Date Ideas for Every Budget and Every Season

Good date ideas are rarely the expensive ones. Usually all it takes is a plan that fits you and an evening where the phone stays in your pocket. Below you'll find ideas sorted by budget, season and place, plus a few thoughts on how a date in a new relationship feels different from one after ten years.

First, a question for both of you

Before you work through a list, check briefly what you feel like. Do you want to talk, move around, try something new or simply do something nice side by side? A couple who sits in an office all week often doesn't need dinner at a restaurant, they need fresh air. A couple with small kids may need two hours with no program at all.

A trick that works well: each person writes three ideas on a slip of paper without seeing the other's. You draw in turns. That way it isn't always the same person deciding.

Free date ideas

Free doesn't mean careless. What counts here is attention.

Go find a sunset. Look up beforehand when the sun goes down, and bring a blanket and something warm to drink.
Tour your own town on your own: pretend you're tourists in your city and visit the place you've walked past for years.
A walk with no destination and one rule: at every crossing, a coin decides.
Go through old photos on your phone, and each of you tells what was going on at the time for five pictures.
A thrift store or flea market date. Each of you may buy something for the other with a five dollar (or pound) limit.
Empty the fridge together and build a menu from what's there.
Write a letter the other person may only open in a year.
Stargaze, far from streetlights. A star map app helps but isn't a must.

Date ideas under $30 (or £25)

Cook together, but a dish neither of you can make. Failing is part of it.
Mini golf or bowling. The loser does the dishes later.
A street food crawl: share one small thing at three stalls instead of one big meal.
An afternoon movie showing, often much cheaper, followed by ice cream or coffee.
Pick out a book or a record for the other person, with a sentence on why.
Pottery, painting or screen printing for one evening. Many community centers and studios offer drop-in sessions.
A picnic in the park with everything from the supermarket, but nicely laid out.
A café neither of you has been to, and an hour of nothing but asking questions.

Date ideas when it can be something special

A cooking class for two, ideally in a cuisine you both don't know.
A night in a hotel or B&B nearby. Two hours of driving is enough to feel like you're on vacation.
A concert, theater or comedy show. Tickets for something with a fixed date build anticipation.
A trip with a night in a tent or a simple cabin.
Skydiving, a ropes course or a canoe trip, if you like gathering courage together.
An evening at a restaurant you normally go to only for anniversaries, without it being an anniversary.

Date ideas by season

Spring. A bike ride to the nearest lake, strawberry picking, planting a window box or balcony pots, celebrating the first evening on a patio.

Summer. Outdoor cinema, going for a swim and ice cream afterwards, a barbecue by the river, a night walk when it finally cools down. A night in a tent close to home is cheaper than many think.

Fall. Gathering chestnuts, flying a kite, carving pumpkins, a long walk in the woods with a thermos. You'll find more in our guide to fall date ideas.

Winter. A holiday market without a shopping list, sledding, a sauna, fondue, a movie marathon under a blanket. Our collection of winter date ideas goes into cold days in more detail.

Indoors or outdoors

Outdoors wins when you need something to talk about: movement loosens the tongue, and walking side by side is easier for some than sitting across from each other. Indoors wins when you're tired or the weather isn't playing along.

For evenings at home: a photo album night, a board game, a menu with starter, main and dessert in three different places in the home (balcony, couch, bed), a home cinema with popcorn and a phone ban. More in date night ideas at home.

New in love: date ideas for getting to know each other

At the start it's about experiencing the other person. Good are dates with some movement or a task, where pauses aren't awkward: a walk by the river, a market, a museum with a café afterwards, cooking together. A date where you only sit across from each other and look at each other is harder than it sounds.

Don't plan too much at the start. Two hours that leave you wanting more beat a whole day that runs out of steam. If you don't know what to talk about, first date questions help without sounding like an interrogation. And for the very first meeting we have a list of its own with first date ideas.

Together a long time: date ideas against the rut

After years, the problem is rarely that you have nothing to say to each other. It's that every evening looks like the last. Then a change that costs nothing helps:

An evening that one person plans completely, from the meeting point to the way home. The other only knows what to wear.
A date at the place where you met, or where you first did something together.
Do something you loved as kids: ice skating, a trampoline park, an ice cream parlor, a playground at dusk. Adults are allowed on the swings.
Join in on the other's hobby, for one hour and without complaining.
A fixed date in the calendar, for example every first Saturday of the month. Plans that are already in the calendar get canceled less often than good intentions.
A date where you ask each other questions you've never asked. For example: when did you last think, "How good that I'm experiencing this with you right now"?

If daily life and kids leave little room, a short date counts too. Half an hour on the balcony after the kids are asleep is a date if you call it one and put your phone away.

If you live far apart

Even from a distance you can plan something together. Cook the same recipe on a video call, watch the same film with the same start time, send each other a package with three things you only open on the phone. More in our long distance relationship tips.

How a date works out

A few rules that make almost any date better:

Phones away. Not on silent, but in your jacket.
A plan B for bad weather so the evening doesn't get rained out.
Keep expectations small. If you plan a perfect date, you're disappointed when the train is late. If you plan a nice evening, you laugh about it.
Leave something unfinished. If you don't plan every minute, there's room for chance, and those often become the stories you tell later.
Afterwards, briefly say what was good. One sentence is enough.

Where Us2 fits in

The best date doesn't do much if you hardly talk between two appointments. With Us2 you get a question every day that you both answer separately. You only see the other's answer once you've answered yourself. That gives you material for the next date and feels less like an obligation than a conversation topic you have to come up with.

If you want to try it: you can test Us2 for three days with no payment details, in the browser, on iPhone or on Android. Your partner joins through a link.