This post was created in partnership with Visit Vacaville as part of a sponsored trip. As always, all opinions and experiences shared are my own.
I was surprised by how much there is to do in Vacaville in just one day. We spent the day visiting a local farm, trying different restaurants, shopping, learning about the area’s history, and walking around its charming downtown.
We followed this itinerary during our trip, starting the morning at a fourth-generation family farm and ending the day with a farm-to-table dinner downtown. Each stop felt different than the last, so we were able to experience many sides of Vacaville without the day feeling repetitive.
This itinerary works well for couples, solo travelers, and families, and you can adjust the timing based on what interests you the most. Here’s how we spent one day in Vacaville, California.
One Day in Vacaville Itinerary at a Glance
Here’s the itinerary we followed during our day in Vacaville:
- 10:00 AM – Brazelton Ranch
- 11:30 AM – Lunch at Rice Barn
- 1:00 PM – Vacaville Premium Outlets
- 2:30 PM – Vacaville Museum & Historic Homes
- 3:30 PM – Downtown Vacaville
- 5:30 PM – Dinner at BackDoor | Bistro & Wine Bar
Start Your Day at Brazelton Ranch
We started our day at Brazelton Ranch, a fourth-generation family farm that has been part of Vacaville since 1915. You’ll find it along Gates Canyon Road, a little farther outside the main city area, surrounded by rolling hills and farmland.
The farm grows more than 50 varieties of stone fruit, including peaches, apricots, nectarines, pluots, and apriums. During the summer, their farm stand is stocked with seasonal fruit, vegetables, jams, and other local products. In the winter, usually starting around January, they also sell Satsuma mandarins.
Since Brazelton Ranch is a bit farther out from central Vacaville, I liked starting the day here. The drive was scenic with the surrounding hills, and it was a nice way to begin the trip by learning more about Vacaville’s agricultural side before heading into the busier parts of the city. It’s also a good first stop if you want to pick up fresh fruit, produce, or locally made jams to take home.
We spent about 30 minutes here, but I’d plan for around 30-45 minutes depending on how much time you want to spend browsing. There’s a large parking area, and the staff was helpful with directing cars when we visited.
Our visit was a little different from a normal day because we were there during the 10th Annual Open Farm Day, when several historic farms around Vacaville were open with vendors, activities, and other special events. Brazelton Ranch felt almost like a farmers market set up right on the farm.
We walked through the stalls, talked with vendors, and sampled dried fruit, fresh plums, and jams. One of my favorite parts was learning more about the products directly from the people selling them. We ended up bringing home a jar of persimmon butter.
While you may not see the same vendor setup or Open Farm Day activities, you’d still get to buy fresh, seasonal produce directly from a longtime local farm.
Just keep in mind that what’s available changes throughout the year, so the selection will depend on when you visit.
Lunch at Rice Barn
For lunch, we stopped at Rice Barn Thai Eatery and Wine Bar, a casual Thai restaurant with modern decor that combines traditional Thai flavors with fresh California ingredients. Their menu includes dishes inspired by different parts of Thailand, especially Northern and Northeastern Thai cuisine.
We ordered the Pad Asparagus with tofu, along with the Green Curry with chicken. We also shared brown rice and ordered a Mango Nata made with mango, mango syrup, mint, and soda.
Both dishes were packed with flavor, but the Green Curry was my favorite. We’ve had plenty of Thai coconut curries over the years, but this was the first time I’d had fried eggplant in one, and it added so much more flavor. The portions were also generous, and we ended up taking leftovers from both dishes home.
We didn’t specify a spice level when ordering, and I found both dishes fairly spicy, while my husband didn’t think they were that spicy. If you have a lower spice tolerance like me, I’d recommend asking for mild or no spice. You can always add more afterward since they also provide spicy condiments on the side.
The Mango Nata was definitely sweet, but I loved the mango flavor alongside the spicier dishes.
Rice Barn opens at 11:30 AM, so we arrived right when they opened. It was quiet at first, our food came out fairly quickly, and the staff was friendly, but it started getting busier after noon. I called the day before to ask about reservations, and we didn’t need one for two people at the time we were visiting.
Parking was easy since the restaurant is in a shopping center with a large parking lot. They also have vegetarian options and a separate vegan menu online, if you or someone in your group has different dietary preferences.
