Summer makes it easy to see friends. The difficult part is figuring out what to actually do together.
You can only have so many BBQs before someone sends the inevitable “What should we do?” message and the group chat goes completely silent.
Fortunately, summer gives you far more options than dinner and drinks. You can head outside, explore somewhere new, turn an ordinary evening into an event or stay home and do something you wouldn't normally do.
If you're looking for fun things to do with friends this summer, here are 25 ideas worth adding to your summer plans.
1. Solve a Murder Mystery Together
Turn an ordinary summer evening into a crime investigation.
Instead of watching a mystery unfold on TV, give your group the case and see whether you can solve it yourselves. Go through police reports, interviews, photographs, messages and other evidence, compare theories and try to work out what really happened.
Ink & Clues creates downloadable murder mystery games for 1–6 players, so they work particularly well for smaller groups of friends. You can print the case and spread the evidence across a garden table on a warm evening, or move everything indoors if the weather changes.
Add some drinks and snacks and you've got an entire evening planned.
Just be prepared to discover which of your friends would be dangerously confident during an actual criminal investigation.
2. Have a Sunset Picnic
A picnic doesn't have to mean sandwiches in a park at lunchtime.
Choose somewhere with a good view, meet later in the evening and ask everyone to bring something. Take blankets, drinks, snacks and perhaps a small speaker.
Timing it around sunset makes something very simple feel much more like an occasion.
3. Take a Day Trip Somewhere You've Never Been
Open a map and look at what's within an hour or two of where you live.
Pick a town, beach, nature reserve or attraction none of you has visited before and make a day of it.
Part of the fun is that the destination doesn't have to be famous. Exploring somewhere you've always driven past can be surprisingly entertaining with the right group.
4. Organize Your Own Outdoor Cinema
A projector, a white wall or sheet and a warm evening can turn a garden into a cinema.
Add blankets, cushions, popcorn and drinks and let everyone vote on the film beforehand.
If you don't have access to a projector, move the film inside after spending the first part of the evening outdoors. The point is to make it feel different from simply putting Netflix on.
5. Have a Blind Taste Test
Choose something everyone likes – chocolate, soft drinks, crisps, ice cream, coffee or anything else with enough varieties to compare.
Hide the packaging, number everything and have everyone rank their favorites.
Add one suspiciously cheap option among the expensive ones and see whether anyone notices.
You may learn uncomfortable truths about everyone's supposedly sophisticated tastes.
6. Go for a Swim Somewhere New
Instead of heading to your usual spot, find a beach, lake or outdoor swimming area you haven't visited before.
Pack lunch and turn the swim into a proper day out rather than a quick stop.
If you're going somewhere unfamiliar, check local swimming conditions and restrictions before setting off.
7. Create a Summer Photo Challenge
Make a list of things everyone has to photograph before summer ends.
It could include a ridiculous tourist photo, the best sunset, something unexpectedly beautiful, the worst meal you've cooked or a picture recreating an old group photograph.
At the end of summer, meet up and compare everyone's results.
Unlike endlessly taking photos you never look at again, this gives the pictures an actual purpose.
8. Have a Come Dine With Me Night
One person or pair hosts dinner and everyone gives the evening a score.
If the group enjoys it, rotate hosts throughout the summer.
You can make it competitive or completely unserious, but themes and questionable entertainment choices are strongly encouraged.
By the end, you'll either have discovered the best cook in the group or caused a completely unnecessary argument over dessert scores.
9. Go on an Evening Hike
Summer's long evenings make it possible to head outside much later than during the rest of the year.
Choose a manageable route, bring something to eat and plan to reach a good viewpoint while there's still plenty of daylight.
It's a simple way to make an ordinary weekday evening feel like you've actually done something with it.
10. Hold a Garden Tournament
Set up several ridiculously serious competitions.
Badminton, kubb, boule, darts, table tennis, mini golf or whatever you have available can become part of the tournament.
Create teams, keep scores and provide an unnecessarily impressive prize for the winner.
The lower the actual stakes, the more seriously everyone is permitted to take it.
11. Go Camping for One Night
You don't need a week-long wilderness expedition.
One night can be enough.
Choose an appropriate campsite or camping location, pack dinner and breakfast and spend the evening outside. If your group isn't particularly outdoorsy, staying somewhere with basic facilities is completely acceptable.
Camping still counts even when there's a functioning toilet nearby.
12. Try a New Activity Together
Summer is a good excuse to try something none of you is particularly good at.
Kayaking, paddleboarding, climbing, surfing, disc golf, tennis or another activity can work.
Being beginners together removes much of the pressure.
In fact, the activity is often more entertaining when everyone is equally incompetent.
13. Organize a Summer Games Night
Games aren't only for dark winter evenings.
Move everything outside, prepare some food and create a summer games night with cards, board games, quizzes or a murder mystery.
For a longer evening, combine several shorter games with one main activity.
If you're playing something with paper components, however, perhaps don't choose the windiest evening of the year.
14. Explore Your Own City Like Tourists
Most people have visited tourist attractions hundreds of kilometres away while ignoring things ten minutes from home.
Choose a few places you've never visited, find a café or restaurant you haven't tried and spend the day pretending you're somewhere new.
Take the embarrassing tourist photos too.
You have already committed to the concept.
15. Cook a Meal From a Country None of You Has Visited
Choose a country and build the entire evening around its food.
