The city also has its share of celebrities, who keep a low profile for the most part. John Travolta, Michael Douglas, Steve Martin and Kevin Costner, among others, can be seen in local restaurants or riding the city's bicycle paths. On one of his first weeks in Santa Barbara, Mr. Shaikewitz, the former Illinois attorney, went to a small Chinese restaurant and saw Carol Burnett dining there. They don't want to be noticed, and people respect that. The steady flow of newcomers means that transplants tend to assimilate quickly.
Opportunities are numerous to volunteer or join a wide variety of interest groups.
When they returned in August from a bird-watching trip to the Amazon, Mr. Beuret opened his mailbox to find a stack of envelopes an inch and a half thick with tickets to various musical and nature events. Educational opportunities, too, are abundant and mostly inexpensive. The University of California at Santa Barbara's Extension Division, in nearby Goleta, offers more than 200 courses to area residents. Just how crowded any of these educational or cultural activities might be, of course, hinges to some extent upon Santa Barbara's future growth. But a series of droughts in the 1990s prompted the city and Santa Barbara County in 1998 to buy into California's state water system, opening more opportunities for growth.