Things To Do In Leesburg

Augustine Golf Club's award-winning course was sculpted to reflect its natural beauty with its distinctive par 4s sculpted by course architect, Rick Jacobson. Although the greens at Augustine declined for a few years, recent renovations have restored the course to its former glory, once again luring golfers to its babbling streams and forest. Farther north, rivals Augustine's sister course, Raspberry Falls. Course architect Gary Player remarked that the Falls, once an 18th-century plantation, “was made for a golf course.” Inspired by this ideal setting, he dreamed up the links-style course at Raspberry Falls Golf & Hunt Club, whose meandering brooks, stone walls, and stacked-sod bunkers evoke Scotland, while its vista of the Catoctin Mountains remind players they’re in Virginia.

These golf havens have more than picturesque views in common—they are two of six award-winning courses united by Raspberry Golf Management’s portfolio, which stretches from Virginia to Pennsylvania and skips over to Arizona. Gary Player’s design team for Raspberry Falls included Tim Freeland, who went on to design two of the firm’s other courses: Royal Manchester Golf Links, whose bentgrass fairways sidle up to the Susquehanna River, and Old Hickory Golf Club, a parkland-style course crisscrossed by Beaver Creek. The management company's other gems include The Legacy Golf Resort, where cowboys used to ride their rocking horses around a 7,500-acre ranch, and Bull Run Golf Club, which sprawls across more than 450 acres of meadows and woodlands at the foot of the Bull Run Mountains.

CEO Peter Harvey believes that a quality gym staff must demonstrate more than technical expertise. "Service doesn't only mean showing someone how to do an arm curl," he says. Certified personal trainers develop workouts that zero in on each person’s specific goals, giving clients the skills to pole-vault over impassable plateaus. By steadfastly refusing to hand out fish in favor of putting on master classes in fishing, they help clients become self-sufficient, educating them on fundamentals.

During these one-on-one sessions, and in solo workouts, guests set calories ablaze atop rows of continually updated equipment. Treadmills, recumbent bikes, and strength-training tools line the walls.

Members can also drop in for as many group classes as they can muster. Inside a separate studio, stationary cycles whir in time with galvanizing music, kickboxing strikes arc through the air, and barbells rise with each BodyPump rep. For more meditative practices, Pilates sessions and several types of yoga enhance flexibility and focus.

More than 10,000 students have honed their dance stylings in the Loudoun School of Ballet’s 6,000-square-foot dance facility, their steps echoing through three studios equipped with Marley floors and acoustic ceilings. The school’s graduates have gone on to careers at professional companies and on Broadway thanks to a rigorous year-round training program that starts as early as preschool. The studio's accredited and award-winning instructors sometimes get an assist from guest talent, who encourage upper-level pupils' artistic growth without filling their ballet slippers with fertilizer.

The studio also hosts an adult program geared more toward developing fitness than professional dance careers. Ballet, jazz, and tap courses grant students poise and the ability to conceal cheat sheets of dance tips in their leotards, and fitness courses and Zumba’s easy-to-follow Latin dance moves burn calories and raise heart rates.

Multitudes of furry creatures, both foreign and farm dwelling, reside within the sprawling 21 acres of Leesburg Animal Park's exhilarating grounds. Inquisitive imps and animal-loving adults will be enchanted and educated with exotic animal exhibits featuring lemurs, African serval cats, white-handed gibbons, giant tortoises, and more. For an even closer look, the animal petting and feeding area allows visitors to softly pet heads, scratch ears, and satisfy stomachs of each curious creature they encounter ($1 for a cone of food).

Inspired by the culture and the wines of Argentina, Bogati Bodega is designed to provide guests a welcome respite from the everyday. Guests enjoy internationally styled wine gather and relax in the cool shade of the “Buenos Aires Terrace”.

A 20-year veteran of the Professional Golfers Association, instructor Bud Lintelman imparts his knowledge, skills, and fairway philosophies to beginners and future champions. With a carefully programmed agenda and an eagle eye on individual performance evaluation, the MPACT Golf program aims to get novices on the 18-hole road to low-impact athletic enlightenment. Because golf swings are as varied as snowflakes and Aretha Franklin performances, the program takes an individualized approach to helping students. Using video analysis to meticulously dissect drives—with freeze-frame technology revealing where knees and wrists lead a swing astray and slow-motion to show where follow-throughs go askew—Bud Lintelman uses his expertise to shed fledgling duffers of detrimental habits. Students can choose to focus on whichever skills elude them most, whether that means tightening up the short game, overhauling swing mechanics, or learning how to talk to an emotionally unavailable caddy.