Everyone can be responsible for one dish, or you can cook everything together.
Add music, drinks and perhaps a film from the same country afterwards.
If the food turns out terribly, you've still created a significantly better story than ordering the same takeaway again.
16. Have a No-Phones Evening
Put everyone's phones somewhere out of reach for a few hours.
Then cook, play games, sit outside, solve a mystery or simply talk.
You don't need to make a philosophical statement about technology. It's just surprisingly pleasant to spend an entire evening without someone disappearing into a notification every four minutes.
The first person who reaches for their missing phone owes everyone dessert.
17. Go to a Flea Market or Second-Hand Shop With a Challenge
Give everyone a small budget and an objective.
Find the strangest object. Buy the best outfit for another person. Find something that looks far more expensive than it is. Choose the worst possible decoration for someone's home.
Meet afterwards and compare purchases.
The objects themselves are almost irrelevant. The challenge is what makes the trip entertaining.
18. Have a DIY Cocktail or Mocktail Competition
Split into teams and give everyone access to the same basic ingredients.
Each team creates a drink, names it and presents it to the group.
For an alcohol-free version, use juices, fruit, herbs, syrups and sparkling water.
Score each creation for taste, presentation and name.
The naming category deserves far more weight than it reasonably should.
19. Watch the Sunrise Together
Most summer plans involve sunset.
Try the opposite.
Stay up late or get up painfully early, take coffee and breakfast somewhere with a good view and watch the sunrise.
Whether this feels magical or like a terrible mistake will depend largely on your relationship with mornings.
Either way, you'll probably remember it.
20. Create a Summer Bucket List Together
Sit down at the beginning of summer and let everyone contribute a few things.
Mix easy activities with bigger plans. Swim at night. Visit a new town. Have a picnic. Try a new restaurant. Go camping. Solve a murder mystery. Watch the sunrise.
Put everything on one shared list and see how many you manage before summer ends.
It removes the recurring problem of everyone wanting to meet but nobody knowing what to suggest.
21. Host a Themed Dinner
Pick a theme and commit to it.
It could be based on a decade, country, film, color or completely arbitrary concept.
The food, music and clothing can all follow the theme if your group is willing.
A theme turns an ordinary dinner at someone's house into something people actually plan for.
22. Volunteer Together for a Day
Not every activity has to revolve around entertaining yourselves.
Look for a local organization, environmental project, charity event or community initiative that needs volunteers.
Doing something useful together can be a surprisingly rewarding way to spend a day, particularly if you're looking for alternatives to the usual social plans.
23. Have a DIY Spa and Dinner Night
Not every summer activity needs to involve leaving the house.
Make dinner, put on music, prepare some simple spa treatments and spend the evening doing absolutely nothing productive.
This works particularly well after a busy week when everyone wants to meet but nobody has the energy for an elaborate plan.
24. Recreate an Old Photo
Find a photograph of your group from several years ago and recreate it as accurately as possible.
Same positions. Same expressions. Similar clothes if you can manage it.
The older and more embarrassing the original photograph, the better.
If you've been friends for years, you can turn this into an annual tradition and gradually create a series.
25. Let Someone Else Plan the Entire Day
Put everyone's names into a draw and choose one person to plan the next get-together.
Everyone else agrees to participate without knowing exactly what's happening.
Set a budget and any necessary boundaries beforehand, but otherwise leave the planner in control.
Next time, someone else takes over.
It solves one of the biggest problems with group plans: fourteen messages asking “What does everyone feel like doing?” followed by absolutely no decisions.
Things to Do With Friends Outside in Summer
If the weather is good, take advantage of it.
You don't necessarily need an elaborate activity. Swimming, hiking, picnics, outdoor games and day trips are classics for a reason. What often makes them memorable is adding a small purpose to the day.
Instead of simply meeting at the park, organize a tournament. Instead of going for a drive, choose somewhere none of you has visited. Instead of eating outside, meet specifically for a sunset picnic.
A little planning can make a familiar activity feel completely different.
Things to Do With Friends on a Summer Evening
You don't need an entire free day to make summer feel like summer.
Long evenings are perfect for activities that can begin after work: dinner outside, an evening swim, a garden games tournament, a picnic or a mystery night.
A murder mystery works particularly well when you want an activity that gives the group something to focus on without turning the evening into a formal event. Put some food and drinks on the table, open the case and start investigating.
If that sounds like your group's kind of evening, Ink & Clues has downloadable cases that can be printed or played digitally.
What to Do With Friends When It Rains in Summer
Every optimistic summer plan eventually encounters rain.
Instead of cancelling, have a backup plan.
Cook together, hold a blind tasting, organize a games night, watch a film, try a creative project or turn the evening into an investigation.
This is where downloadable activities are particularly convenient. You don't need a reservation or good weather, and there's nothing to wait for in the mail.
For smaller groups, the Ink & Clues Complete Game Bundle gives you multiple cases to choose from, so one download can provide several future mystery nights rather than just one evening.
Make Plans You'll Actually Remember
The best summer plans don't necessarily involve expensive trips or complicated arrangements.
Often it's enough to change one part of something you already do.
Don't just have dinner – turn it into a competition. Don't just meet outside – watch the sunset somewhere new. Don't just put on a crime series – investigate the crime yourselves.
The important part is giving the group something to experience together.
Because by the end of summer, you probably won't remember every BBQ.
You will remember the night your entire group confidently accused the wrong murderer.
