100 Real-Life Sidequest Ideas for When You're Bored of Life
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Time to read 9 min
Most of them are free. All of them will get you off your phone once you actually start.
You’ve been scrolling for hours when the realisation suddenly hits: you only get one life, and you’re spending yours watching other people live theirs.
We get it. Life gets busy. You want a break from the routines, responsibilities and mandatory main quests so you reach for the easiest available dopamine hit: your phone.
It’s fine until you look back and can’t remember whether something happened yesterday, last weekend or the weekend before. Everything has started blending together because every day feels almost exactly the same.
The solution isn’t to burn your life down and start again. It’s to interrupt the pattern.
That’s what a sidequest is: something you do for the experience rather than the outcome. It doesn’t need to be productive, impressive or even make complete sense. It just needs to make today feel different from yesterday.
Here are 100 sidequest ideas. Some take five minutes. Some take a weekend. Most cost nothing. Pick one at random and just commit to it - even it it doesn’t make sense.
Remember, there doesn’t need to be a practical reason for doing the thing.
Table of contents
1. Five-minute sidequests you can do right now 2. Sidequests that take about an hour 3. Sidequests for a free morning or afternoon 4. Sidequests that take a whole day 5. Sidequests to do with one other person 6. Sidequests to do with friends 7. Bigger sidequests you’ll tell stories about 8. Screen-free activities for adults 9. Free sidequests to do at home How to pick your adventures Frequently Asked Questions
Five-minute sidequests you can do right now
- Text the friend you always think about but never message.
- Learn to say one sentence in a language you don’t speak.
- Look up the building you’re closest to right now and read its history.
- Write a postcard to yourself and post it.
- Find the oldest photo on your phone and send it to the person in it.
- Memorise a poem short enough to actually finish.
- Look up the night sky above you tonight and learn one constellation.
- Leave a genuinely kind review for a small business that deserves it.
- Rearrange one shelf so it makes you happier to look at.
- Call a family member and ask them one thing you’ve never asked.
Sidequests that take about an hour
- Walk in a direction you never walk and don’t turn back until you’re lost.
- Go to a café you’ve passed a hundred times and never entered. Ask the barista what their favourite song is.
- Cook something from a country you’ve never visited.
- Visit your local library and borrow a book based only on its spine.
- Take a different route to somewhere you go every day.
- Find the highest publicly accessible point near you and go look at the view.
- Sit in a park without your phone and invent stories about the people you see.
- Learn a card trick well enough to fool one person.
- Go to a charity shop and buy the strangest thing you can find for under a fiver.
- Draw the view from your window.
- Find a piece of live music happening near you this week and go.
- Bake something you’ve never baked before.
- Photograph ten really cool doors.
- Teach yourself to fold one impressive piece of origami.
- Watch the sunrise.
Already stuck deciding which one to do?
That’s exactly why we made the Original Deck: 50 mystery sidequests you draw one at a time. so you can stop overthinking and surrender to whatever happens next.
Sidequests for a free morning or afternoon
- Take a train one stop further than you’ve ever been and explore.
- Visit a museum you’ve never been to before.
- Take yourself out for a solo lunch.
- Cycle somewhere it would be easier to drive.
- Picture golden hour in your head. Then go and see it for real and compare reality with your imagination.
- Walk alongside a river or canal for as far as it’ll take you.
- Join a guided foraging walk and learn to identify one edible plant.
- Visit the oldest and newest versions of the same thing. For example, the oldest pub and the newest pub in town.
- Spend an afternoon learning to skateboard.
- Find a local market you’ve never visited and buy your dinner there.
- Go to the cinema alone in the middle of the day.
- Take a pottery, printing or pasta-making class.
- Visit a cemetery and read the most interesting headstones.
- Write yourself a scavenger hunt before you leave the house, then complete it.
- Order a drink in the lobby of a hotel you’ve never stayed in and spend an hour reading there.
Sidequests that take a whole day
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FROM THE ORIGINAL DECK: Get on a bus to the end of the line and see where you end up.
One of 50 mystery prompts inside the Original Deck
- Have a “yes day”: say yes to every safe, reasonable suggestion.
- Visit the nearest town you’ve never had a reason to visit.
- Spend a day being a tourist in your own city with an actual sightseeing list.
- Do a long walk with a destination pub at the end.
- Volunteer somewhere for a day.
- Take a ferry somewhere you can explore on foot and come back the same day.
- Learn to do one thing your parents can do that you can’t.
- Cook a three-course meal from scratch.
- Go to a car boot sale or flea market and haggle for something.
- Spend a day off-grid.
- Drive somewhere with no destination and take every turn that looks interesting.
- Attend a talk, lecture or event about a subject you know nothing about.
- Do a photo walk with a single theme: red, reflections, faces or doorways.
- Find a natural swimming spot and get in, provided swimming is permitted and the conditions are safe.
Sidequests to do with one other person
- Recreate your first-ever outing together.
