Things to Do in Ojai, California
A Bogue Family Guide to the Places, Landscapes and Local Rituals We Love
Our Family's Roots Run Deep in Ojai
We've called Ojai home since 1973, when our family opened Dos Manos, the handmade shop where Bogue Milk Soap got its start. Three generations later, this valley — its mountains, its makers, its rhythms — still shapes how we live and work. These are the places we send friends and family when they visit, gathered from decades of calling Ojai home.
A Garden We Watched Take Root
In the 1980s, Ian and Adam Bogue worked on the Taft property while John Taft's vision for its gardens was still taking shape — long before it became the beloved Ojai destination it is today.
Taft Gardens
Taft Gardens & Nature Preserve
Today, the nonprofit Conservation Endowment Fund stewards this 264-acre property in the foothills above Lake Casitas — cultivated gardens paired with more than 200 acres of protected nature preserve. It's a place where gardening, conservation and art have grown together, in a landscape Ian and Adam first encountered as it began taking shape.
A Garden We Watched Take Root
In the 1980s, Ian and Adam Bogue worked on the Taft property while John Taft’s vision for its gardens was still beginning to take shape. Long before it became a destination for visitors, artists and environmental programs, they knew it as a living Ojai landscape being shaped through physical work, experimentation and a deep respect for the surrounding land.
Today, the nonprofit Conservation Endowment Fund stewards Taft Gardens & Nature Preserve, a 264-acre property in the foothills above Lake Casitas. Its cultivated gardens bring together plants adapted to Ojai’s Mediterranean climate and similar regions around the world, while more than 200 acres remain protected as a nature preserve and vital open space.
For our family, Taft Gardens represents something unique to Ojai: a place where gardening, conservation, art and community have grown together over time. Visitors can walk the cultivated grounds, attend seasonal programs and experience a landscape that Ian and Adam first encountered during its formative years.
Ojai Studio Artists Open Studio Tours
Ojai’s creative character is not confined to galleries. Painters, sculptors, ceramicists, photographers, printmakers, jewelers and mixed-media artists work throughout the valley in home studios, garden workshops and spaces shaped by the surrounding landscape.
Ojai Studio Artists (OSA) brings together more than 70 of these working artists. Its smaller Second Saturday tours, generally held from February through August, feature a changing selection of studios in a particular Ojai neighborhood. Not every artist participates each month, so visitors should consult the current tour map before planning their day. The larger annual tour takes place during the second weekend in October.
The Bogue family’s connection to this artistic community reaches back to Upper Ojai, where the Bogue and Whitman children grew up as neighbors. Several of the Whitman brothers became artists, and Marc Whitman—an architect and landscape painter—is an OSA member whose studio on the Taft property opens for selected tours.
Open-studio days offer an unusually personal way to experience Ojai: visitors can meet artists, see work in progress and explore the gardens, studios and landscapes in which the work is made.
Spend an Afternoon at Ojai Valley Inn
Dining, Golf and a Sense of Place
You do not need to stay overnight to experience several of the things that make Ojai Valley Inn a lasting part of the valley. Day visitors can reserve a table, book a round of golf or stop at Libbey’s Market while enjoying the oak-filled setting and surrounding mountain views. Dining ranges from the relaxed atmosphere of Jimmy’s Pub and seasonal meals at The Oak to cocktails in the historic Wallace Neff Heritage Bar and California cuisine with Italian influences at Olivella. Reservations are recommended, particularly for dinner and the Inn’s Sunday Bluegrass Brunch. Golfers can reserve day-guest tee times on the Inn’s historic 18-hole course, designed by George C. Thomas Jr. The course moves through hills, valleys and dramatic changes in elevation, making the Ojai landscape part of the experience rather than simply its backdrop. Before leaving, stop at Libbey’s Market for coffee, takeaway food and a selection of locally made provisions and gifts. Libbey’s also carries Bogue Milk Soap, although individual blends and availability may vary.
Shop Like A Local
For plants, pottery and inspiration for the California garden, visit Flora Gardens in the Ojai Valley. The nursery carries indoor and outdoor plants, garden supplies and distinctive finds for both experienced gardeners and anyone bringing home their first plant.
Flora Gardens reflects the practical, plant-centered side of Ojai that has always influenced Bogue Milk Soap. It also carries a selection of our soaps and botanical body-care products alongside goods for the home and garden.
Eat Healthy
Rainbow Bridge is our first recommendation for natural food in downtown Ojai. The independently operated market brings together organic produce, pantry staples, vitamins and supplements, personal care, gifts and products from local makers. Its deli and prepared-food counter are also convenient for breakfast, lunch or a picnic in Libbey Park.
