Often people spend all year waiting for summer as if the arrival of June will magically make the alarm clock go away and allow the good times to roll. Unfortunately, without some actual planning, the summer months will fly by, leaving far too many missed opportunities and very little fun. Turn it around this year. Astonish yourself and everyone around you. Have the best summer ever with these amazing weekend ideas!
12 Amazing Weekend Ideas for the Best Summer Ever
Use the tips below to map out 12 fantastic summer weekends. Customize it to fit your preferences and budget. It won’t matter how little or how much you spend. Picture yourself looking at the calendar, with all of your fabulous weekend plans staring back at you. The impish delight you experience is bound to spread to your family and friends when they learn that this summer will be like no other.
3 Long Weekends for the Whole Family
Kick the weekend off on an exciting note. Pick the kids up early from day camp and tell them to pack their toothbrushes and prepare to leave within the hour. Once everyone has packed a bag, head for a local beach, with or without a boardwalk and amusements.
If your family enjoys being out in the sun, you can imagine how you will spend the days. Beach chairs, towels, and blankets are definite must-haves. If a day out in the sun doesn’t excite you, plan to explore local shops or museums until late afternoon. Once things cool down a little in the evening, get out with your family and experience the sand between your toes.
Remember that cousin, grandmother, old family friend, or a new friend you’ve wanted to spend more time with as a family but never do? Please do it. Call them up today, coordinate your dates, and make it happen this summer.
If they live within an evening’s drive, plan to leave work early on Friday and hit the road in time to have a late dinner with them. On your way back home Sunday afternoon, you’ll be so glad you didn’t put your trip off any longer. Note – schedule your next visit before you leave and invite them to visit you.
This one is super special and maybe the perfect idea for the end of summer. Gather up all the photos from your awesome weekends. Remember to include all of the best ones from your DSLR, cell phone, your kid’s phones. As a family, create a digital photo book, traditional scrapbook, online photo album, or all three.
Choose which photos you might want to use for Christmas cards and which you want to send to friends and family. Have some quick and easy meals planned for that weekend, to minimize cooking and cleaning time. Focus on enjoying all your great summer memories together.
3 Weekends for Family and Friends
Memorial Day, Fourth of July or Labor Day, pick one and plan to invite everyone to join you for a great time. Host a get together at your house, a relative’s home, friend’s home, or a park. Prepare everything yourself, have it catered, or make it pot-luck. Just do it.
Create a summer carnival at home. Call it a celebration, field day, or a day of fun, but make it a great day. Games can be in-door or outside, or a mixture of both. If you have a lot of younger kids, you may want to keep it simple, focusing on games for the kids and adults joining in on the fun.
If you don’t have a lot of small children, the games can be as sophisticated as your imagination. Enlist a friend or family member that loves games to spearhead this effort and add one more spectacular weekend to your summer plans.
Does your family have a church, sports, or another special event that used to bring you all together? Find out when most people in your circle are available and plan a weekend for all of you to attend a planned church or sporting event as a group. Afterward, meet up at a local restaurant or pack lunches and gather at someone’s home to hang out and share smiles and memories.
3 Weekends the Kids will Never Forget
Pick a day to have an old-fashioned picnic with just the kids. Pack lots of snacks, favorite fruits, cold drinks, potato or macaroni salad, cold cuts, and fried chicken. Have fun with the kids, and prepare everything together. If time is a concern, you can pick up nearly all of the items in the prepared foods and deli sections of your local grocery store.
Plan to bring along an ice chest, blankets to sit on, books to read, and outdoor games to play. Take this time to be especially attentive to whatever your kids want to discuss, from silly jokes to the next family weekend away.
Answer all the questions that you may not always have time to explore. Go for walks. Laugh. Be a little silly and remember to take pictures.
Whether you live in a small town or a big city, it has a history. Do your kids know about it? Do you? Do a little sleuthing about the things that make your hometown unique and take a field trip with the kids. What is the highest point in your town? Does it have a rare bird or plant? How was it established? If you need other inspiration, expand to a nearby city or your state if necessary. Visit the capital city, take a tour, or create your own.
Find an amusement park, local farm, hayride, pond, water park, children’s museum, or carnival within a two-hour ride and make a day of it. School trips to these venues are often fun. However, it can be quite a different and cherished experience as a family. You may want to use this idea multiple times over the summer. Go ahead. Get carried away.
3 Weekends with the One You Love
If you have children, consider letting them stay with grandparents or close friends for one weekend. Unplug from everything, including social media and television, except perhaps a few favorite movies on DVD, and reconnect with each other.
Order meals in, or prepare a few tasty dishes ahead of your weekend to minimize the need for cooking and cleaning, unless you enjoy cooking together. Put your favorite music on loop in the background for the entire weekend. Don’t do anything besides enjoying each other.
Plan a spectacular date night. Get dressed up and go somewhere special together. Plan well in advance to make reservations, book performance tickets, and anything else for your perfect night out on the town. Of course, you could do this any week, but how often do you do it? Exactly. Get in on the calendar now.
Plan a weekend stay within driving distance of your home. Choose any venue and activities that will make you both happy. In fact, take a little time to plan the whole weekend together and make your travel arrangements.
There are many options, from art and history museums, bed and breakfasts, and large cities filled with culture, to water venues with romantic views. Ponder the possibilities together, and when you are both smiling, you’ll know you have a winner. On your drive to the hotel, play music and talk like you’ve just met all over again.
Use these tips to surprise your family, friends, and even yourself with summer plans you’ll smile about for years to come. Whether you go for all 12 weeks or only three or four of them, planning how you will enjoy your time with family and friends means you will have a summer like no other.
