11 things to do in this hidden roadside town bursting with history (and wildflowers)

The superbloom: It’s a Southern California phenomenon that incites glee in the hearts and minds of Angelenos, and frustration into the lives of local officials. In 2019, the last significant superbloom — caused by a high concentration of dormant wildflower seeds finally getting the wet conditions needed to explode into existence all at once — led to traffic jams and parking issues, as well as overwhelmed hiking trails, with visitors often trampling the very flowers they were there to see.

This year, the town of Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, an epicenter of the 2019 poppy superbloom, is shutting off access to popular Walker Canyon trails in order to avoid the “Disneyland-sized crowds” that showed up four years ago. Luckily, there will likely be more than a few places to see superblooms up close. One community embracing its floral abundance is the Cuyama Valley, a corridor of low, rolling hills with rich soil and plenty of sun. And while flower peeping has its charms, there’s so much more in the valley to see and do.

Just a two-hour drive from Los Angeles, the area nicknamed the Hidden Valley of Enchantment lies north of the Sierra Madre mountain range and Los Padres National Forest. Historically a region for farming and cattle grazing, the valley flipped to oil fields in the 1950s when the Richfield Oil Corp. struck a vein near the tiny town of Cuyama, near the Carrizo Plain. By the 1990s, the oil fields were nearly spent; Richfield had been absorbed into what is now the gas station conglomerate known as ARCO; and farmers and ranchers started reclaiming most of the land again. As you turn off I-5 and head west down Highway 166, you’ll see signs of these worlds coexisting as you pass by rows of citrus orchards, carrot fields, grazing cattle and the occasional lazy oil rig. (There’s another, arguably more scenic, way to get here, but Highway 33 from Ojai to Cuyama was closed at the time of publication; check ahead for reopening.)

As you climb the foothills just past the city of Taft, be on the lookout for the “Welcome to the Cuyama Valley” sign planted firmly up on a bluff. This is where the enchantment begins. Blink at the wrong time and you’ll miss the former boomtown of New Cuyama, the best place to hunker down for your weekend of flower peeping (and more). With a current population of just 550, the town consists of small houses, a park and a school, which were all built in 1951 to house Richfield’s oil workers and their families; a small airport and a motel were added to accommodate visiting executives. That motel has now been restored as a modern roadside resort called the Cuyama Buckhorn. From bikers to day trippers to locals, all roads lead here.

Whether you’re checking in for a quick escape from the city to explore the Carrizo Plain National Monument or grabbing a bite to eat before hunting down the perfect patch of wildflowers, be sure to take a minute to fully appreciate your surroundings. From wine and mead tastings to hiking in the nearby Sierra Madre mountains to getting to know local olive growers, the Cuyama Valley offers so much more than the superbloom.

Here are 11 things to see and do while you’re in the Hidden Valley of Enchantment.