California - SD October 3 or 4-base itinerary ideas?

My wife and I would be very grateful for advice on the last 1 or 2 stops of an October 2012 southern Cali holiday. We're flying in to San Diego from London on 3rd October and flying back from there on the evening of the 18th.

I've been several times to SD and area before, but it's my wife's first west coast trip. I've been hiking in the Joshua Tree park, and in the future I'm sure we'll have a Los Angeles-based holiday, or do a LA-SF trip over several weeks.

We're fit 50-somethings who like hiking, photography (both landscape and street), history/music/art/architecture, and wineries. We enjoy hiking by the sea but not swimming in it. For a 2-3 week holiday we like to stay in 3 or 4 bases and do day trips rather than trucking on every day.

We've booked the first 6 nights at Hillcrest B&B in SD for a rest and then some exploration of the city, then I think we'll probably head for the Julian area for some days walking in the hills and to visit the Anza-Borrega park.

It's what to do next that we're uncertain about; we're after a contrast to SD and the hills/desert.

Top of the list is probably to stay in the Newport or Laguna Beach areas, but do you think we would we get so much more out of the (say) Santa Barbara area such that the time spent driving to and fro would be worth it?

Any thoughts or other suggestions, including on places to stay, would be great. Thanks.

There are several wineries in the Temecula area, an easy day trip North on the 15 out of San Diego. http://www.temeculawines.org/

If you can...why not leave out of somewhere other than SAN say PHX or LAS and hit the Tucson area for the Tucson Botanical Garden and the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Another easy extension would be to visit the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff areas which are usually gorgeous around October.

If you want to do Santa Barbara as a side trip and avoid the driving which can be traffic heavy, take Amtrak. It's about a 6 hour ride from San Diego so you could take the train up in the late morning/early afternoon, have a nice dinner, explore the next day, etc.

The Santa Barbara area is really a 1st class place to visit and very different from San Diego. I highly recommend it. There is nothing really wrong with Laguna or Newport Beach, but I think there is much more to do and see in the Santa Barbara area, including Los Padres NF, Lake Cachuma, and the Nipomo Dunes.