The second-largest stretch of dunes in California spanning 22,000 acres and 18 miles, offering biological diversity, hiking, wildflower viewing, birdwatching, whale watching, and nature photography inside of this National Wildlife Refuge. The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes have played home to movie classics The Ten Commandments, through modern films like Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Sideways, and Hidalgo, featuring sand dunes as high as 500 feet. In just 12 minutes a visitor to Santa Maria can be at the coastal access point in Guadalupe at the Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve to take in pristine natural sand dunes.