Things to Do in National City

Inside the colorful CeramiCafe, more than 500 bare pieces of pottery await creative embellishments and an eventual trip to the kiln. Mugs, banks, figurines, and tiles become canvases for visitors, who can personalize them using provided stencils or by covering them with recent grocery receipts. The helpful staff glaze and fire pieces to seal in artwork and create a glossy sheen, with final products ready for debut in five days. Outside the pottery realm, in mosaic projects, artists can use glass tiles, marbles, and broken pottery to doll up picture frames, mirrors, or plaques. Meanwhile, parents can immortalize a child's early days by pressing their tiny hands and favorite action figure into a pad of clay to make a lasting print.

Possessing nearly 30 years of experience, Captain Nathan Beall guides anglers on The Long Run, a 42-foot six-pack sportfishing charter. Venturing into waters off San Diego and Mexico, Beall and his crew cast out live bait or plastic lures during both trolling and drifting trips. Catches vary by season, and may include hauls of lingcod, halibut, and multiple species of tuna. For trophy hunters, Beall takes anglers on excursions for shark and marlin. Trips can last from a few hours to 2.5 days, and The Long Run enhances guests’ comfort with a full galley, sound system, and eco-friendly engine that minimizes fumes and noise.

Cleaning is included with most trips, though crews enforce a catch-and-release policy for protected species, such as shark and scuba divers. In addition to guided fishing trips, Beall charters The Long Run for private parties, sunset cruises, and whale watching.

True connoisseurs can taste the character of a city in its beer, especially those cities constructed mostly from hops and barley. Sample the sudsy side of San Diego with today's Groupon: for $89, you get a luxury brewery tour for two from Brew Hop (a $190 value).

Years of fishing in local waterways have taught the specialists at So Cal Fly Fishing how to attract fish swimming in different conditions. During fly-tying classes and casting lessons, they share this knowledge with students, outfitting them with nets, flies, rods, and reels, and then teaching them how to outwit trout by imitating their food sources. They also take groups out to explore the local surf for halibut, the bay for mackerel, and offshore waters for yellowfin tuna and the mythical creatures that are turned into fish sticks.

Where You Want to Be Tours was launched as a walking-tour company in 2003 and since then has offered tours of San Diego that take locals and visitors to spots such as Balboa Park and the shores of La Jolla. Most adventures last more than two hours, so tourists have plenty of time to stop and sightsee or fold obsolete guidebooks into three-corner hats that will shade their eyes from the sun. Today, the company has expanded its offerings with bike tours of locations such as Pacific Beach and Mission Bay and urban scavenger hunts, which present a hands-on approach to urban exploration, turning tour routes into racecourses and throwing in physical challenges, including Frisbee-throwing contests.

This little girl looks like a butterfly landed on her face, and this is only part of the reason why she's smiling so brightly. A face-painting brigade is visiting Play Town, decorating visages with intricate designs before sending kids down the tube slide.

Play Town is no ordinary indoor playground.

Sure, sock-footed kids age six and under can tight rope across a balance beam, scamper up a ramp to a network of tube slides, or play real-estate agent in a cottage playhouse but Play Town also enhances their playtime with a calendar of events that includes visits from face painters, cartoon characters, and princesses. Kids can also take movement classes or spend a few hours making crafts, while infants and toddlers play with soft blocks and parents take advantage of free wireless internet access.