50 Fun Things to Do With Your Boyfriend This Year
You love your boyfriend. You also have no idea what to do with him this Friday night. Or next Friday. Or the one after that.
If your last three “dates” were takeout on the couch, you’re in good company. A 2023 report from the National Marriage Project found that 52% of couples never or rarely go on real date nights. The reason isn’t usually a lack of love. It’s a lack of ideas.
This list fixes that. Below are 50 specific things you can actually do together this year. They’re sorted by mood and budget, so you can skip to whatever fits your week.
Pick three you both like. Put one on the calendar before you close this tab.
Why Trying New Things Together Actually Works
Doing the same things over and over isn’t just boring. It’s bad for your relationship.
A classic 2000 study by Dr. Arthur Aron found something simple. Couples who did new and exciting things together for just seven minutes reported higher relationship quality afterward. Couples who did boring tasks didn’t.
The science behind it is called self-expansion theory. When you try something new with your partner, your brain links them to growth, fun, and a small dopamine hit. Familiar things stop giving you that. New things bring it back.
The numbers are real too. Couples who go on regular dates are 21 percentage points more likely to be very happy with their sex life, according to the same research.
A separate 10-year Marriage Foundation study of nearly 10,000 couples found that couples who go out about once a month had the highest odds of staying together.
So no, this isn’t just about having fun. It’s about staying close.
Now let’s get to the list.
10 Cheap Ideas When You’re Both Broke
These cost almost nothing. Most use stuff you already have.
1. Build a Backyard Fire and Roast S’mores
Grab a fire pit, some cheap chairs, and a bag of marshmallows. The whole thing costs less than a movie ticket. Talk for hours and watch the fire die down.
2. Cook a Meal From a Country Neither of You Has Visited
Pick a place. Find a real recipe online (not the first Pinterest one). Shop together, cook together, eat together. Bonus points if you mess it up and have to laugh through it.
3. Stargaze With a Free App
Download Sky Tonight or Stellarium Mobile. Drive somewhere dark. Lie on a blanket and try to find three constellations you didn’t know before tonight.
4. Turn Your Living Room Into a Hotel
Put on robes. Order “room service” (delivery from a nice restaurant). Make the bed with fresh sheets. Pretend you’re somewhere expensive.https://hop.clickbank.net/?affiliate=hstier&vendor=thoughtop
5. Play a Couples Question Card Game
The We’re Not Really Strangers deck is the popular pick, but Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin card game asks deeper stuff. You’ll learn things about him you didn’t know after two years.
Try these other couples games!
6. Take a Sunset Walk With Hot Drinks
Bring a thermos. Pick a route you don’t usually take. No phones. This sounds basic. It works anyway.
7. Photograph Each Other in Golden Hour
Start about 90 minutes before sunset. Trade off who’s holding the phone. No filters, no posing rules. You’ll get pictures that actually look like you both.
8. Have an Indoor Themed Picnic
Spread a blanket on the floor. Pick a theme: French bistro, Tokyo street food, Italian Sunday lunch. Match the food, drinks, and music to it.
Try these under $15 picnic ideas.
9. Learn a TikTok Couples Dance
Pick one with under a million views so you don’t feel watched. You’ll be terrible. He’ll be worse. That’s the whole point.
10. Build a 1,000-Piece Puzzle Over a Weekend
Sounds boring on paper. In practice, you talk for hours while your hands are busy. Couples therapists love this kind of side-by-side activity because it lowers pressure to “perform” conversation.
10 Adventurous Things When You Want a Rush
Here’s a trick from psychology. Your brain sometimes mistakes adrenaline from fear for romantic chemistry. It’s called misattribution of arousal, and it was first shown in a famous 1974 bridge study by Dutton and Aron. Translation: scary stuff makes you feel more attracted to whoever you’re with.
These ideas use that.
11. Try Indoor Rock Climbing
Most cities have a climbing gym with a beginner package for $25 to $40. He belays you, you trust him not to drop you, and you both leave sore and proud.
