After graduation, Van Patten moved to Santa Barbara, California where he and a Chilean partner started a landscape garden business. There he grew "sinsemilla" (Latin for 'without seeds') marijuana illegally in Los Padres National Forest near Santa Barbara. Sinsemilla was the "new" high-quality cannabis that Mexicans reserved for domestic consumption at the time. In 1979 Van Patten and his partner sold the landscape garden business and embarked on a year-long travel excursion with their girlfriends through the heart of Mexico, Central America, and South America.