Things To Do in Laguna Beach

Schooling hitters with its Iron Mike professional pitching machines, training cages, and certified instructors, the Laguna Beach hitting emporium helps sharpen the swings of players of all ages. All machines within the outdoor, mesh-shielded facility pelt backstops at a distance of 46 feet from home plate–allowing batters to hone their timing–and are capable of simulating real-life pitching speeds between 35 and 85 mph, while catering to left handers, right handers, and no handers alike.

Atop Pirate Coast Paddle Co.’s fleet of standup paddleboards, guests glide over the placid inlets of Newport Beach Back Bay in scenic excursions. The paddleboards—which look like slightly larger, heavier surfboards—offer a sturdy enough base for guests to stand upright and propel themselves with a single oar, an action that exercises core muscles better than doing sit-ups with a porpoise on your chest.

Led by a staff of nautical guides, paddleboarding tours send clients into the orange horizon during sunset paddle outings and enjoy an ocean view of the stars during full-moon SUP parties. Pirate Coast also offers private, semi-private, and group lessons. During all excursions, Pirate Coast provides boards and necessary equipment rentals, letting clients worry about how to stave off scurvy while on the ocean.

Catalina Island may reside a mere 75 minutes from Newport Beach, but that's no reason why visitors shouldn't travel there in style. The Catalina Flyer allows them to do just that, accommodating as many as 600 passengers who spend their speedy journey relaxing on the sun decks, enjoying a drink in one of two full-service cocktail lounges, or gazing out the viewing windows and watching for migrating schools of sushi rice.

After disembarking in Avalon, visitors are encouraged to take advantage of Catalina Island's many shopping, dining, and recreational opportunities, which include everything from golf and ziplines to horseback riding, undersea tours, and even buffalo watching. Hotel accommodations facilitate overnight stays, ensuring that weekenders have ample time to enjoy the island before taking the afternoon voyage back to the mainland.

Under strings of lanterns and the night's canopy of stars, kids scamper through a field filled with thousands of pumpkins, each one searching for the biggest, roundest one. Finding it is one thing; lifting it is another. The bountiful Pumpkin City's Pumpkin Farm began a bit by happenstance—the owners originally began selling pumpkins out of the back of their pickup and steadily added on amusements as more people came each year. More than 30 years later, the one-month harvest festival sets up each October with attractions ranging from pony rides to puppet shows. As they explore the area amid bales of hay, teepees, character cutouts, and other props, kids can feed baby goats and sheep at the petting zoo or sit on an authentic tractor from 1932. Once guests have procured the perfect pumpkin to carve into the likeness of their favorite monster, they can get their picture taken with Pumpkin Jack, hop on rides such as the Goliath Slide or Pumpkin City Express Train, or visit Gone Fishing, Knock 'Em Down, and other game booths.

A loss of speech is common in the presence of the evening sky's colorful time lapse, though the silence won't last long with the boatload of socialites aboard. Mingle with undiscovered singles or spend some quality time with an established first mate. On a calm evening, careful ears can even catch notes echoing along the waves emanating from coastal music venues. The journey follows the Newport Beach in the elusive illumination of the setting sun. Those who are somehow immune to the spell of the ocean's calming charm can blissfully escape and feast upon the complimentary nirvana of chips and salsa.

Having grown up on a farm in central Canada, Marlowe Huber already knew about crop harvesting and soil when he began making wine in the early 1980s. He refined his skills still further by studying oenology in Vancouver before embarking on his first wine-business venture with his brother, Darren. Together they ran two wineries in British Columbia for 15 years before opening Laguna Canyon Winery in 2003.

Today, staffers pour out a diverse selection of Laguna Canyon wines at two tasting rooms in downtown Laguna Beach and at the winery itself. Marlowe and Darren also collaborated with marine artist Wyland to create his Wyland Cellars label, whose bottles he adorns with colorful undersea scenes. Grapes for these wines are sourced from low-yield growers in Napa and Sonoma valleys, who cultivate subtle flavors by hand-picking and home-schooling their fruits.