There’s something about summer that makes us step out of life, isn’t there? Well, those sunny, warm days are here again (thank God), and of course, you’ll be on the lookout for fun summer activities and things to do.
In addition to sunbathing, strolling in those pretty sundresses, and letting the sand run between your toes (if you’re lucky enough to be at the beach), there are several other fun ideas to add to your summer bucket list.
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Summer Bucket List Activities:
80 fun things to do this sunny season
1. ✦ Go to an amusement park
2. ✧ Swing on a rope swing
3. ✦ Pick strawberries
4. ✦ Try a new food
Have you ever tried raw oysters, escargot, or frog legs? Maybe you’ve never had something as simple as sushi. Think of all the things you still have to taste (for some fun ideas, visit an Asian market!), then get out there and try something new. You never know, you might stumble upon delicious delights you may have never heard of if you hadn’t been adventurous with your food. Not sure what to try first? Check out the 100 foods to try before you die from the Food List Challenge.
5. ✦ Attend an outdoor concert
In the United States, 40 to 50 million people attend outdoor concerts each year — it’s a top-notch thing to do! Find the perfect venue in your area, bring a lawn chair, and enjoy an evening filled with tunes. Not sure where to catch your show? Check out the 10 outdoor concert venues worth a summer trip.
6. ✦ Ride a Ferris wheel
7. ✦ Attend a parade
8. ✦ Have a picnic
Pack a traditional wicker basket with your favorite picnic foods and enjoy the feast as well as the weather. Real Simple magazine can help you with its picnic packing checklist. If you want to set up an Instagrammable picnic, here’s a cute red checkered picnic basket.
9. ✦ Play on a Slip-n-Slide
10. ✦ Take a road trip
Pick a spot on the map, hop in your car, and just drive. There are very few activities in this world that are as fun and exhilarating as going on a road trip solo or with your best friends.
Make a list of all the things you’d like to do along the way and let the other chips fall where they may. Go ahead and have fun. The open road calls us all. One of my favorite trips was the Cabot Trail in Canada!
11. ✦ Feed the ducks
12. ✧ Grow an herb garden
Gardening can be a lot of fun, and growing your own herbs is a great way to promote a healthy lifestyle and teach the same to your kids. They’ll surely have a blast digging in the soil, planting seeds, growing seedlings, and watering them. You don’t need a lot of space, and the vessel can be anything from a wooden crate to a mason jar to an old tire.
For an easy option, just buy a herb starter kit. Nature Blossom Sow & Grow makes it simple by giving you everything you need to grow five favorite organic products: basil, thyme, parsley, sage, and cilantro. Or get creative with these 30 budget-friendly garden pots and containers.
13. ✦ Be a tourist in your own city
Can you confidently say you know your city inside and out? If Frommer hired you to write a guide to your city, would you do it justice? Take the time to visit more than just your usual hangouts. There’s more to life than hanging out at the bowling alley and the mall.
Be a tourist in your own city, go somewhere new, and you might be surprised by the beauty of that old town. Most cities also have free tours. You can discover streets, shops, and landmarks you never knew existed. You can even take the tour via segways, making it a bit more fun.
14. ✦ Go to the beach
15. ✧ Learn to juggle
16. ✦ Go hot air ballooning
Take yourself to new heights and see what the world looks like from a bird’s eye view. Better yet, toast with champagne while soaring high in the sky. If you’re too scared to fly, then watch from the ground at a hot air balloon festival.
17. ✦ Nap in a hammock
18. ✦ Make Tie-Dye T-Shirts
Do you have a pile of white T-shirts that you’d like to breathe some life into? Why not make tie-dye T-shirts this summer? Again, this is something the whole family can get into and enjoy as you all try to outdo each other with your different brands of creativity. This Tie-dye kit will make it easy!
19. ✦ Run through sprinklers
20. ✦ Go wine tasting
21. ✧ Learn to Fly Fish
This can be a tough bucket list goal, but what could be more serene than casting a line in the river? Plus, you can wear some really cool pants.
22. ✦ Go White Water Rafting
Take an exciting ride down the river in an inflatable raft, hitting rapids along the way. White water rafting is considered an extreme sport, so be careful when choosing it as one of your Summer Bucket List ideas.
23. ✦ Do a cannonball into a body of water
24. ✦ Go to a baseball game
25. ✦ Go 24 hours without the Internet, radio, or TV
Now, I know, that’s a tall order. We use the Internet for everything these days. But think about it. When was the last time you spent two hours without your phone? Try going 24 hours without the internet, radio, or TV. Go camping, sit and read a good book, talk to your friends and family, or use the time to complete a few of the ideas on this summer list.
Before long, you’ll wish you had those quiet and peaceful moments more often.
26. ✧ Have a water balloon fight
While we all love feeling the sun on our faces, sometimes the summer heat can get a bit too… toasty! On those days, very few things come close to feeling as good as a cold shower, but the best thing is having a water balloon fight.
Fill dozens of those fun latex creators and target your favorite friends while trying to stay the driest of the bunch. If winning the fight is just as important as having fun, research how to survive a water balloon fight.