- Swap phones for an afternoon and be each other’s photographer.
- Cook a meal where you each secretly choose one of the courses.
- Take turns planning a mystery outing the other person knows nothing about.
- Play tourist and ask a stranger if they’ll let you interview them for five minutes.
- Do a blind restaurant pick: go to the closest place, whatever it is.
- Learn a two-person skill: a lift, a dance move or a magic trick.
- Write letters to your future selves and agree when to open them.
- Race each other to complete a list of small city missions.
- Go somewhere at a time you’d never normally go. For example, a beach at midnight.
The best sidequests often begin with: “This might be stupid, but…”
Sidequests to do with friends
- Host a dinner where everyone brings a dish from their childhood.
- Organise a themed walk and make everyone dress for it.
- Run a mini film festival: three films, one evening, one theme.
- Do a group skill swap where everyone teaches one thing for ten minutes.
- Plan a day trip decided entirely by a coin toss at each junction.
- Throw a party with a strangely specific dress code.
- Do a restaurant crawl with one course per venue.
- Set a group challenge for everyone to try something none of you has done before, then report back.
- Organise a silly sports day for adults.
- Rent something beginner-friendly none of you has tried, a rowing boat, tandem bike or paddleboard, and learn together.
DO THIS BEFORE YOU KEEP SCROLLING
Text a friend: “Pick a number between 66 and 75.”
Whatever number they choose is now your next sidequest.
If everybody agrees it makes absolutely no sense, you should probably do it.
Bigger sidequests you’ll tell stories about
- Take a solo trip somewhere whose name you first have to learn how to pronounce.
- Spin a globe, point and start planning a trip to wherever your finger lands.
- Learn a genuinely useless but impressive skill and get certified in it.
- Say yes to the invitation you’d normally decline.
- Sign up for the event you’re not fit enough for right now and then get fit enough.
- Sleep somewhere unusual for one night, such as a night train, under the stars or on a canal boat, somewhere safe and permitted.
- Take a lesson in sailing, riding, diving or flying.
- Enter something you might lose. For example, an open mic, a pub quiz or a local 5K.
- Track down a distant relative or an old address and go see it.
- Do the thing you’ve been “meaning to do” for over a year. This week.
Screen-free activities for adults
- Take yourself on a proper date. The kind you’d plan for someone else.
- Spend an evening writing down every place you want to see before you die.
- Take a lesson on an instrument you don’t play.
- Do a solo overnight somewhere within an hour of home.
- Read an entire book in a single day.
- Write a letter to someone you’ve lost touch with and actually send it.
- Make something with your hands and give it away.
- Go for a walk with no phone and no destination and stay out until it’s dark.
- Sit somewhere beautiful and do absolutely nothing for an hour.
- Cook the most ambitious thing you’ve ever attempted, just for you.
Free sidequests to do at home
- Learn to make a signature drink, appetiser or dessert that you can call yours.
- Write down ten things you did as a kid that you’ve stopped doing, then reclaim one.
- Write a poem.
- Teach yourself something from a video until you can do it without pausing.
- Draw a map of somewhere you used to spend a lot of time. For example, the walk from your childhood home to your old high school.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a sidequest in real life?
A sidequest is a small, optional adventure that interrupts your normal routine. It doesn’t need to be productive, impressive or carefully planned. The point is to follow your curiosity and see where it leads.
How do I choose a sidequest from this list?
Don’t overthink it. Choose a number at random, ask a friend to pick one for you or scroll with your eyes closed and tap the screen. Once you’ve chosen, commit to it.
Do sidequests have to cost money?
Not at all. Most of the ideas on this list are completely free or cost very little. A good sidequest is defined by the experience, not how much you spend.
Can I do these sidequests alone?
Absolutely. Many work perfectly as solo adventures, while others are more fun with a friend, date or group. Adapt the idea to whatever feels exciting and slightly outside your normal routine.
What if a sidequest feels embarrassing or pointless?
That may be a sign you’ve found a good one. Sidequests aren’t about being productive or looking impressive. They’re about doing something simply because it could make life feel more interesting.
You don’t need more ideas. You need fewer decisions.
Yes, this list is long. That’s partly the problem.
Don’t pick the one you’re “in the mood for” or the one you think will make the best story. Pick one at random and commit to it, even if it makes absolutely no sense.
That’s the point of a sidequest: an unplanned detour that leads somewhere unknown and drops a bit of whimsy back into your life.
If deciding is the part that always stops you, we made something for that.
For instant adventures:
THE ORIGINAL DECK
50 mystery sidequests.
Free yourself of the weight of making the decision, commit to the bit on the card you pull and surrender to the adventure.
For a monthly nudge:
SIDEQUEST MAIL CLUB
A founder story, real-life challenge and physical reminder not to let another month slip by unnoticed.
Because nobody gets to the end and wishes they’d spent more time watching other people live.
Put the phone down. Leave work on time. Get off the sofa.
Go live the highlight reel.
Happy sidequesting.