Plan to spend around 1–1½ hours here. Vacaville has a variety of cuisines to try, and we love getting Thai food whenever we visit somewhere new. It’s also conveniently located in the main city area and close to our next stops.
Shop at Vacaville Premium Outlets
After lunch, we stopped at Vacaville Premium Outlets, a large shopping destination with more than 95 stores, including Nike Factory Store, Coach Outlet, Michael Kors Outlet, Polo Ralph Lauren Factory Store, The North Face, and Levi’s Outlet Store. You’ll find everything from clothing and shoes to accessories and home goods, and it’s located right off I-80 near Nut Tree Road.
How long you spend here really depends on how much you want to shop. If you’re just browsing or checking out a few stores, plan for around 30 minutes. If shopping is a bigger part of your day, you could easily spend 1–2 hours here.
It gave us a chance to see another side of Vacaville beyond its farms, restaurants, and historic downtown. If you enjoy shopping or want to look for deals, it’s easy to work into your day. But if shopping isn’t a priority, you can definitely shorten or skip this stop and spend that extra time exploring downtown Vacaville instead.
Explore Vacaville Museum
After the outlets, we headed to the Vacaville Museum to learn more about the history and culture of Vacaville and the surrounding Solano County area. The museum has been around since the 1980s and focuses on preserving local history through artifacts, photographs, stories, and rotating exhibits.
When we visited, the featured exhibit was Sole Italiano: Una Nuova Storia, which runs through November 14, 2026. It explores the experiences of Italian American families who came to Solano County between the 1850s and 1950s, along with the generations who built their lives here afterward.
The exhibit included old family photos, farming tools, fruit crates, household items, artwork, and even a vintage Vespa. The displays connected everyday objects with the stories of the people who used them.
One of my favorite parts was the “Women at the Table” display, which highlighted the lives and contributions of women in these families and showed how food, traditions, and family stories were carried through generations.
Plan to spend around 45 minutes to 1½ hours here depending on the current exhibit and how much time you like to spend reading the displays.
Admission is free, although there’s a suggested $5 donation per person to help support the museum’s exhibits and programs.
The museum is open Thursday-Friday from 1-4:30 PM and Saturday from 10AM-4:30 PM. Since the hours are limited, I’d check the museum’s current schedule before planning your visit.
There’s a parking lot behind the museum along with street parking in front, so you can leave your car here while visiting the museum and then walk to some of the nearby historic homes.
See Vacaville’s Historic Homes
After visiting the museum, we walked over to see some of Vacaville’s historic homes along Buck Avenue. Vacaville has a Historic Homes Walking Tour that takes you past homes and buildings throughout the area, but we did a shorter version and visited four homes close to the museum: 218, 225, 301, and 306 Buck Avenue.
The homes date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, and it was fun to walk along the quiet streets looking at the historic architecture, large trees, beautifully groomed lawns, and little details around each property. Even the mailboxes caught our attention! Several had decorative, old-fashioned freestanding mailboxes that fit perfectly with the historic homes behind them.
One of the most interesting parts was comparing what some of these homes cost when they were built with prices today. The home at 218 Buck Avenue was built in 1903 for $3,500, which is roughly $130,000 in 2026 dollars based on historical inflation estimates. The William Henry Buck House at 301 Buck Avenue was built in 1892 for $5,000, or roughly $186,000 today in terms of purchasing power.
The home at 306 Buck Avenue was currently pending sale after being listed for $1,550,000. The inflation comparisons above aren’t estimates of what the historic homes should sell for today, but I thought it was interesting to see how dramatically the numbers have changed.
The walking tour is self-guided, so you can pull up the PDF on your phone and explore at your own pace. Keep in mind that these are private homes, so admire them from the sidewalk and be respectful of the residents.
We spent around 10–20 minutes seeing the four homes closest to the museum. If you want to follow more of the historic homes tour or complete most of it, I’d plan for around 1–2 hours of walking.
Walk Around Downtown Vacaville
After seeing the historic homes, we drove toward Downtown Vacaville. Main Street and the surrounding blocks have a chill, small-town feel with restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, historic buildings, public art, and little side streets to wander through. There’s free street parking along with public parking lots, so you can park once and explore the area on foot.
