Tamalpais-Homestead Valley, CA Outdoor Activities

Dan Sacks and his team of veteran instructors at Bay Area Custom Golf boost swing skills and course confidence with custom club-fitting services and personalized instruction in a state-of-the-art 1,100-square-foot facility. During private 45-minute lessons, instructors use video analysis to help identify any quirks that may affect swing. Once grip, alignment, posture, and proper plaid pairings have been tweaked, students can send dimpled spheres soaring into a practice net. The facility also offers services for custom club fitting, pairing players with clubs by boiling down elements of a golfer's stroke and current club dynamics.

As a surfer and cyclist, Marcel Mijares was drawn to the Pacific Coast many years ago; since then, he’s found little reason to leave. A native of Venezuela, Mijares spoke only Spanish when he made the move, but his love of the Bay Area fueled his drive to acquire the English language and graduate with honors from the Lincoln School of Business. Now, as the owner of High Trails Cyclery, Mijares combines his passion with his determination, sharing both with riders in the heart of Russian Hill. He leads a team of cycling experts equipped to repair cycles and perform tune-ups, overhauls, and bike fittings. Team members also share their expertise during maintenance classes, in which they teach students to care for their own cycles and understand the dangers of trying to change a bicycle's transmission fluid.

At Rhythm Tennis, students learn the ins and outs of the sport with one-on-one instruction from coach Greg, a San Francisco Men's Champion Division winner. Beginners learn to defeat competitors and screen the air for migrating cicadas by mastering fundamentals and strokes such as the forehand, backhand, and volley. Onsite tennis pros also restring rackets and offer tips and tricks on gear.

Even before you climb inside, the GoCar is clearly a car with a personality. The petite, three-wheeled two-seater has a hood that slightly resembles an eager-to-please smiley face, and an open top that seems custom-made for letting the breeze ruffle your hair. Then the real fun begins: built with the company's own software and a compassion for the voiceless robots of America, a talking GPS system guides two-seater GoCars through the city streets of San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon with cheerful, info-rich narration. Second only to having a knowledgeable local jog alongside your minivan, tours zip along at drivers' own pace and accommodate as many pit stops as time allows.

Challenge Nation pioneered the urban-adventure race with a race season that includes visits to 35 cities across the country. Each scavenger hunt is personalized to the hosting city, exploring its many diverse neighborhoods with a series of clues that would test even the most skilled children's-book detective. The teams—comprised of at least two people—vie for a $300 first-place prize. The _Amazing Race_–style competition rewards quick wits and wise planning over physical fitness, so the best way to prepare is by doing logic puzzles while eating Funyuns and lounging in a La-Z-Boy. The top 25 teams qualify, the top five receiving free entry, to compete in the national championship, which rewards winning teams with a $5,000 cash prize.

Led by Golf Range’s Top 50 Golf Instructor Ralph Landrum, World of Golf’s staff of game-improvement gurus help players lower their golf scores with an array of golf-related activities. Private lessons conducted inside a climate-controlled swing room allow students to launch golf balls out onto the range while four cameras capture bad habits such as flat takeaways or saying “um” too much during their follow-through. Afterward, players can use their instructor’s pointers to build muscle memory on the rest of the complex’s practice facilities, which include an outdoor range with 24 mat tees and two sets of grass tees, indoor hitting nets with eight stalls, and an indoor putting and chipping green.

As soon as golfers feel they’ve practiced enough, they put their newfound knowledge to the test on the executive 18-hole golf course, with 14 par 3s and four par 4s, or the miniature golf course. When weather renders either course unplayable, thwackers move indoors to the golf simulator, which recreates the look and feel of more than 50 courses or a hodgepodge of 18 famous holes but without the extremely long between-hole travel times. World of Golf keeps a busy schedule of lessons, classes, and leagues, all of which can be found on the calendar.