Not sure what to do with your day? Got some friends calling over later and trying to figure out a fun thing you can all do together? If so, this article is for you. Below you will find a list of over twenty fun things to do in or outside your home when you are bored with friends.
Fun ideas and things to do when bored with friends
There are so many fun things to do when bored with friends. Even when you struggle to find the motivation to have fun, making just a little effort to engage in any of the following fun ideas will surely change your state and mood. So, if you are looking for something fun and memorable to do with your friends, check out these ideas below.
1. Cook a delicious meal together
There is nothing quite like a home-cooked meal. Selecting your ingredients from the store or market, bringing them home, preparing them, cooking, and serving a tasty meal feels good for the soul and is a great way to bond with your friends.
Cooking together can strengthen the bond of an existing friendship or bring new friends closer together. You do not even need the fanciest high-tech kitchen to make a great meal. One or two hobs are enough to create a delicious stir-fry, salad, or pasta dish that satisfies both the mouth and the soul.
2. Play board games
Got some board games stuffed away in the attic for a rainy day? Bring them out and gather some friends to play! Monopoly, Clue, even Snakes and Ladders. Board games are a great way to have fun and let the time pass you by.
For extra fun, gather a group of friends and try to make your own board game. Involve cards, a board, or some dice, and make up the rules as you go along. Sure, you might not come up with the next best-selling board game, and the rules may get broken and changed along the way, but that is all part of the fun.
3. Attend an open mic night
If you live in a big town or city, check your local bars and clubs for open mic nights. Sometimes open mic nights feature karaoke, while other times, you may get the chance to sing with a live band!
Even if you are no Adele or Mariah Carey, getting up on stage to sing your favorite songs is an exhilarating and unforgettable experience. Open mic night is more fun with friends because you all get a chance to go up and either impress the crowd or make for a funny story!
4. Invite friends over for a barbecue
There is nothing like a delicious barbecue and some drinks on a hot summer day. If you already have a barbecue, dust it off, clean it up, invite some friends, and start cooking. Ask your friends to bring something for the grill so that everyone can contribute and share each other’s favorite barbecue foods.
If you do not already own a barbecue, you can buy one for a good price online. You can check Craigslist or other online buy and sell sites for the best price. Alternatively, you can purchase low-cost disposable barbecue sets from your local store.
5. Have a themed movie night
Watching movies is a great way to spend quality time with your friends, and themed movie nights can be a whole lot of fun. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or the Scream series are popular choices, and for a good reason.
Gather a group of friends who all appreciate the movies you will watch and share the fun of watching them all over again. It can also be fun to bring along friends who have never seen the movies. You can anticipate the exciting parts of the movie and revel in the joy of knowing this is their first time seeing it.
6. Volunteer
Volunteering is a great way to spend your time. As humans, we get a natural high from selflessly helping others. Grab some friends who want to help make the world a better place and volunteer at a center.
You can help in any way you like that is available to you. Try animal shelters, homeless shelters, or kids’ groups. Perhaps you would like to help with a big beach clean-up or help tidy your city’s streets. Volunteering can be hard work, but it is worth it and can be fun if you go with friends.
7. Try gardening
If you or one of your friends is lucky enough to have a garden, try to grow some plants. Gardening is a fun activity that requires patience and diligence, and even though it may take some time to see progress, the rewards are worth it.
It feels good for the soul to cultivate and take care of plant life. Moreover, you can grow simple vegetables like tomatoes or eggplant and add them to your meals for that delicious homegrown taste!
8. Ride bicycles together
Bicycle riding with a friend is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon or an evening. When you drive around your city or take public transport, you tend to miss the tiny details of the environment.
Cycling a bike with a friend encourages you to slow down and soak up your environment. It brings you into a slower, more appreciative state of mind, from which you can notice the small things. Who knows, a bicycle trip around your city or the countryside with a friend might give you a whole new outlook on the place you live.
9. Look at the stars
Head outdoors and look at the stars with your friends. If you are lucky enough to live away from too much light pollution, you might be able to go stargazing outside your front door or on your rooftop.
If you live in a city where the stars are hard to see behind the big city lights, then consider planning a fun road trip to the countryside. When you get away from city lights, the stars on a clear night are beautiful, and gazing at them makes for an incredibly memorable experience with friends.
10. Plan a camping trip
Camping is one of those activities that you either love or hate. Some people love to go outdoors and immerse themselves in the natural world, while others find it hard to tolerate the bugs, the discomfort, and the lack of luxuries.
So, if you have got some adventurous friends and want a night away from your house, camping is a great idea. Just remember to bring enough food and water and add some marshmallows for extra fun around the fire. If you are not sure how to survive a night of camping, find a friend who has more experience. Bring a speaker and dance around the fire to your favorite music for even more fun!
11. Learn a new language
It is not easy to learn a new language on your own. That is why it is better to learn with a friend. You can study a language as much as you like by reading books or watching YouTube videos, but it is only through directly speaking that language to another person that you learn how to speak it fluently. If you have a friend fluent in French, Spanish, or whatever language you would like to learn, ask them to hang out and help you practice your speaking skills.
If you want to start learning a new language, but you do not want to do it alone, ask a friend who also wants to learn to join you. You will still need a native speaker to get your fluency right but learning together is a lot of fun. You can watch each other progress and give each other extra pointers from your shared knowledge.
12. Talk about your goals
Friendship is as much about support as it is about fun. The best friends are those you can talk to about your life goals, dreams, and ambitions. Find those friends who can lift you up, hang out with them, and share your ideas about the future.