27. ✦ Go down a big water slide
28. ✦ Do a random act of kindness
Random acts of kindness are some of the most fulfilling, human, and humane things you could do. Especially when it’s done for a complete stranger.
- Donate food
- Pay the toll for the person behind you
- Go to an animal shelter and help out for the day
- Feed someone’s parking meter.
The possibilities are endless. The best way to approach this is to look at your local community and see what it needs most. Or check out my post for ideas: 75 Random Acts of Kindness Ideas: Examples of Kind Things to Do.
29. ✧ Play Disc Golf
30. ✧ Have the ultimate barbecue
Good food, good company, cold beers, and warm weather outdoors, what more could you ask for in this world? Having the ultimate barbecue is one of the best ways to spend a boring Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Everyone has their own style when it comes to barbecues, so don’t let anyone tell you anything about what you like. Go ahead and grill that meat the best way you know how. Have fun!
31. ✦ Watch fireflies
32. ✦ Go water skiing
33. ✧ Run a themed 5k
Themed 5k marathons are a wonderful way to not only bring the community together for a good cause but also to show off your extreme levels of fitness and fun-loving nature. Make sure the theme is something fun, like a mud run (check out Active’s 5k Race Finder for ideas). It would be a bonus if the 5k run supported a local organization.
Not sure where to start? Check out how to train for, run, and finish your first 5k race.
34. ✧ Host a bonfire
A bonfire can add an incredible ambiance to any party, especially on a warm summer night. So, invite your friends, load your cooler with drinks, bring plenty of wood, and a radio to play your favorite tunes.
35. ✧ Make sangria
There’s nothing like a refreshing glass of Sangria to quench your thirst on a hot summer day. One of my favorite recipes is William-Sonoma’s Plum and Nectarine Sangria.
36. ✦ Paddle a canoe
37. ✧ Create a summer playlist
38. ✦ Go to a farmer’s market
Enjoy wandering through the summer while gathering fresh, local ingredients for your dinner. Bring your bounty home and try to make a delicious farmer’s market salad loaded with veggies.
39. ✦ Sleep in a cabin
40. ✦ Read a NYT bestseller
If you’re an avid reader, then those warm summer evenings make for some of the best times to sit on your porch and read a New York Times Bestseller. This list is considered one of the most reliable when it comes to suggesting great books in the U.S. Whether you’re looking for fiction, non-fiction, autobiographies, or even a children’s book for those bedtime stories, you’ll find it here.
You might try “The Thief” by J.R Ward. Although, I must warn you, this is the 16th book in the exciting Black Dagger Brotherhood series. So if you don’t want to be so hooked that you have to read the other 15, maybe you should try something else. Like ‘Shoot First’ by Stuart Woods or go non-fiction and read ‘Russian Roulette’ by Michael Isikoff and David Corn.
Or… you can check out my book “Bucket List Adventures: 10 Incredible Journeys to Experience Before You Die.” That should get you bitten by the wanderlust bug pretty quickly.
41. ✦ Ride a Roller Coaster
42. ✦ Go to a drive-in movie
If you’re looking for a unique and inexpensive night out, how about going to a drive-in movie? They can be harder to find these days, but they’re a lot of fun when you do. Check out the Drive-In Movie website to find the nearest one.
43. ✦ Watch the sunset
44. ✦ Watch fireworks
45. ✦ Go skinny dipping
46. ✦ Make S’mores
If you haven’t done it yet, drop everything you’re doing and go make some — s’mores are absolutely divine. As the ideal treat for a campfire, making S’mores is something the whole family can get into and enjoy together.
Let me elaborate: The best kind of S’more, the ones I love the most, go something like this — You take a roasted marshmallow, sandwich it with a layer of your favorite chocolate, and then cover it all with two graham cracker pieces.
This recipe should help you get started on the right foot. This treat has been a campfire staple long before most of us were even born. The very first recorded S’mores recipe was published in 1927 in “Tramping and Trailing With the Girl Scouts,” a Girl Scout manual. So you’re in good company. And if the traditional style doesn’t do it for you, choose a unique twist from the 12 Creative S’mores Ideas.
47. ✦ Get a pedicure
48. ✦ Sleep under the stars
If you have the chance to travel the world, try sleeping under the stars in the Northern Hemisphere. The Northern Lights are a sight you’ll never forget. But if Sweden is too far, then maybe you can make a good go of it in your backyard? On those warm summer nights, gather a group of your friends and camp outside while sleeping under the stars.
49. ✦ Fly a kite
Flying a kite is a relaxing way to spend a summer day that has a bit of wind to it. If you’ve never had the chance to get your kite in the air, WikiHow can tell you how to fly a kite in 8 steps. And if you need a kite, this octopus kite is so cute!
50. ✦ Watch the sunrise
51. ✧ Spend the whole day barefoot
This might not be a good idea if you’re walking on hot concrete, but it would be fabulous and liberating if you spend the day at the beach or in a field of soft grass.
52. ✦ Walk barefoot in the sand
Letting your bare toes sink into the warm sand is the perfect way to spend a hot day.
