Leadbetter is nice, but not walkable to all that downtown Santa Barbara has to offer - State Street is the main hub.
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I spent a few days there last winter with my home exchange points, and can’t think of anywhere better. Agree with the above suggestions of the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, which in addition to featuring some redwoods at the far southern end of their range, has interesting history of the waterworks that supplied the mission. The view point at the gardens is to die for, looking over the Channel Islands. They have reciprocal membership with some local botanical gardens, like mine here in the Midwest. I never got the the Mission or the Natural History museum. Next trip.
On a previous trip, I really enjoyed walking Arroyo Burro beach and the small, but delicious and friendly restaurant just above the beach. A great place to watch the sunset. Perhaps I saw a biking path in that area.
As another Hyatt points member, I have stayed in the hotel there, notable mostly for proximity to Highway 1, though pleasant enough. There is a far more elegant Hyatt property that is out of my price range on the beach.
Solvang was fun and delicious for a morning, certainly scenic and filled with bakeries.
Incidentally, my research biologist neighbor who has had a Channel Islands ongoing project for decades, told me about this company for accessing the islands out of Ventura. He said the Santa Barbara boat company had unfortunate fires and is no more. Information | Island Packers
Any opinions on the Harbor View Inn in Santa Barbara? We generally choose to stay in places with more room, but we are considering staying there, and doing without a car for much of the time.
It looks like we can rent a car for a day if we’d like, and parking is something like $35 a day if we decide to rent a car for multiple days. We would stay in an oceanfront unit.
One more fun thing to kill a few hours in town, Jeff Shelton is a SB architect, who incorporates whimsical tile and unique shapes in his designs (think Gaudi-light) - there’s a self-directed walking tour (I looked at it as a kind of scavenger hunt) to locate his work in a pretty small area (under a mile) - it took my love and me about 2 1/2 hours, and I documented each one by taking photos of us with them. You can get the free map here (he doesn’t spam you for your email) Jeff Shelton Architect — Walking Tour - for the curious about his local work: https://santabarbaraca.com/itinerary/designed-jeff-shelton-walking-tour/
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Harbor View Inn is a great location. Lots of walkable restaurants. You can walk to the marina and sterns wharf.
If you’re interested in visiting the mission and botanical gardens you could uber. There are also bike rental places nearby.
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We just booked a king ocean front suite at the Harbor View. It’s low risk - can be canceled up to 72 hours ahead of time (but it was the last one available). We haven’t found anything else that has a “wow” factor or whatever, and my husband just kind of locked onto this place, and I’m going with it. Next up trying to convince SW Airlines to let us use or credit that expires in July in September.
Thanks - if we choose to get a car we can pay $32/day to park, so we may do a car for part of the week, or just rent bikes and see how we do. It’s getting more “definite” now, but I am going to consider other dates than I currently have.
Look into the downtown (waterfront) shuttle - it’s super inexpensive and gets to lots of areas where you can then walk - if it works with your timeframe - Downtown-Waterfront Shuttle – Santa Barbara MTD
Well darn, it ends the week before we are thinking of coming 
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