A Perfect Date Night
Date night doesn’t have to be your typical dinner & a movie (although you can make that special by visiting a unique theater!). Why not make this Valentine’s Day different by giving one of these three awesome date night ideas a try? Bonus if you schedule date nights for the next two weeks with the other two ideas!
How about a Progressive Dinner?
Idea #1: Create your own progressive dinner. We accidentally did this for our anniversary last year. Our first course was chips & guacamole and margarita’s during soccer practice and then we moved on to a much nicer restaurant for salads, wine, and dessert after we took our soccer player home.
It was actually really fun and memorable so I decided to upgrade it this year for a unique night out.
Start your evening with an appetizer or salad and a drink at one local restaurant, move on to another for entrees (or we did sushi since we aren’t big eaters) and finally end the night with coffee and dessert. If you have an area of town with several restaurants within walking distance of each other this can be a really fun experience!
This works best with just two people because even if the restaurant is full you can often sit at the bar and be served pretty quickly at each stop.
If you are on a tight budget this year, you could even do this with counter service restaurants – it’ll be a fun and inexpensive adventure.
Get out and explore
Idea #2: Skip the big night out and go exploring in a nearby town instead. We’ll often do this instead of a fancy dinner for birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Find a free day – doesn’t even have to be “the day,” and take off exploring.
If you don’t know where to go, use my trusty Circle Your Hometown method and drive somewhere within an hour. Check out everything the location has to offer (use Yelp and TripAdvisor to help you find things to do) and then enjoy a meal at a local spot.
Some of our best days have been spent like this – a recent amazing example was our Perfect Day in Spencer. Not only was it a fantastic day, but it was also super inexpensive – excluding gas we only spent about $30!
Enjoy staying in
Idea #3: This idea is ideal if you can’t find a babysitter (although you can certainly do it as a couple too) or that special night falls on a busy weekday. Instead of heading out to fight the crowds for dinner, why not create a special evening at home?
I don’t want the work of preparing a big meal, so I like to throw together a cheese plate. It takes me minutes to fix and everyone can nibble all night long. Next, we create special drinks. I’ll either mix up a batch of the perfect margaritas or lately we’ve been enjoying Kir Royales (champagne mixed with a bit of blackberry liquor – YUM!) for the adults and sparkling cider or grape juice for the kids.
Finally, we pull out our favorite easy to play games. The ones that allow for lots of conversation and don’t cover up the table with pieces. The current go-to’s are Farkle, Yahtzee or Five Crowns.
Which idea do you like best? Not only would these be perfect for Valentine’s Day, but they would also be a lot of fun for your next vacation! What a great way to discover more of what the town you are visiting has to offer. I plan on doing all three of these to help ward off the end of winter – should keep us entertained until our next vacation.
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