36 Affordable and Fun Things to Do with Friends in College
Adapted from 1st Financial Bank USA's blog
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After covering tuition, textbooks, and meal plans, there might be very little room left in your budget for fun activities. Yet, a school year with all work and no play can be exhausting. Luckily, there are many ways to have a good time without breaking the bank. Check out our list of 36 fun things to do with friends that won't hurt your wallet.
1. Go Hiking
Hiking is a free or low-cost activity that can be done in your local area. All you need is commitment, a water bottle and a decent pair of hiking boots or sneakers to hit the trails. Depending on the length and difficulty of the trail, you can choose to take a backpack with a snack for the halfway point. Hiking – whether alone or with friends has many benefits – including stress relief, exercise, a break from “screentime," and breathtaking scenery.
2. Host a Clothing Swap
Invite your friends over for a clothing swap night. A clothing swap is where you exchange items from each other’s closets that you no longer wear or have duplicates of. While you shouldn’t bring stained or damaged items, sweaters you rarely wear or pants you've outgrown may be acceptable. Hosting a clothing swap can be a fun, no-cost, and sustainable way to refresh your wardrobes without spending money.
3. Catch Up Over Coffee
A simple way to go on an affordable date with your partner or hang out with friends is to meet up for coffee. There might be a cozy cafe nearby where you can sip on your favorite beverage and chat about anything from sports to movie releases. Coffee shops or cafes are also the perfect spot to do some people-watching or even catch up on some studying or work.
4. Attend an Open Mic Night
Whenever a club on your college campus or a local organization hosts a free open mic night, you should consider attending. The events are usually free and could feature improv performers, musicians, slam poetry, stand-up comedy, or other verbal arts. This is a great opportunity for you and your friends to showcase your talents or simply sit back and enjoy the show, cheer on the performers, and possibly make friends with fellow spectators.
5. Start a Book Club
If you and your friend group like to read, you could start a book club to share your love of literature. Save money by renting books from the library or searching for secondhand copies at your local thrift store. Once everyone has read the book, gather to discuss the most intriguing parts, bond over your shared viewpoints, and maybe have a snack and a beverage while you discuss.
6. Create a Vision Board
Vision boards are an artsy way to represent your future goals and desires. Creating one with your friends can make the experience more memorable. A vision board can serve as a visual reminder of your dreams and provide the inspiration and motivation to strive for them. To avoid spending too much on materials, ask everyone to bring old magazines, markers, and glue. Include letters, words, and images to create a board that represents your goals.
7. Go Camping
There’s nothing quite like going camping with your friends. To enjoy the great outdoors, you'll need to have a tent, sleeping bag, and other outdoor essentials. You could all pitch in to purchase a new tent or ask around to see if any of your friends has one that you can borrow. You also might be able to rent supplies cheaply through your school’s recreation center. Camping is a budget-friendly escape into nature.
8. Have a Home Spa Day
A fun way to spend time with your friends is to host a home spa day. Give each other manicures, apply face or foot masks, or try another relaxing spa activity using what you already have. Not only will you save money by not going to a professional salon, but you and your friends will get to prioritize the self-care that you may have been neglecting from the comfort of your own room.
9. Search for Free Local Events
If you're looking for a fun and budget-friendly outing with your friends, start by researching free local events in your area. Look up community calendars or campus boards for free events. Whether it's trivia nights, festivals, or live music, there's surely something for everyone.
10. Host a Cooking Contest
If you’re tired of the classic friend dinner, you can switch it up by holding a fun competition. Whether you have a chili cook off, a cookie competition, or a barista battle, this could be a fun way to try new recipes and get a little competitive. Best of all, any leftovers can be shared among the group and frozen for a low-cost meal later.
11. Break Out the Sidewalk Chalk
Creating art with chalk is a fun and budget-friendly way to unleash your creativity. When you draw on the sidewalk in front of your dorm or apartment, your chalk art has the potential to brighten someone’s day and bring a smile to their face. The best part is that your art is not permanent, so you don’t have to worry about making it perfect.
12. Visit a Botanical Garden
Visiting a botanical garden can be a great way to spend casual time with friends, and it's often free. Depending on the season and your college’s environment, you can take a leisurely walk amidst the greenery or learn how to identify various species of plants. Consider taking some photos of the beautiful flowers and natural scenery.
13. Tour Around Your College Town
There's more to your college town than just your campus. With your friends, you can take a walk, ride a skateboard, or go for a bike ride (no car is required) to explore on a budget. You may even stumble upon new restaurants, murals, coffee spots, and shops that you may have missed otherwise. Don't hesitate to check out the popular tourist attractions in your college town either.
14. Hang Out at a Local Park
Another affordable thing to do with friends is to have a park day. You can pack some food and picnic essentials, play disc golf, people watch, sunbathe, read, or get involved in a pickup game. With so many fun options, the park is the perfect place to spend time with a group of friends.
15. Complete a TV or Movie Marathon
With a tv or movie marathon, you get to spend a cozy evening at home. Grab a blanket, pop some popcorn, and settle in for a relaxing evening with your friends. The hardest part of your evening will likely be deciding what you want to watch. It doesn’t matter if you choose a classic movie trilogy or a new tv series. Maybe pick a theme, classic comedies, 90s movies, or a sitcom. Whatever you choose for movie night, you’ll likely have a good time watching it together.
16. Learn a New Language Together
Learning a new language can be an exciting activity when done with
a friend or a group of friends. With free language learning apps like Duolingo or library resources, the activity is both affordable and enjoyable. You and your friends can also hold each other accountable for putting in the time to learn and practice the language. To make it even more fun, you can save up to travel together to a country in which the language you are learning is spoken.
