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Thank goodness summer is finally here and thank goodness this summer won’t have to be like last! Ah, summertime is the absolute best, and one of the ways to make the most out of it is by making a bucket list! It is a handy list of inspiration for moments where you’re not sure how to spend your valuable time.
21 Summer Bucket List Ideas
Let’s beef up your summer 2022 plans with our ultimate summer bucket list below!
Have a Lake Day
Days by the water are the best days. Grab the fam or your pals, bring a picnic or grill out at the lake, throw around a frisbee, have a swim, and enjoy the serene beauty around you.
Rent Kayaks or Canoes
A great way to spend the day doing something active and relaxing in the great outdoors!
Take a day or a weekend, and explore another city or outdoor recreation area you’ve never been to! Road tripping is the chillest form of travel, that allows spontaneity and spur-of-the-moment decisions. Just make sure to have your road trip essentials!
Get Inspired: The Ultimate Southwest US Road Trip
Attend an Outdoor Movie
A classic way to spend a beautiful summer evening is at an outdoor movie theatre, either from the comfort of your own car or from a lawn chair set closer to the gigantic screen. You could also invest in your own private projector for about $60-120, and prop it up outside (or inside), using a blank wall or ceiling as your movie screen, to make a private and mobile cinema!
Go Mini Golfing
A cute date idea or a casual outing with friends, mini golfing always makes the cut for popular summertime activities.
Tie-Dye T-shirts
Round up your old tees or buy one for just a few dollars at Dollar Tree or Hobby Lobby (both places should have dye as well). All ages can have a blast just making a mess, or being crafty and artsy, with this! For fun design inspiration, look here.
Have a Bonfire
Kids and adults alike love sitting by a roaring, cozy bonfire in the evening, roasting marshmallows and telling stories. Bonfires foster quality time!
Rent a Pontoon Boat
Make Saturday a party by getting a group together to split the cost of a pontoon boat for an afternoon. With enough people, it can be pretty affordable and makes for an amazing summer memory!
Camping out is a great, relaxing adventure that really brings people together. (No tent? Check out our checklist for successful car camping here!) And if you don’t want to venture out into any wilderness, why not camp out in the backyard?
A perfect ending to a summer day spent under the sun, try whipping up some classic root beer floats at home!
Try This Boozy Twist: Chocolate Colorado Bulldog
Go Fruit-Picking
An activity that could quickly become a family tradition, it is rejuvenating and fun to pick seasonal fruit as a summer activity. Pretty soon you’ll be apple picking in the fall, because it is just special to pick your own fresh produce from the earth. It is also important to support local farmers.
Have a Homemade Pizza Party
Making homemade pizza is a super easy and fun process. You don’t need any complicated ingredients (besides yeast, which in many recipes, is not complicated at all), and you can create a buffet style set up for all the yummy toppings so everyone can pick out their favorites!
Plan Picnics
Assemble your favorite assortment of finger foods and picnic must-haves for an afternoon at your local park! Summer days spent on a picnic blanket in the grass are simply the best. Throw the ball around, organize kick ball, or just lounge and read in the sun!
Grow Your Own Garden
Pick a small plot of land on your property and turn ‘er over! Gardening is a rewarding, refreshing hobby that takes you outside, gets your hands dirty in the earth, and rejuvenates your soul. If you’re not sure how to start gardening, take a look at this beautiful guide!
Go Fishing
Maybe you’ve gone once or twice, but not for a really long while, so try giving this sport another whirl this summer. Even if you don’t catch anything, It’s chill and peaceful sitting by the water.
Go to a Baseball Game
Days at the stadium are always a blast! Grab your loved ones for a fun game day.
Have a Water Balloon Fight
Declare war on your friends or family unexpectedly and go to town! Or heck, make it water guns.
Plan a Great BBQ at Home
A backyard cook-out or barbecue is the quintessential summer activity. Have your loved ones over for a fun night of yard games, grilling all the meats, and drinking refreshing beverages or cool beers.
Sip Cool Summer co*cktails
Brush up your co*cktail-making skills this summer by learning how to whip up cool and breezy refreshers on a hot summer’s day.
Sip On: Grapefruit Basil Greyhound
Try out Homemade Ice Cream
Having an ice cream maker at home is definitely a fun way to perk up your summer dessert game. Made from scratch, homemade ice cream tastes very different than store-bought and is so delicious. If you don’t want to invest in an ice cream maker, we can confirm that ice cream in a bag is a real thing!
Water Color Painting
Something about spending a lazy and quiet afternoon on the porch playing around with watercolor sounds very soul-enriching and ideal.
Hopefully this bucket list makes you even more pumped for summer fun and all the possibilities that come with the warm weather and free time.
What makes your bucket list that isn’t on ours?
Travel
Maura Bielinski
Road trip fanatic with a penchant for great books and misadventures. She found her writer's hand early in life, and now writes remotely as she travels. She is a Wisconsin girl, but is currently making her home in Honolulu, HI. Her favorite form of fitness is anything and everything outdoors, particularly hiking!
An easy and fun way to get the entire family involved in your summer fun is to create a Bucket List together. Creating a written list of your plans will help you to be more mindful and intentional about how you spend your time.
Without a doubt, the most popular experience on someone's bucket list had to do with travel—and 77% of our survey indicated that they had some sort of travel goal on their personal lists.
A bucket list is a list of the experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. A bucket list is an itemized list of goals people want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket” — or die.
Often, a bucket list includes big dreams, aspirations, travel, and fun things we'd like to experience in our lives. Given that engaging in positive activities is good for our well-being (Catalino, Algoe, & Fredrickson, 2014), checking off things on our bucket list may also be good for our well-being.
A traditional bucket list often includes grand experiences and achievements, like traveling to far-off places, going on thrilling adventures, or achieving significant life milestones. But at the end of the day, these lists are about fulfilling personal desires and creating memorable experiences.
A bucket list is a list of tasks or experiences that one would like to have prior to their death. Create your bulleted bucket list of at least 10 items. You may choose to have more items than 10 for this list. You may want to think of the following questions as you create your list: Who do I want to meet?
Americans tell NRPA that they are planning to attend a picnic/BBQ, go for a walk/hike or head to the beach. Other popular summer activities include exploring the nature, cooling off at the pool or attending a festival.
Bucket lists may be 10 or 100 items long and consist of a range of different categories. The examples listed above may help you discover which category is most or least important to you. It's also important to hand-write your bucket list opposed to typing it or not solidifying it at all.
Introduction: My name is Lidia Grady, I am a thankful, fine, glamorous, lucky, lively, pleasant, shiny person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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