12. Go White-Water Rafting
Pick a Class II or III river for your first time. Guided trips run about $60 to $100 per person for a half day. You’ll get wet. You’ll scream. You’ll be starving after.
13. Do a Tandem Skydive Together
Two separate jumps, same plane. Tandem dives run $200 to $300 each. You won’t stop talking about it for a month.
14. Take a Sunrise Hot Air Balloon Ride
Most rides happen at sunrise because the wind is calmest. Plan for $200 to $300 per person. Worth it once.
15. Sign Up for a Beginner Surf Lesson
Coastal towns offer two-hour group lessons for around $80 to $120. You’ll both fall a lot. He’ll get up before you. It’s fine.
16. Mountain Bike a Marked Trail
Rent bikes if you don’t own them. Pick a green (easy) trail your first time. Bring water, a small first aid kit, and snacks.
17. Run a Spartan Race or Tough Mudder
Sign up for the shortest distance. Train for six weeks. Crawling through mud together does something to a relationship that dinner can’t.
18. Take a Zip-Line Tour
Most courses bundle 4 to 8 lines into a two-hour tour. Cost runs $80 to $150. Easier than it looks.
19. Get Scuba Certified Together
A PADI Open Water certification takes 3 to 4 days and costs $400 to $600. Once you’re certified, you can dive anywhere in the world together. That’s the real prize.
20. Try Tandem Paragliding
You’re strapped to a trained pilot, so neither of you needs experience. Tandem flights start around $150 per person and last 15 to 30 minutes.
Try these other summer outdoor dates!
10 Creative Things That Teach You a New Skill
Learning together is bonding because you’re both bad at the same thing at the same time.
21. Take a Pottery Class
Skillshare has online options. Most cities have studios that run two-hour intro classes for around $50 each. Or grab a Crockd kit and do it on your kitchen table.
22. Take a Couples Cooking Class
Sur La Table runs them in person. Airbnb Experiences has hundreds online and in person. MasterClass works if you want to do it at home with a pro instructor on screen.
23. Sign Up for a Beginner Dance Class
Salsa, two-step, or West Coast swing. Most studios offer a four-week beginner package for $80 to $120. You’ll fight a little. You’ll laugh more.
24. Learn the Same Language on Duolingo
Pick one neither of you speaks. Set a 15-minute daily streak goal. Practice on each other. Plan a trip to a country where it’s spoken.
25. Build Something With Your Hands
A bookshelf, a raised garden bed, a birdhouse, an IKEA project. The fight is part of it. So is the finished thing in your living room two months from now.
26. Take a Photo Walk and Edit Side by Side
Pick a neighborhood. Give yourselves a theme: “blue,” “reflections,” “old buildings.” Walk for an hour. Come home and edit your favorites together.
27. Try a Couples Painting Class
Pinot’s Palette and Paint Nite locations exist in most cities. You’ll both paint the same scene with the same instructor. Yours will look nothing alike.
28. Take a Mixology Class
Most fancy bars and liquor stores host them. Learn three classic cocktails: an Old Fashioned, a Negroni, and a Margarita. Now date night at home gets an upgrade.
29. Plant a Small Garden Together
A windowsill herb box works in any apartment. Tomatoes and peppers work on a balcony. You’ll fight over watering schedules. You’ll also eat what you grew.
30. Start a Project Together That Nobody Will See
A podcast nobody listens to. A YouTube channel with three subscribers (your moms). A shared Substack. Low stakes, high fun.
10 Romantic Things to Reconnect
These are the quiet ones. The ones you’ll remember in five years.
31. Recreate Your First Date
Same restaurant. Same order if possible. Same time of day. Talk about what you were nervous about back then. You’ll both be surprised by what you remember.
32. Book a Couples Massage
Most spas charge $150 to $250 for two side-by-side 60-minute massages. Worth it on an anniversary or just a hard week.
33. Hike to a Sunrise
Pick a hike short enough that you can do it in headlamps. Pack coffee in a thermos. Watch the sun come up at the top. Almost nobody else does this. That’s why it feels rare.
