligator lizards in the air
You’re going to leave the best part of the country to come here to SoCal? 
Ventura is nice though. Sure beats L.A.
Previous posts are all pretty accurate.
I grew up in San Diego and I’ve always hated LA’s freeway system and I swore I’d never live/work in Los Angeles. Plus, when I was looking for work, my fiance (now my wife) hated San Diego’s freeways and refused to live/work in San Diego OR Los Angeles. So I came up to Ventura for work and I’ve been through a couple jobs and now I’m working just outside the county line in Agoura (L.A.). I still hate the freeways, but it’s nice to live here. It’s the closest I’ll get to living within L.A. County.
Ventura County is kind of like a giant bedroom community for LA workers, particularly for music and film industry people. Compared to San Diego or Seattle, there’s not much to do here – but lots of people head to LA for their entertainment on weekends. Much of the land within this county is actually National Forest or some other kind of protected undeveloped land. My wife also loves the abundance of fresh fruits & vegetables that are grown within Ventura and also the Napa Valley wineries up in Santa Barbara county.
—G!
Where ever you go,
There you are!
–George Harrison
Too many vampires and bad boys standing in the shadows.
Wouldnt those be Santa barbara County wineries? Napa valley wineries by definition are several hundred miles north.
Mmmm… strawberries brought fresh from a stand in the fields they were grown in.
Ah, but Mr. Petty was singing about Ventura Blvd., in the San Fernando Valley area of L.A.. Ventura, CA, has significantly less vampires and bad boys. But just as many shadows.
I lived for for years across the street from a park that was an old cemetary (they moved the stones but not the bodies…). Never saw any vampires. Opossums yes. Surfers yes. Vampires no.