Rainbow Bridge carries one of the broadest local selections of Bogue Milk Soap, making it the best place to look for several blends in one visit. Product availability changes, so contact the market if you are seeking a particular bar.
An East End Afternoon
Meditation Mount, Dinner and an Ojai Sunset
Begin Above the Valley
Begin in Ojai’s East End at Meditation Mount, a peaceful sanctuary overlooking the valley from the western edge of the Topatopa Mountains. Its gardens, pathways and elevated views offer a beautiful place to slow down before the evening begins.
Visitors can reserve Sanctuary Hours for a self-guided experience or consult the current calendar for yoga, sound meditation and other scheduled gatherings. Programs and visitation times change throughout the year, and advance registration is required.
The sun disappears from Meditation Mount earlier than many published sunset times suggest, so arrive with enough time to walk through the gardens and settle into the view.
Continue to Boccali’s
Afterward, continue west along Ojai Avenue to Boccali’s Pizza & Pasta, a family-run East End tradition since 1986. Its outdoor tables and oak-shaded lawn look back toward town, making dinner especially memorable as the late-afternoon light moves across the valley.
Our family returns for familiar Italian comfort food—including spaghetti and meatballs—but the seasonal strawberry shortcake is the essential finish. Served from February through October, it has become one of Ojai’s best-known desserts. Produce from the Boccali family’s Upper Ojai farm also appears throughout the menu during the growing season.
Boccali’s has hosted generations of local celebrations, including Adam’s 25th Nordhoff High School reunion. It remains the kind of relaxed gathering place where families, classmates and visitors can share a meal while another Ojai evening settles over the valley.
Ojai Playhouse: Film, Music & Live Performance
Originally opened in 1914, the Ojai Playhouse recently returned after a decade-long closure and extensive restoration. The intimate 200-seat theater combines the character of a historic single-screen movie house with exceptional modern projection and sound, including digital and 35mm film capability, Dolby Atmos cinema sound and a separate professional system for live performances.
Programming ranges from new independent releases and major award contenders to restored classics, documentaries and cult favorites. Music, comedy, speakers and other live events also use the Playhouse stage, making it much more than a neighborhood cinema.
Film has deep roots in Ojai, where actors, directors, writers, producers and craftspeople have long lived and worked. The Playhouse frequently presents films and special events with connections to members of that local creative community, while the annual Ojai Film Festival brings another concentrated celebration of independent filmmaking to town.
Located beside Libbey Park in the center of downtown, it is easy to build an evening around a screening or performance, dinner and a walk beneath the Arcade.
Bart’s Books: An Ojai Tradition for Readers
No visit to Ojai feels complete without time at Bart’s Books, the celebrated open-air bookstore that has served the community since 1964. Shelves wind through courtyards, sheltered passages and the rooms of a former home, holding more than 130,000 new, used, rare and out-of-print books.
For our family, Bart’s is more than a visitor attraction. We maintain a trade account there, returning books for credit and using it to bring home another changing stack. That cycle of reading, returning and choosing again is one of the small local rituals we value most.
Plan enough time to wander rather than treating Bart’s as a quick photo stop. Ask the booksellers for recommendations and look beyond the most visible shelves—the unexpected finds are part of the experience.
If you want to trade books, bring them Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bart’s generally does not process trades on weekends without an advance appointment and does not accept trades on rainy days. Check its current policies before carrying in a collection.
Where we go every week
Farmer and the Cook
Organic market, café, bakery, and CSA rooted in Ojai, California. Farm-to-table food made with care, served with community in mind since 2001.
Extraordinary rotisserie chicken, handmade sourdough, and local wine rooted in the Ojai Valley. Now serving Ojai and Carpinteria.
Explore the trails just above town on 195 acres. With stunning views of the valley just off Shelf Road, John’s Fox Canyon, Foothill, and Luci’s Trail make a great hiking loop or connect you to the Los Padres National Forest beyond.
Ojai is famous for its stunning native flora, and inviting that beauty into your landscaping comes with a host of benefits. Whether you are seeking drought tolerance, more pollinators, or habitat for wildlife, a native plant garden sows the seeds of climate resilience in your own backyard.
