If you find yourself staring at a wall or otherwise fending off boredom, it helps to have a list of activities to reference. I’ve given you a head start below with 50 random activities and challenges to expand your mind, meet new people, and possibly alienate your friends.
Some are easy, like go karaoking (#25). Others are a bit harder and more time intensive, like buying and operating a hot dog cart (#18). All are fun.
Report back on your progress (with photos, please).
#22 – make molten lava cake. mmmm.
My List of 50 Potential Things To Do If I’m Bored
1. Go out for dinner alone (the best place to meet interesting people is at the bar of a nice restaurant)
2. Date an artist (or, if you’re an artist, date an accountant or something)
3. Grow a beard (only if you’re a man, please)
4. Get a straight razor shave
5. Ask a stranger to coffee
6. Read a self-help book
7. Ask if you can join someone sitting alone at a restaurant
8. Move to a new city
9. Shoot a gun (at a shooting range)
10. Go skydiving
11. Learn another language
12. Date a foreigner
13. Visit a local tourist attraction (I grew up 45 minutes away from the Statue of Liberty and never went)
14. Watch a foreign film
15. Stay in a hostel (even if…no, ESPECIALLY IF you’re inappropriately old to be staying there)
16. Go to a hibachi restaurant
17. Go swimming in an inappropriate place (public fountain, large puddle, whatever)
18. Own and operate a hot dog cart (am I the only person who wants to do this?)
19. Drive cross country
20. Find a fast Go Kart track
21. Take a wine tasting class
22. Make chocolate lava cake (actually, it’s pretty easy and very impressive)
23. Host a cocktail party (or, just go to a cocktail party. Cocktail parties get mentioned all the time, but how often do we actually have them? Never.)
24. Send a postcard
25. Karaoke (personal favorite)
26. Audit a class at a local college
27. Go to a planetarium
28. See live standup comedy
29. Now, go and do live standup comedy
30. Walk across an impressive bridge
31. Join a Crossfit gym
32. Start a blog
33. Host a poker night
34. Same as above, but strip poker
35. See a classical music concert
36. Do a citywide scavenger hunt with friends
37. Learn to bartend
38. Eat an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert in three different restaurants in the same night (I do this for my birthday sometimes, because yes, I’m that difficult)
39. Get a group together to go to a city that’s 2+ hours away for a night
40. Do the Tough Mudder
41. Write me an email
42. Ask the next attractive person that you see on a date (no excuses)
43. Go tubing down a river (it’s amazing how much thinking you’ll do on a 5-hour tube ride with no phone and no computer)
44. Take a city bus tour, even if it’s in your own city
45. Read this book (you’ll instantly become a much better writer)
46. Buy an outfit that is completely different from your normal style
47. Crash a black tie event
48. Make up a fake poll and go ask random people on the street to answer it
49. Get professional photos taken of yourself (this is actually really fun, and a huge ego boost)
50. Share this post on Facebook.
BA Expat 
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Challenge Accepted! With some minor edits.
hahahaha.. #4 is also a men’s special isnt it 😉 ?? and no you are not the only one who wants #18!! but sadly we dont have hot dog carts in our country..though we do have something equally engaging 🙂 i wana try out almost all of those except for #40..idk why but that sounds scary to me..all i can think of are angry, red in the face brits yelling – “get your arse up that wall you pig”. #41 is equally challenging..being an introvert, only i (and quite possibly other introverts who read this by chance) know how difficult it is to even comment 🙂 but i will fall through and do #50 not because im actually bored but because this list is quite practical..apart from a few :p :p i find your posts very interesting and no doubt-entertaining. keep it up 🙂
*will not fall through to do! god..see..nervousness even while commenting! jeez!
Personally, I prefer On Writing by Stephen King to Elements of Style by William Strunk. It’s much more engaging, and I found it incredibly motivating. You should check it out if you never have.
45 is excellent! More people should start with that one!
This is great! Definitely going to knock a couple of these out this summer. “There is nothing to do here” has become to regular of a phrase for me.
For number 38, I do the same thing – except I have an ‘upside down’ dinner….so you start with dessert, then main, then appetizer (all at separate restaurants on the same night of course). Even more annoying (and fun) 🙂
AWESOME! Some of which I’ve done, many of which I dare not, but much of which I should try.
Thank you for sharing.
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