Hi, I'm Tiffany, the founder of Flowjo. The first bucket list I ever wrote wasn't about skydiving or visiting twenty countries. It was a list of small things I could do with the people I love, close to home, that didn't need a plan or a budget. That's the spirit of this list: 100 couples bucket list ideas that mostly cost nothing, grouped so you can pick one that fits the evening you actually have.
Pull one, do it, cross it off. If you want the ideas on cards you can draw at random, our Couple's Bucket List deck has 100 of its own. It ships from Amazon's warehouse, usually in 2–3 days.
At home
- Cook a dish neither of you has made before, with no recipe lookups allowed until you're stuck.
- Build a blanket fort and watch a movie inside it.
- Swap phones for an hour and show each other your favourite photos from the year.
- Write each other a letter to open in one year.
- Have a "no screens" evening and see what you end up doing.
- Learn a card game together from scratch.
- Make breakfast for dinner.
- Put on music from the year you met and dance in the kitchen.
- Do a puzzle over a week, ten minutes a night.
- Read the same book and talk about it in bed.
- Have a candlelit dinner on a Tuesday.
- Plan your dream trip in detail, even if it's years away.
- Teach each other one skill: a knot, a chord, a recipe, a stretch.
- Make a playlist of songs that remind you of each other.
- Try a new tea or coffee and rate it like critics.
- Do a home spa night: face masks, foot soak, the works.
- Rearrange one room together.
- Take an online class for one evening.
- Write down ten things you appreciate about each other and read them out loud.
- Start a two-person book club with a snack budget of five dollars.
Outdoors
- Watch a sunrise together, with coffee in a thermos.
- Walk a street in your city you've never walked.
- Go stargazing somewhere dark enough to see the Milky Way.
- Have a picnic in a park you usually drive past.
- Rent bikes for an afternoon.
- Fly a kite.
- Take the same photo in the same spot every season.
- Go for a walk in the rain on purpose.
- Find a free outdoor concert or movie night.
- Walk to a lookout point and stay until the lights come on.
- Skip stones until someone gets five.
- Visit a farmers' market and cook what you find.
- Go on a photo walk with a theme: doors, colours, dogs.
- Hike a trail rated "easy" and pretend it was hard.
- Spend an afternoon at a public beach or lake in the off season.
- Try geocaching.
- Watch a thunderstorm from a covered porch.
- Plant something together and keep it alive.
- Go sledding or tobogganing.
- Find the best bench in your neighbourhood and claim it.
Food and drink
- Do a taste test of three brands of the same thing, blindfolded.
- Bake bread from scratch.
- Have a dessert-first dinner.
- Recreate the first meal you ever ate together.
- Try a cuisine you've never ordered.
- Make homemade pizza with one ridiculous topping each.
- Visit a bakery in a neighbourhood you don't know.
- Host a two-person fondue night.
- Cook a meal using only what's already in the pantry.
- Have a themed dinner with music and a dress code.
- Make a cocktail or mocktail and name it after each other.
- Do a progressive dinner: appetizer at one place, main at another, dessert at home.
- Learn to make dumplings.
- Eat dinner on the floor, picnic-style.
- Share one giant milkshake with two straws, no irony.
- Try every flavour at a small ice cream shop over a summer.
- Make a charcuterie board for two.
- Cook a recipe from a grandparent.
- Have a pancake-flipping contest.
- Pick a country and cook its most famous dish.
Seasonal and holiday
- Drive around to look at holiday lights with hot chocolate.
- Carve pumpkins and roast the seeds.
- Pick apples or berries at a farm.
- Build a snowman with a personality.
- Make a gingerbread house that is structurally unsound.
- Write holiday cards together and actually mail them.
- Jump into a pile of leaves like you're nine.
- Start a new tradition for a holiday you don't usually celebrate.
- Watch the fireworks from a rooftop or hill.
- Make a time capsule on New Year's Eve.
- Go to a small-town fall fair.
- Skate on an outdoor rink.
- Decorate for a season a week early, just because.
- Have a summer evening with no plans and watch the fireflies.
- Make a spring cleaning playlist and race the clock.
- Visit a tree farm and cut your own.
- Host a tiny Friendsgiving for just the two of you.
- Try a winter sport neither of you has tried.
- Pick the first flowers of spring and press them.
- Write down your favourite memory of the year on New Year's Day.
Small adventures
- Take a bus to the end of the line and explore.
- Visit a museum and each pick one piece to explain to the other.
- Spend a night in a hotel in your own city.
- Go to a free open mic and cheer loudly.
- Try a dance class, even a bad one.
- Volunteer together for an afternoon.
- Take a day trip to a town under an hour away.
- Visit a library and leave with a book you'd never buy.
- Go to a thrift store with ten dollars each and pick an outfit for the other.
- Find the oldest building in your area and read its plaque.
- Try an escape room.
- Attend a free lecture or talk on something neither of you knows about.
- Go bowling and keep score honestly.
- Take a pottery or art class for one session.
- Ride a ferris wheel.
- Visit a botanical garden in winter.
- Go to a minor-league game and eat ballpark food.
- Take a photo booth strip and keep it in your wallet.
- Learn ten phrases in a new language together.
- Make your own list of 100 and start crossing them off.
How to actually use this list
Don't try to plan it. Pick a number at random on a quiet night and do that one. The point isn't the activity, it's the hour you spend paying attention to each other. If you'd rather hold the ideas in your hands, the Couple's Bucket List is 100 cards in a box, sorted into Life, Love and Laughter, and it makes an easy gift for a couple you love.
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