The 36 Best Activities in the United States

The ivy-clad château and its Bordeaux-inspired Cabernet Sauvignons have landed Jordan on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, at number thirteen. You visit by touring the 485-acre estate, then settling in for wine and food pairings in the vineyard or the library. The "Paris on the Terrace" experience leans hard into the French fantasy, with charcuterie, bread, estate olive oil, and music included, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your relationship with themed dining.

The tasting room's camera-aperture architecture, all dramatic angles and floor-to-ceiling glass, was designed to pull your eye toward the vineyards outside, which is a neat trick given what's in the glass. Aperture Cellars pours Bordeaux-inspired Sonoma wines across a few tasting tiers, from introductory blends up to a private gallery session with limited releases. A rotating photography exhibition runs throughout. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

Half of this 532-acre Oregon estate is left deliberately wild, which tells you most of what you need to know about how the Momtazi family thinks about farming. Maysara is a biodynamic winery in the Van Duzer Corridor where Persian philosophy, specifically a 7,000-year-old Zoroastrian framework about nature's elements, shapes every decision in the vineyard. Visits center on five-wine tasting flights from Momtazi Vineyard, and it holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

A 400-year-old oak grove shades the estate, and somewhere nearby, the former landowner is buried after losing a duel over livestock. This Hill Country winery outside Hye takes its Texas setting seriously, growing estate Tannat vines and running tastings from barrel room visits to guided food and wine pairings. Ranked 31st on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, it draws everyone from serious collectors to families with dogs in tow.

The oldest vines here went into the ground in 1973, and the estate has been Demeter Biodynamic Certified ever since the current team took the reins. This Willamette Valley winery in the Eola-Amity Hills pours flights and hosts guided vineyard tours, monthly tasting menus, and cooking and gardening classes. Dogs are welcome, which says something about the general vibe. It landed at number 35 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

Insignia, the estate's flagship Bordeaux-style blend, is the reason most visitors make the turn onto Taplin Road. Joseph Phelps is a hillside Napa winery with panoramic vineyard views and several tasting formats, from a current-releases pour to a library session that pulls older vintages of Insignia alongside the newest ones. The World's 50 Best Vineyards ranks it at number 37, which tracks with the crowd, who tend to arrive having done their homework.

The winery that taught Napa Valley it was allowed to take itself seriously, Robert Mondavi sits inside the To Kalon vineyard in Oakville, where cabernet sauvignon and fumé blanc have been the whole point for decades. Tastings, tours, and culinary pairings fill the recently renovated estate, and the place has been doing winery tourism longer than most. It lands at number 39 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

The Coppola family's Napa estate is the kind of place that makes wine tasting feel like a film set, which is more or less what it is. Guests sip through a Bordeaux-influenced collection inside the redesigned Athenaeum or at courtyard pergolas overlooking vineyards and a fountain pool. The clever bit: model boats for kids in the water while the adults handle the serious business. A 50 Discovery from The 50.

The visitor center, designed by Javier Barba with exposed rock walls, grand arches, and glass framing the Vaca Mountains, is quietly showing off, and it has every right to. This is a wine estate winery tour and tasting in the Napa Valley pocket where the 1976 Judgment of Paris blind tasting humbled the French, with a Cabernet Sauvignon that nobody in the room was supposed to pick first.

Holographic dinosaurs roam the floor at Zoocade, a family entertainment venue that bills itself as the nation's first holographic zoo. The tech, from Axiom Holographics, puts you among T. rexes, ocean depths, and African savanna wildlife without anyone getting eaten, which the movie franchise never quite managed. Classic arcade games fill out the day when the dinos get old, which, judging by the kids, takes a while.

The ferry to Sausalito leaves from Fisherman's Wharf, which means you start in the loudest possible version of San Francisco before the engine kicks in and the city quietly peels away behind you. Blue & Gold Fleet is the bay's main ferry operator, running routes to Sausalito, Oracle Park, and Chase Center. The crossing itself is the point: Coit Tower shrinking, the water coming up over the bow, the skyline doing its slow goodbye.

A walking food tour that threads through Japantown for a couple of hours, stopping at restaurants, grocery stores, and family-run shops that most visitors walk right past. Small groups eat, drink, and hear the neighborhood's stories from guides who are plainly obsessed with the place. Japantown reads quiet from the outside, but that changes fast once you're in.

The DJ here plays real saxophone solos during your Motown number and rosins up an actual fiddle when someone calls "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." This folksy Scottsdale bar and grill runs karaoke every night of the week, which already puts it in rare company in the Valley. The live accompaniment means no one has to endure a slide that reads "Instrumental Break, 16 Bars" while the singer reconsiders their choices.

Half skate park, half food rescue operation, 4DWN is the kind of place that makes you feel slightly lazy for only doing one thing with your afternoon. Professional skaters built the ramps, and the same organization diverts fresh produce from landfills and hands it out free each week, no processed food allowed. Show up to skate, to volunteer, or just to watch people who are considerably better on wheels than you will ever be.

You sign a waiver, pull on safety gear, and then someone hands you a crate of breakable things and walks away. Breakthrough is a smash room, which means the activity is exactly what it sounds like: hurling bottles and retired appliances at walls until your arms give out. A splatter room handles the paint-throwing crowd. It's a surprisingly efficient way to reset, and considerably cheaper than the destruction of property charge waiting just outside.

Indoor putting venue where a laser dot shifts the tee-off position each round so the same 18 holes play differently every time. The smooth, well-graded course runs from forgiving to genuinely tricky, and pros are on hand to fix your stroke without making you feel like a hazard to society. The attached Bar19 does above-average bar food and decent pours, though the signage probably shouldn't need to say "don't overdo it before you putt."

Up to eight players can fight off zombie hordes or battle robots in deep space without leaving Scottsdale, which sounds like a gimmick until you're actually sweating. Velocity VR is a group entertainment venue with multiplayer virtual reality at its center, plus go-karts, axe-throwing, and food and drinks for when someone needs a breather. It scratches the same social itch as laser tag used to, just with considerably better graphics and more steps logged.

A nonprofit arts center running classes in ceramics, drawing, glass, jewelry, painting, and music across two Phoenix locations, this is the kind of place that assumes you want to actually learn something. Instructors cover theory alongside technique, and most courses run five or six weeks, so the commitment is real but not daunting. A good antidote to wandering a craft store hoping for inspiration to strike.