Good Vibrations

Tap into California’s legendary active outdoor lifestyle

With ideal weather, diverse landscapes, and locals with a knack for innovation, California has everything you need for sporting nirvana, and just about any outdoor activity you can think of is doable in the Golden State. Many of the sports born here are now global activities, a fact reflected in a recent New York Times article about the “Californization” of the Olympic Games. What’s the best way for visitors to tap into the eclectic sports scene? Here are eight activities readily available for experts and newcomers.

Like the rest of the nation, California has experienced an explosion of pickleball. The paddle sport has grown so much that some tennis facilities have converted nearly all their playing space to pickleball.

One of the most radical transformations is the Bobby Riggs Racket & Paddle Club in Encinitas, founded by its namesake tennis legend and now home to 22 courts that invite non-members to join in during daily open play.

It’s easy to see why pickleball has gained so many enthusiasts. Learning the basics is easy and most people can play after just an hour of instruction. For many, it’s a very social game, with time to chat between (and even during) games.

Riding waves on a wooden board may have originated in Hawaii, but many other aspects of global surf culture – from fashion and music to surfing lingo and surfing safaris in old VW vans – evolved along sandy Southern California.

You can catch the world’s best wave riders at events like the annual U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach (July to August) or U.S. Pro Surf Tour events in various cities. Big-wave surfers take on the 60-foot monsters (largest waves on the West Coast) at Mavericks break in Half Moon Bay.

Newbies are welcome at famous beaches like Doheny and Newport in Orange County, Del Mar and Tourmaline Canyon in San Diego, and the Manhattan-Hermosa-Redondo Beach strip in Los Angeles.

You can learn to hang ten (or at the very least stand on a moving board) at many schools. Among the most highly rated are the Santa Barbara Surf School, Surf School Santa Cruz, and female-owned and operated Surf Divas in La Jolla. 

San Diego and San Francisco have hosted the America’s Cup yacht race, and both cities offer a chance to sail aboard former America’s Cup vessels (and crank the hand winches) on their respective bays.

In Los Angeles, Marina del Rey has outfitters that rent everything from a two-person Catalina sailboat to large, skippered, ocean-going yachts. Alternatively, you can pay homage to the past by renting a Hobie Cat at the Mission Bay Sportcenter in San Diego, down the coast from where Hobart “Hobie” Alter invented the fast, little catamaran at his Dana Point surfboard shop.

California also offers myriad places where you can (literally) learn the ropes, like Sail Monterey with its two-hour intro classes and three-day coastal sailing courses.

California’s underwater landscapes are as diverse as the terrain above the surface, and a big draw for divers.

It’s not an obvious choice because it’s so far inland, but Lake Tahoe offers some of the most epic diving. Underwater visibility can range up to 100 feet below the surface at places including Emerald Bay, where the Maritime Heritage Trail features underwater interpretive panels and sunken wrecks.

Dive boats make the short crossing from Santa Barbara or Ventura Harbor to Channel Islands National Park, five islands surrounded by pristine waters inhabited by everything from the bright orange Garibaldi (California’s state fish) to migrating whales.

The state’s best artificial reef to explore is Wreck Alley off the San Diego coast. The site includes six ships that were intentionally sunk to attract fish and marine life. Among the wrecks are a Canadian Royal Navy destroyer and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter.

California courses are among the holy grails of golf and the state boasts around 1,000 places to play, from private country clubs such as Cypress Point on the Monterey Peninsula and the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles to municipal courses like San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Golf Course and the Bijou Municipal Golf Course at Lake Tahoe that are great for learners.

Some of the best include famous public courses where anyone can play – assuming you can get a tee time at uber popular spots Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines, Pelican Hill, or PGA West.

Reserve well in advance. Torrey Pines in San Diego offers non-residents online tee time bookings 4 to 90 days in advance of the day you want to play. It’s easier to get tee times on weekdays or early mornings.

A Scottish-American naturalist introduced the world to California hiking with his descriptions of ambles in Yosemite National Park. Today, the route that bears his name is the state’s premier trekking journey. The 211-mile John Muir Trail that stretches along the crest of the High Sierra mountains between Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon national parks runs mostly in conjunction with the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches nearly 1,700 miles through California deserts and highlands on its route between the Mexico and Canada borders.

There are tons of shorter trails. The Lady Bird Johnson Grove in Redwood National Park is a meandering path through some of the world’s tallest trees. Trails from Mill Valley or Corte Madera to the summit of Mount Tamalpais have jaw-dropping views of the San Francisco Bay Area. And the hike onto the salt flats of the Badwater Basin in Death Valley visits the lowest point in North America (282 feet below sea level).

Millions of Californians are regular road and urban path bikers. The multiuse San Francisco Bay Trail offers 350 miles of flat, easy riding in segments including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Berkeley waterfront, the wetlands of the Baylands Nature Preserve, and the southern end of the wine-splashed Napa Valley.

Another epic ride is a meandering 22-mile route between Pacific Palisades and Palos Verdes along the Los Angeles oceanfront. Along the way are the vintage Santa Monica Pier, the funky Venice Beach Boardwalk, and the super yachts of Marina del Rey.

San Diego’s equivalent is a 12-mile route around Mission Bay with access to sandy beaches, shady picnic areas, bayfront restaurants, and watersports outlets.

These routes are largely vehicle-free, reserved only for bikes and pedestrians. 

Even sandcastle construction is a sport in California and the action takes place at more than a dozen official sandcastle-building festivals and contests.

The San Clemente Ocean Festival stages a sand-sculpting competition with Castle, Creature, and Family categories as well as an Open classification for serious sandcastle architects.

In Northern California, the National Park Service organizes an annual sand sculpture contest at Point Reyes National Seashore, on the beach where Sir Francis Drake may (or may not) have stepped ashore in 1579.

For casual sandcastle building, California boasts more than 420 beaches, where all you need is a bucket, spade, and an active imagination.