If you like, bring a notebook and write down ideas that you come up with together. The great thing about sharing your goals with friends is that they can hold you accountable and motivate or encourage you to keep your eyes and focus on those goals.
13. Organize a costume party
You do not have to wait until Halloween to get dressed up! This is your life, and if you want to wear a chicken onesie or a horse’s head on a random Tuesday evening, then that is entirely up to you.
For a fun night, organize a group of close friends and ask everyone to show up with a costume. You can even award prizes for the best costumes in different categories, such as the funniest, scariest, or most realistic.
14. Draw each other
You do not have to be a skilled artist to enjoy drawing. Gather a friend or two, grab some pencils or paints and some paper, and try to recreate your friend on the page.
Drawing each other is incredibly fun, especially if you are not great at drawing, because the results can give everyone a laugh. If your drawing skills are poor, your friends will still appreciate your attempt, and you never know—you might discover a hidden talent!
15. Make a mini-documentary
You do not need the latest camera and gear to make a documentary. Mobile phone cameras are becoming more powerful every year, and that is good news for you and your bored friends. If you have a good phone camera, or by chance, you have a real camera lying around, start recording. Perhaps you could document a simple trip to the grocery store, a walk in the park or by a lake, or something else included on this list.
Making a mini-documentary does not have to be a serious project. All you need is a camera and a few friends, and you can just bet that inspiration will strike. Get a large group of friends and divide each other into subgroups to make it even more fun—ask each group to make a documentary and showcase everyone’s documentary in a larger group.
16. Play charades
Charades is a simple game but can offer hours of fun. Call some friends around for dinner or drinks and put your mime skills on show!
If you do not know how to play charades, the rules are simple. Make two teams. One person from each team stands up and must convey a word or phrase through body language alone. They cannot speak! You can choose the words or phrases by theme, such as famous movies, books, or people. The other team must guess the answer within a time limit, around 30-60 seconds. If they guess the answer correctly, they win a point. Teams take turns guessing the answers.
Charades sounds like a simple game, and you might wonder how it could be a source of extended fun, but it is one of those games that can have everybody rolling on the floor laughing!
17. Learn how to play chess
If you do not already know how to play, learning how to play chess is a great way to spend quality time with friends. All you need to do is learn the functions and abilities of each chess piece. Learning with a friend makes it easier because you can help each other in the beginning. As you begin to improve, you will notice that the games get more interesting.
Chess is one of the oldest games globally and still one of the most popular. Just like playing card games, knowing how to play chess can even help you meet new people.
18. Host a fashion show
If you and your friends have an abundance of clothes, why not bring them all together and host a fashion show in your house? Get your friends to swap clothes that will fit each other. You can even use your friend’s clothes in different ways if they do not normally fit, such as turning a shirt into a mini dress or a pair of chinos into a scarf—bonus points for the ridiculous outfit!
19. Try an escape room
You will need to plan to do an escape room, but it is worth it. In case you do not know what an escape room is, it is a real-life in-person game in which you and your friends enter a room that is hard to leave. There are clues around the space on how to unlock the door and move on to the next part.
Escape rooms are a great way to bond, so if you have got some friends you have not seen in a while, or if you have made some new friends, try the Escape Room. The sense of adventure, excitement, and camaraderie is complemented by the urgency, creativity, and cooperation needed to escape.
20. Learn how to play an instrument
There is nothing quite like the feeling of playing your own music. If you have got a friend or two eager to learn how to play piano, guitar, ukulele, or any other fun instrument, then invite them over and learn together.
Like learning any new skill, learning to play an instrument takes time, patience, and plenty of practice. Still, the journey is more important than the final destination. Even if you never start a band and decide to no longer play after a few months, you will have a lot of fun just trying to learn an instrument.
21. Plant a tree
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
Greek Proverb
The simple act of planting a tree is a fun activity to do with your friends. Even if you only gather two or three friends, that is more trees in the world than there would have been without you.
The rewards of planting a tree can take years to come to fruition but do not let that deter you. Every time you see that tree, and as you see it grow over the years, you will remember that day you went out with your friends to plant it.
22. Make a time capsule
Time capsules are a great way to save memories with your friends or family members. Find some photographs, postcards, your favorite magazine or newspaper, or something you can part with, and put them in a secure box. Make sure the box is made of strong metal to not decompose in the ground. Bury the box in the ground in your back garden and put a date on it.
Just like planting a tree, the rewards of making a time capsule will not come immediately. Leave it for a few years, maybe five or ten, then come back to it and rediscover all of those old memories. Opening a time capsule years after burying can make memories of the time you buried it come flooding back. You might not even have the same friends by the time you open it, but those lovely, sweet memories will have been kept safe and secure.
23. Have a spa day
The world can be hectic at times, especially when we push ourselves always to be productive and happy. You do not need to be productive all of the time, and trying to be that way is sure to lead to burnout. It is better to set aside time each day or a whole day once a week to focus on yourself and allow yourself to relax.
For a relaxing, rejuvenating day, gather some friends and have an at-home spa day. Buy some gentle face masks and scented candles and put on some soothing music. Enjoy a peaceful, relaxing day at home with your friends where you relax and give your skin a chance to glow.
Conclusion
When you are bored with friends, you can always do some fun things. Whether it is an at-home spa day, a themed movie night, or making YouTube videos, you can have so much fun on any given day as long as you have a few friends around.
Most likely, you already have all the tools you need for the most fun things to do with friends we have outlined above. If not, one of your friends might be able to help. Perhaps one friend has a barbecue set, while another has a projector.
Hopefully, you have got a few ideas from this article to help you overcome that dreaded feeling of boredom and turn your day around completely!