34. Write Letters to Open in Five Years
Each of you writes one. Seal them. Stick them in a drawer with the date. Set a calendar reminder. Don’t peek.
35. Slow Dance in the Kitchen
No occasion needed. Pick a song that means something to both of you. This takes 3 minutes and 12 seconds and it’s free.
36. Book One Night at a Place Neither of You Has Been
A B&B two hours away. An Airbnb in a town you’ve only driven through. The trip itself is the point, not the destination.
37. Watch a Sunset Somewhere With a Clear Horizon
YouGov surveyed Americans in 2025 and found that watching a sunrise or sunset is one of the most-wanted date types people have never tried. Be the rare couple who does it.
38. Start Couples Journaling Once a Week
The Promptly Journal couples edition gives you one prompt a week. Five minutes each. You’ll learn things about each other you’d never bring up on your own.
39. Cook Dinner From Scratch With Phones in Another Room
Not a recipe you’ve made before. No screens. Music allowed. This is harder than it sounds and that’s why it works.
40. Plan a Love Language Week
Read Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages (or take the free quiz online). Pick a week. Each day, focus on one love language for him: words, time, gifts, acts of service, touch. Then he does it for you.
10 Bucket List Ideas for the Big Stuff
Save up. Plan ahead. These are the trips and moments you’ll talk about for the rest of your life.
41. See the Northern Lights
Iceland, Norway, Finland, or Alaska between September and March. Glass igloo hotels in Finland are a splurge worth it once.
42. Road Trip the Pacific Coast Highway
San Francisco to San Diego (or the reverse). Plan for 5 to 7 days. Pack snacks, two playlists, and patience for traffic in Big Sur.
43. Start a Push-Pin Travel Map
Buy a world map and a pack of pins. Add a pin every time you go somewhere new together. Frame it. Watch it fill up over the years.
44. Sleep One Night in an Ice Hotel
Sweden’s ICEHOTEL and Quebec’s Hôtel de Glace are the two famous ones. Rooms are around -5°C (23°F). They give you arctic sleeping bags. It’s uncomfortable. You won’t forget it.
45. Charter a Sailboat for a Weekend
You don’t need a license if you hire a captain. Greek islands, the Caribbean, or coastal Maine all work. Plan for $1,500 to $4,000 for two nights with a captain.
46. Go on Safari Together
Kenya, Tanzania, or South Africa. Plan for 7 to 10 days and $4,000 to $8,000 per person depending on the lodge. See it once before you can’t.
47. Hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
The classic 4-day hike has to be booked 4 to 6 months in advance. Permits are limited. Train for it. The reward is real.
48. Take a Famous Scenic Train
The Glacier Express in Switzerland. The Trans-Siberian. The Rocky Mountaineer in Canada. Pick one. Spend a week on it.
49. Visit All Seven Continents Together
Most people skip Antarctica. That’s the fun one. Cruises from Argentina run November through March.
50. Mark a Big Moment Somewhere That Matters
Get engaged, renew vows, or celebrate a milestone in a place that means something to both of you. The location matters less than the fact that you went.
How to Actually Do These Things
A list of 50 ideas is useless if you do zero. Here’s how to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
Try the 1-1-1 rule each season. One cheap idea, one new skill, one small adventure. Three things per season is twelve a year. That’s plenty.
Take turns planning. The person who plans every date burns out. The person who never plans feels like a passenger. Switch off, even informally.
Use a shared note. Make a Notion page or a Google Doc. Drop ideas in whenever you see them. Cross them off when you do them.
Don’t wait for the perfect time. There isn’t one. Pick a Tuesday and put something on it.
What to Do Right Now
Pick five things from this list that genuinely excite you. Not “should” excite you. Actually excite you.
Send the list to him. Ask him to pick his five. Where your lists overlap is your bucket list for the year.
Then put one of them on the calendar before the end of this week. The research is clear: couples who keep doing new things together stay closer, longer. Whatever fun things to do with your boyfriend you choose this year, the only one that matters is the first one you actually do.