53. ✦ Go hiking with a friend
You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced the great outdoors and gone hiking. Grab one or two adventurous friends and take on Mother Nature. You can do something as simple as visiting the local park or the neighboring county. Or plan a multi-day hike, and check off “sleep under the stars” from your summer list at the same time.
54. ✦ Make ice cream
Instead of going to the grocery store to buy your favorite ice cream flavor, set up shop and make it at home. If making ice cream seems too complicated, try making fun-flavored popsicles, like blueberry vanilla yogurt. Yum!
Here’s the ice cream maker and the popsicle molds I use for my summer treats.
55. ✦ Bake a fruit pie from scratch
56. ✧ Brew your own beer
Speaking of mojitos, how about brewing your own beer? Brewing your own beer isn’t that hard. You’ll just need a starter kit and some great advice, but once you get the hang of it, you might never set foot in a bar again.
57. ✦ Go star gazing
58. ✦ Sit on the porch for the afternoon
59. ✦ Build a sandcastle
You really can’t avoid the beach with that much success in the summer. Since you’ll be headed that way anyway, why not put your creativity to good use while you show off that killer bikini body? Building a sandcastle is much harder than it looks, especially if you’re going for the “uber-elaborate” kind. Doing this with your loved ones is a wonderful way to spend time together, get a tan, and maybe even have a mojito while you’re at it.
For the more creative bucket list, you can learn how to build the perfect sandcastle.
60. ✧ Get a tattoo
For travel-related tattoo ideas, check out 27 beautiful tattoos that tell their own travel stories.
61. ✦ Go bowling
62. ✦ Learn to surf
This is a bit more difficult than most of the things to do on this Summer Bucket List Ideas, but you can enjoy the warm weather while learning to catch a wave. You might find it fun to start surf lessons near almost any surf beach.
63. ✦ Skip stones on a lake
64. ✦ Take a boat ride
65. ✧ Go on a treasure hunt
Treasure hunts can be exhausting if you’re playing with strangers or someone you don’t know well. Luckily, I have my husband with me, and we love to drive each other crazy trying to find new ways to outsmart each other. You could do the same with people you love and have a good old time.
For ideas, check out How to Set Up a Treasure Hunt for Adults.
66. ✦ Visit a historical site
67. ✧ Attend Burning Man
Burning Man encapsulates everything that is fun and exciting about summer. It combines the heat of the desert, incredible creativity, wonderful musical revelations, and a huge group of people who want nothing more than to have a wild and wonderful time in the middle of nowhere. At Burning Man, you can be yourself, have unbridled fun, and you can definitely party all night and try to sleep all day. Just like you did when you were younger.
68. ✧ Stand under a waterfall
Standing under a waterfall is a ritual purification practice for some Japanese, but for you, it could just be a bit of fun in the hot weather.
69. ✦ Chase the ice cream truck
70. ✦ Hike a new trail
71. ✧ Build a treehouse
72. ✦ Learn to shoot a bow and arrow
While archery is an easy sport to learn, it’s hard to master. But that doesn’t mean you can’t give yourself a chance to hit the bullseye this summer.
73. ✧ Participate in a food eating contest
74. ✦ Volunteer
Volunteer your time and efforts to make the world a better place. You don’t have to join “Greenpeace,” although that’s not a bad idea, you can volunteer in your own community.
Help the elderly, donate blood, volunteer at the local soup kitchen, or just make sure your neighbor’s yard is well-kept. Give back to society, and you’ll be the best for it.
75. ✦ Go somewhere you’ve never been
Completing this bucket list goal doesn’t mean you have to travel to the ultimate place, just go somewhere you’ve never been. It could be as simple as visiting a new park in your city or taking a day trip to a neighboring town you’ve been meaning to explore.
76. ✦ Create a cocktail
Many foodies are also experimenters, and becoming your own mixologist will test your skills. The best part of this bucket list goal is that you’ll have to do a lot of sampling before you find your own perfect harmony of flavors. Practice makes perfect!
In the heat of the Arizona summer, I decided it was the perfect time to create my own refreshing cocktail. The funniest part? Testing all the different concoctions. In the end, my signature drink was a Lemon-Basil Fizz made with prosecco, coconut rum, raspberries, basil, and lemon sorbet (see the video below). What are you going to be?
related: 10 Tips on How to Make a Great Cocktail
Related: Foodie Bucket List
Read: Your Homemade Cocktail is the Most Important Recipe You’ll Ever Invent
related: Lemon Basil Fizz: My Summer Cocktail
77. ✦ Sip a cocktail umbrella by the pool
78. ✧ Make fresh squeezed lemonade
Lemonade and summer go hand in hand like Christmas and Santa Claus! You just have to have it when the sun is out. Squeezing your own lemonade allows you to add a bit of your own flair to the mix. Go wild and let your inner mixologist out and play!
79. ✦ Get a summer haircut
80. ✦ Go camping
This summer, when the sun rises, get your back outdoors and do something fun as well. It’s a bucket list order!
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