2025 Compare Cities Rankings:
Ridgecrest, CA vs Santa Maria, CA

#13 Best Cities for Teleworking - Small Metro Areas

#26 Drought-Riskiest Cities

#34 America's Most (and Least) Stressful Cities (100 Largest Metro Areas)

#36 Most Comfortable Summer Cities

#37 America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime (Large Metro Areas)

#73 High Gas Prices - Which Cities are Hit the Hardest?

#77 2005 High Gas Prices

#88 The Most (and Least) Gender Imbalanced Cities

#94 America's Migraine Hot Spots

#95 The Most Single Cities

#282 2005 Best Places to Live

#300 Best Green Cities

For context, I grew up in Ridgecrest and moved away after graduating high school. I have since lived in LA and the Bay Area but I visit RC often. RC is in the high  More

Ridgecrest and Kern County are red state bastions in a land of blue voting counties. If you want a concealed weapons permit, you'll get it. Want to own any firearm  More

The hardest thing to get used to in Ridgecrest is the weather. It can get quite windy. And hot. 115 hot. But it's a dry heat! It does cool off in the evening, and it  More

I live in Orcutt which is a town of around 35,000 on the south side of Santa Maria. Santa Maria has, as everyone has noted, the best climate in the world. It never  More

I have lived in Santa Maria / Orcutt for several years, but it is time to leave. I have no issues with the weather. Our climate is mild and comfortable with no extremes.  More

The weather is very mild without a huge temperature change with the seasons. The winters are chilly but not cold and the summers are warm but not hot. Of course there  More