Take A Bit Of OJAI With You
Best Sellers
Handcrafted Goat Milk Soap, Botanical Hair + Body care & Natural Wellness Favorites Discover the products our customers return for again and again. The Bogue Milk Soap Best Sellers Collection brings together our most-loved handmade goat milk soaps, organic shampoos, botanical conditioners, nourishing body care, and wellness essentials crafted in small batches in Ojai, California. Whether you're searching for a moisturizing goat milk soap, a natural shampoo made with essential oils, a restorative conditioner enriched with Argan and Kukui oils, or artisan wellness products inspired by the beauty of Ojai, you'll find the customer favorites that have defined Bogue Milk Soap since 1973. Each product is handmade using thoughtfully selected ingredients, traditional small-batch methods, and pure steam-distilled or cold-pressed essential oils. As a result, our best sellers deliver an authentic botanical experience designed for an active, clean, and wellness-focused lifestyle. Customer Favorites Inspired by Ojai's Valley of the Moon Many of our most popular products feature signature Valley of the Moon blends that have become customer favorites over the years. These botanical essential oil blends capture the spirit of Ojai while delivering unique aromatherapy experiences for daily self-care. Popular blends throughout our collections include Palo Santo, Shangri-La Blend, Rejuvenating Blend, Namaste Yoga Blend, Surf Rider Blend, Ojai Vibes Blend, and other handcrafted formulations created exclusively for Bogue Milk Soap. Why Customers Choose Bogue Milk Soap Best Sellers
Featured
Featured Collection The Bogue Milk Soap Featured Collection highlights a curated selection of products that represent the heart of our brand. From handcrafted goat milk soaps and botanical skincare to aromatherapy wellness products, these items reflect over 50 years of traditional soapmaking and natural personal care. Handpicked Favorites from Ojai, California Since the beginning, Bogue Milk Soap has created small-batch bath, body, and wellness products using thoughtfully sourced ingredients, pure essential oils, and time-tested formulations. This collection brings together featured products that showcase the quality, craftsmanship, and botanical inspiration behind the Bogue Milk Soap experience. Natural Care for Everyday Rituals Whether you're discovering Bogue Milk Soap for the first time or returning to a trusted favorite, the Featured Collection offers an easy place to explore handmade goat milk soap, natural skincare, aromatherapy products, artisan soap gifts, and botanical wellness essentials crafted for simple daily rituals. The Bogue Milk Soap Difference Handmade in Ojai, California Crafted with premium natural ingredients and pure essential oils Explore our Featured Collection and discover the products that continue to define the Bogue Milk Soap tradition.
Bespoke Goat Milk Soap for botanical adventures
BESPOKE Goat Milk Soap for Makers, Adventurers & Everyday Life Purpose-built goat milk soap for gardeners, cooks, makers, surfers, hikers, and active everyday life. Bogue BESPOKE bars combine fresh goat milk, botanical oils, mineral clays, natural exfoliants, and pure essential oils for skin-barrier-conscious cleansing designed around what your hands and skin actually do. Rather than developing each bar around fragrance alone, BESPOKE formulations begin with a specific use, environment, or ritual. Gardening, cooking, workshop projects, hiking, swimming, mountain weather, yoga, and other active pursuits create different cleansing needs—and the formula follows the purpose. Explore the benefits of goat milk soap to learn more about fresh goat milk, naturally occurring lactic acid, traditional cold process soapmaking, and the complete botanical formula behind a well-made bar. Purpose-Built Soap: The Formula Follows the Job The defining idea behind BESPOKE is simple: not every soap needs to perform the same way. Hands working in soil have different cleansing needs from skin coming out of salt water. A cook washing repeatedly throughout the day needs something different from a hiker returning covered in sweat, sunscreen, and trail dust. That is why BESPOKE bars aren't simply one goat milk soap offered in different scents. Individual formulas can change their balance of botanical oils, mineral clays, activated charcoal, colloidal oatmeal, salts, herbs, natural exfoliants, and essential oils according to what the bar was created to do. It's practical formulation built around real life rather than fragrance alone. Soap for Hardworking Hands & Frequent Washing Gardening, cooking, mechanical work, crafts, and other hands-on activities can mean repeated washing throughout the day. Soil, cooking oils, food residue, grease, plant material, and workshop grime also create very different cleansing challenges from an ordinary shower. BESPOKE bars such as Gardener, Chef, and Greasemonkey were developed with those realities in mind. Natural exfoliants and textured ingredients help loosen stubborn surface buildup, while the goat milk soap beneath them provides the everyday cleansing portion of the experience. Gardener and Chef take this concept even further with dual-texture construction: a more exfoliating portion of the bar is paired with a smoother goat milk soap below. Instead of requiring a separate scrub and cleanser, different functions are built into the bar itself. That makes these formulas particularly relevant to a skinimalist approach to hardworking hand care—fewer products, each designed with a clear purpose. Natural Exfoliation Designed for Different Jobs Exfoliation in BESPOKE isn't one-size-fits-all. Different materials create different