PEOPLE who live in the Orlando area will tell you that there is life here beyond the theme parks, gator farms and citrus groves. You can’t go far without stumbling upon a picturesque lake, and the area abounds with small regional museums like the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts in nearby Eatonville. Downtown, the new Amway Center, home of the Orlando Magic, has given a boost to the night-life district on Church Street, and Orlando’s many neighborhoods are home to lounge acts, bars, vintage fast-food joints and brick-paved streets.

Friday

2 p.m.

1) PLUNGE IN

Wakeboarding is to water skiing what snowboarding is to downhill skiing — in other words, the extreme version of the sport — and Orlando likes to call itself the “wakeboarding capital of the world.” At the Orlando Watersports Complex (8615 Florida Rock Road; 407-251-3100; orlandowatersports.com), a beginner’s cable tow, anchored to poles in the lake, pulls you (and your wakeboard) around at 17 miles per hour ($38 for equipment and a two-hour pass). The patient instructor will give you pointers, and you can watch some of the sports’ best-known hotdoggers navigate the ramps and slides.

5 p.m.

2) HIGH DESIGN

Just a few miles from downtown Orlando, Winter Park — considered part of the greater Orlando area — is famous for the brick-paved streets of chichi chocolatiers and boutiques along Park Avenue. But across the railroad tracks near Hannibal Square, a coda has popped up with a bent toward high design. Amid the new shops and restaurants, you can find Rifle Paper Co. (558 West New England Avenue, Suite 150; 407-622-7679; riflepaperco.com), the fashionable Orlando-based stationer, and the studio and storefront where Makr Carry Goods churns out its minimalist leather bags and iPod cases (444 West New England Avenue, Suite 102; 407-284-0192; makr.com). For a taste of local history, visit the Hannibal Square Heritage Center (642 West New England Avenue; 407-539-2680; hannibalsquareheritagecenter.org), where a collection of photographs and oral histories document the area’s beginnings as a Reconstruction-era community for freed slaves.

7 p.m.

3) DRESS-UP/DRESS-DOWN

From the outside, the Ravenous Pig (1234 North Orange Avenue, Winter Park; 407-628-2333; theravenouspig.com) looks like your average strip-mall restaurant. But with attention to detail like housemade sour mix at the bar and much-in-demand cheese biscuits, James and Julie Petrakis have made their three-year-old gastropub one of Orlando’s most popular gathering spots. The menu, like the restaurant, is dress-up/dress-down, with bar fare like mussels and fries dusted with fennel pollen ($15), or more dignified entrees like dry-aged strip steak with wild mushroom bread pudding ($27). Reserve a table or hover in the bar.