Things To Do in Escondido

Though they operate more than 200 locations in upwards of 30 states, the team behind U.S. Baseball Academy aims to make each young athlete's experience a personal one. Their four- or six-week camps are taught by local instructors who are current or former coaches at the high school or college level, and typically offer a 6:1 or better player-to-teacher ratio for intense, professional-style training. The Academy's proven itinerary of hitting, pitching, fielding, and baserunning drills was developed by an advisory board of college coaches and Major League players, including Cy Young Award–winner and ace pitcher Brandon Webb.

Vital Climbing Gym combines the facilities of a rock-climbing center with the comforts of a coffee lounge, giving members a place to strengthen their bodies and relax their minds. The 24-hour gym entices members to climb at any time of day without concern for injury on rocky walls that are built for bouldering, a style of climbing that keeps climbers low to the ground and requires no safety equipment or backup support. Before or after climbing sessions, clients can relax on a comfortable couch, sip a hot beverage from the espresso machine, connect to the gym’s WiFi network, and talk technique with fellow climbers.

Each arena at The Paintball Park brings in fresh equipment every season to keep paintballers on their toes. Barricades, bunkers, trenches, and tall trees provide ample cover for firing off shots at opponents, ducking from overhead fire, or meeting to discuss how to get the pizza-delivery man into the fortress unharmed. Games of elimination battles give players a chance to take out the other team while sprinting between the wreckage of tanks and helicopters.

Each of the Paintball Park's paintball fields has a distinct feel. Running beneath dinosaur sculptures lends to a carefree sensation, and trying to find an entrance in endless, gray castle walls evokes the sense that one is an ancient warrior who left his keys somewhere.

The staff at Unified Team Diving can transform someone who's never scuba dived before into a professional diver with their expansive menu of classes and courses. In their onsite heated swimming pool, instructors orient students to the world of breathing and exploring underwater. Combined with classroom sessions, they can award their students various certifications such as recreational diver, technical diver, diving instructor, and overhead diver, which includes cave diving. They conduct their training dives at the nearby La Jolla shores, which offer shallow wrecks, walls, and kelp for students to explore.

Under the expert tutelage of former pro Brandon Sieh, ball-swatting beginners will learn tennis basics, while rehearsed racketeers will discover new techniques to close out matches and improve their games. During the 60-minute lesson, Brandon, a specialist in women's doubles play, can help better backhands, spring a spin on serves, fine-tune footwork, shine up short angle shots, and key students in on which shade of white tennis shorts proves most distracting to opponents.

At La Jolla Water Sports, guides undergo extensive training before captaining snorkeling excursions into the calm, crystalline waters of the Pacific. The experts escort 6 to 12 patrons at a time on shark tours of the shallow, sandy flats where small-mouthed leopard sharks up to 5 feet long lounge on their easy chairs of sand. Snorkeling tours of the La Jolla cove grant participants, including beginners and kids, a siren's-eye view of rock formations, underwater flora, and marina critters including garibaldi fish, sea cucumbers, anemones, and starfish. The most action-packed of La Jolla Water Sports's offerings are the spearfishing tours in which leaders expound on the importance of safety and proper form as customers skewer fish before schlepping them home for dinner or as treats for pet grizzly bears.