The Santa Monica Farmer’s Market has endless choices of cultural delights and bountiful opportunities of every culinary variety. California is known for its fresh food, but the Farmer’s Market goes a couple steps further, supplying arts, crafts, and face painting for the kiddies, to local coffee and exotic fare for the adults; the market is the best way to spend a day with the entire family to enjoy new sights, smells, and the sound of delicious food cooking only a couple blocks from the beach.

Parasailing is gaining traction as one of the best activities to do with your bestie or significant other. Take a boat ride on the sapphire waters, strap in, and rise 800 feet in the air, and watch your fears and worries of the workday melt away as sweeping landscapes of land and sea entertain your mind. Marina Del Rey Parasailing offers thrilling views of Santa Monica and its surrounding areas with a dose of fun and a splash of the Pacific on the way back down.

You don’t have to travel down PCH to Huntington Beach if you want to get your surf on. Santa Monica Beach offers the perfect coast to jam out to those Beach Boy songs while spotting eye-candy along the way. North of the Santa Monica Pier, you will find luscious and soft sand that you can walk along at night under a twinkling highway of stars or choose to lotion up and brave the sun during the day. If you decide to surf the magical waters, there are plenty of local instructors to teach you.

Located next to the Santa Monica Airport, Skyward Aviation will meet all your dreams of flying by becoming a pilot. With a fantastic learning program and easy-going yet knowledgeable instructors, it’s known throughout LA that Skyward Aviation is the best location to obtain your pilot’s license, whether it be private or commercial. A bonus to this destination are the views as you learn amidst the backdrop of the coral sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

The largest urban national park in the United States is one of the best ways to spend a couple hours hiking the Santa Monica Mountains, where you don’t only overlook the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean, but see Santa Monica and the majority of Los Angeles from unparalleled heights while being in the middle of nature.

Sometimes you just need a good book from your favorite author and a couple hours away from the world to feel rejuvenated. Free Little Libraries are miniature libraries that can be found on the corners of Santa Monica and are popping up all over the world in literature-loving neighborhoods. They are an answer to a book lover’s prayers, as they offer everyone the ability to borrow a book and possibly donate one in turn, or just return the one you ‘rent,’ mirroring your local library.