Stop by at Vacaville Old Town Hall. Built in 1907, it was one of the earlier reinforced-concrete buildings constructed in the West and once served several purposes, including as the town jail, fire department headquarters, and town court. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and is now home to local historical organizations.
You can still see “Jail,” “Fire Dept.,” and “Town Hall” carved across the front, along with the tower above it. There’s also a plaque outside that shares more of its history.
Nearby Andrews Park is another easy place to walk through. There happened to be a night market taking place when we visited, but events here vary throughout the year, so check what’s happening during your trip. Even when there isn’t an event, you can still walk through the park .
From there, head over to Town Square, a tree-lined gathering area in the middle of downtown. You’ll see its tall clock tower along with places to sit and relax. While you’re here, look for the colorful cow sculpture. “Vaca” means cow in Spanish, and the artwork honors Vacaville’s Hispanic heritage and the early settlers who farmed the area. The colorful murals across the sculpture celebrate the area’s farming and Hispanic heritage.
As you walk around Main Street, keep an eye out for murals tucked into side streets and alleys, along with sculptures and other pieces of public art. Plan to spend around 30 minutes to an hour exploring downtown depending on how much you want to browse and how many stops you make.
End With Dinner at BackDoor | Bistro & Wine Bar
We ended our day with dinner at BackDoor Bistro and Wine Bar, a woman-owned, farm-to-table restaurant right next to Town Square. Owner and head chef Lindsey Chelini is a Vacaville native, and the restaurant focuses on seasonal dishes made with locally sourced, organic, and sustainable ingredients from California farms.
The inside has a cozy, rustic-chic feel with wood tables, warm pendant lights, reclaimed-looking wood walls, vintage doors used as decor, and a wine bar at the entrance.
The restaurant is a little tucked away behind Town Square, but there are signs around the area so you won’t miss it.
Our dinner was hosted by Visit Vacaville as part of this trip, and we had a 5:30 PM reservation. I’d recommend making a reservation or calling ahead to ask whether you’ll need one.
We started with complimentary focaccia served with olive oil and balsamic vinegar before sharing two entrees.
The Mary’s Organic Roasted Half Chicken came with black garlic glaze, garlic cream sauce, chive oil, and a side of cheddar polenta. The chicken was incredibly juicy, and you could taste the brined flavor even deeper into the meat rather than only on the outside. I also loved the polenta, which had a golden, slightly crunchy top with a soft and creamy center underneath.
We also shared the Elote Risotto, made with Brentwood corn, shishito peppers, Calabrian chili, lime, Parmesan, crispy garlic, and micro cilantro. It had a nice kick from the peppers without overpowering the other flavors. I liked eating the risotto alongside the chicken and polenta because every part of the meal tasted different, but they all worked really well together.
The menu also includes suggested wine pairings for many of the dishes, which is helpful if you want to pair your dinner with a glass of wine.
For dessert, we ordered the house made olive oil cake with seasonal fruit and fruit jam, whipped vanilla yogurt, and walnut crumble. I have a sweet tooth, and this was honestly one of the best desserts I’ve had in months! The cake was slightly crumbly on the outside but soft and chewy inside. I loved how the sweet cake complemented the tart vanilla yogurt and crunchy walnuts. And we noticed Vacaville’s seasonal peaches and jam on the top.
I’d plan for around 1½–2 hours for dinner, depending on what you order and whether you add appetizers, drinks, or dessert.
BackDoor was a great place to finish our Vacaville itinerary. The restaurant had a relaxed neighborhood-bistro atmosphere and the food was delicious. Since the menu changes with the seasons, the exact dishes we had may not always be available, which is part of the fun of the farm-to-table concept.
Since it’s right by Town Square, you can also walk around downtown again after dinner and see Main Street and the surrounding trees lit up at night. Before leaving, check out the large “Downtown Vacaville” sign on Davis Street. We saw it after dark, when the sign and the lights wrapped around the nearby trees were glowing!
Final Thoughts
Vacaville surprised me with how much variety we could fit into one day, from farms and local food to history, shopping, and downtown. By the end of the day, I felt like we got a great introduction to Vacaville while still leaving plenty to explore next time.