textures and are selected according to the intended use of the bar. Across the collection, ingredients such as pumice, crushed walnut shell, cornmeal, salts, coffee, crushed juniper berries, botanical powders, mineral clays, and colloidal oatmeal can change how a soap interacts with the skin's surface. A workshop soap can carry a substantially more rugged scrubbing character, while another formula may use fine mineral clay or colloidal oatmeal for a much softer tactile experience. The goal is purposeful exfoliation rather than aggressive exfoliation for its own sake. From Over-Cleansing to Barrier-Conscious Hand Care Active lifestyles can create a cycle of repeated cleansing: wash after the garden, wash after cooking, shower after exercise, rinse after swimming, clean up after the workshop. For skin that is already frequently washed or weather-exposed, simply making every cleansing step more aggressive isn't necessarily helpful. BESPOKE formulas combine their more functional ingredients with fresh goat milk and Bogue's broad base of more than twelve plant oils and butters. Goat milk naturally contains lactic acid, while the complete oil-and-butter formulation influences the conditioning character and post-wash feel of the finished soap. This creates a more skin-barrier-conscious approach to functional cleansing: formulate enough cleansing and texture for the job at hand without making unnecessarily stripped-feeling skin the objective. Mineral Clays, Charcoal & Botanicals with a Purpose BESPOKE demonstrates one of the most important principles behind Bogue formulation: ingredients should have a reason for being in the bar. Mineral clays can contribute silky slip, natural color, oil interaction, and distinctive skin feel. Activated charcoal can adsorb excess surface oil and impurities. Botanical powders and natural exfoliants create different textures. Colloidal oatmeal brings a softer physical character to formulas intended for a gentler experience. Even the appearance of many BESPOKE bars comes directly from their functional ingredients rather than artificial dyes. The texture, mineral character, botanical color, and cleansing experience become part of the identity of the soap itself. Goat Milk Soap for Outdoor & Active Lifestyles The BESPOKE idea extends beyond hardworking hands. Surf Rider, Trailblazer, Mountaineer, and other outdoor-inspired formulas reflect the different environments skin encounters during an active life. Salt water, chlorine, sweat, sunscreen residue, trail dust, dry mountain air, wind, soil, and repeated showers can all influence how skin feels at the end of the day. These bars are formulated around the cleansing experience that follows those activities rather than making exaggerated claims about protecting skin from the environment itself. A cooling Peppermint bar after swimming, a woodsy botanical blend after a day on the trail, or a more conditioning formula during dry mountain weather can turn post-activity cleansing into a simple skincare ritual. Pure Essential Oils Chosen Around the Experience Fragrance doesn't determine the purpose of a BESPOKE bar, but aroma is still an important part of how the formula comes together. Peppermint, Tea Tree, Cedarwood, Vetiver, Eucalyptus, Lavender, Rosemary, Orange, Juniper, Patchouli, Ginger, and other pure essential oils are layered differently according to the character of each blend. Bogue uses pure pressed or steam-distilled essential oils rather than synthetic fragrance oils. The result can be cooling, herbal, bright, woodsy, grounding, or resinous depending on the soap. Aroma becomes part of the transition from work or activity into the cleansing ritual that follows. Purpose-Built in Ojai, California BESPOKE could only have developed from the life surrounding the Bogue soap workshop. Ojai's gardens, citrus groves, mountain trails, ranches, workshops, wellness traditions, and proximity to the California coast provide both inspiration and real-world uses for these soaps. The valley is home to farmers, gardeners, artists, craftspeople, cooks, cyclists, hikers, makers, and people who spend a great deal of their lives outdoors. Many of the activities behind BESPOKE are not marketing concepts—they are part of the culture and landscape in which Bogue soap has developed. That connection to place gives individual formulas a reason to exist beyond scent. From Grandma Helen's Soap Bench to BESPOKE Bogue's soapmaking tradition began when Grandma Helen Bogue opened Dos Manos in Ojai in 1973. Over three generations, practical experience making, testing, adjusting, cutting, curing, and using soap created the foundation for increasingly specialized formulations. BESPOKE represents that experience in perhaps its clearest form. A gardener's bar, chef's soap, workshop scrub, beach soap, trail bar, and yoga-inspired blend do not need to behave identically simply because they all begin with goat milk. The milk matters. The complete formula matters too. And in BESPOKE, the reason for the formula begins with the person using it. Find a Goat Milk Soap Built for What You Do Whether you're searching for soap for gardeners, exfoliating soap for hardworking hands, kitchen hand soap, mechanic soap, soap after swimming, post-workout soap, hiking soap, outdoor soap, botanical yoga soap, mineral clay soap, activated charcoal soap, or purpose-built goat milk soap, BESPOKE begins with the activity and builds the formulation from there. Explore all Handmade Goat Milk Soap, including Moisturizing Goat Milk Soap, Exfoliating Goat Milk Soap, and aromatherapy-focused WELLNESS Goat Milk Soap. For the garden. The kitchen. The workshop. The trail. The water. The yoga mat. Purpose-built goat milk soap, made in Ojai.