17. Have a Game Night
Game nights can be a fun way to unwind and have some fun with your friends. You can opt for a friend trivia night or playing board games, like Clue, Sorry, or Scrabble. For a less competitive evening, spend time putting together a puzzle. You may even be able to rent or borrow board games from your school or reserve a space on campus for your game night.
18. Check Out a Museum or Art Gallery
Another low- or no-cost friend date idea is to check out a museum or art gallery. You and your friends can even pretend to be art or antique critics to make the visit a little more fun. High school and college students can often take advantage of student discounts or free admission days to save even more money.
19. Start a Shared Journal
Start a physical or digital journal that you pass along to your on-campus or long-distance friends. Here is how it works: one person takes possession of the journal for a set period of time, such as a week, and writes in it and adds various journal entries, including pictures, drawings, or other mementos to make it more personalized. After the week is up, that person passes the journal to the next person. This can be a creative way to stay connected, especially if those participating in the shared journal do not live close by or are studying abroad.
20. Go Stargazing
If you and your friends are night owls, you can lie on a blanket and look for constellations in the night sky. You can use a stargazing app to help identify what you are seeing. For the clearest skies, you will need to travel away from the city streetlights to avoid light pollution. This activity can be a no-cost and relaxing way to unwind. You can also combine stargazing with another low- or no-cost activity from this list, such as camping.
21. Attend a Bonfire
Build a firepit (if permitted in your area) and invite friends to share ghost stories, sing songs, make s’mores, or simply enjoy each other's presence with the glow of the campfire. In addition to gathering firewood and adhering to safety guidelines, the only other thing you will need to do is bring chairs.
22. Volunteer Together
Volunteering is a great way to give back to your community while creating memories with your friends. There are a variety of volunteer activities groups can enjoy. For example, host a letter-writing or card-making party during the holidays for military personnel overseas. Bring your friends to an animal shelter to help furry friends in need. Music lovers can sign up to help at a music festival (you might get to enjoy it for free). Gather at a food bank to prepare food and care packages for food pantries. The opportunities are endless.
23. Have a Craft Night
Sometimes, after a long week of classes and homework, you might want to de-stress by being artistic. If that sounds like you, consider a craft night – for the crafty and uncrafty alike. You could paint canvases, make friendship bracelets, tie dye shirts, or explore another craft together. You may be pleasantly surprised at your friends' hidden talents. Plus, you should be able to re-use any leftover supplies, such as paint, brushes, and beads, for a future craft night or even a school project.
24. Join an Amateur Sports League
Consider joining an amateur sports league or participating in your college’s intramural activities on your own or with a group of friends. Whether a one-day tournament or a weekly league, a pickleball match or a card game, there is bound to be something you are interested in. This will give you the chance to let off some steam and get involved in some friendly competition, while spending quality time with your friends at little to no cost.
25. Try Out Geocaching
Try geocaching which is an outdoor recreational activity that you can do alone or with others in which a GPS receiver or mobile device is used to hide and seek containers, called geocaches or caches, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world. With a geocaching app, like Cachly, you and your friends can turn any day into a pre-designed scavenger hunt assuming you have a mode of transportation. You will find that certain geocaches are more difficult to locate than others and may require clues to help you along the way. Fortunately, geocaching can be a low-cost activity. Since many geocaching apps are free, the only cost is getting to each location. Once you find the container, you can log your find to let others know about your discovery and should leave something behind for the next person to find.
26. Pick Seasonal Fruit at a Local Farm
Visiting a local u-pick farm or community garden – where you can pick your own berries or find the perfect pumpkin – is a unique and fun thing to do in college. Make sure that the fruit or vegetables you want to pick are in season before your visit. Admission fees typically include the cost of the fruit which you get to take home with you.
27. Host a Themed Dinner Party
If you are looking for ways to spruce up a typical dinner with friends, consider a themed dinner party. Whether you choose a holiday party, make-your-own pizza party, or costume party based on characters from a favorite movie, a themed dinner party is sure to be a night to remember. Plus, you're likely to have a nice evening for less than the cost of a fancy restaurant.
28. Go Thrifting
When you love to shop but you’re following a student budget, thrifting can be an excellent option. You and your friends can visit local second-hand stores and pick out quality items for yourself or each other to wear. Make it into a game by seeing who can find the best vintage clothes or who can gather the funniest outfit for under $20.
29. Have a Tournament Night
A fun and engaging way to bring your friends together is hosting a tournament. If you choose to have a video game tournament, like Mario Kart, you may need to locate a Nintendo Switch or Wii. However, a ping pong table, pool table, or chess board might be easier to find on a college campus. To make the evening more exciting, consider opening up the tournament to a cross-section of your friends, acquaintances, classmates, co-workers, and others.
30. Bird Watching
An affordable activity you can share with friends is bird watching. You do not need fancy gear, only binoculars and a passion for birds, to witness the beauty of nature. The time of day, season, and type of birds you interested in observing will determine the ideal location for your bird watching adventure. You can bring a field guidebook to see the number of different species you can identify and listen to their distinctive sounds.
31. Sing Karaoke
A fun, low-cost activity could be to invite your friends over for a karaoke night. While you could purchase or rent a karaoke machine, you should be able to find the instrumental version of your favorite songs on YouTube for free. This is a fun opportunity to have a good laugh at each other's performances and test your knowledge of the lyrics to your favorite tunes. Bonus points for theme nights or “duets only.”
32. Take a Free Online Course or Class
Another educational but fun activity for college students could be to take a free online course. Attend a virtual cooking class, brush up on photography tips and tricks, or even try a pre-recorded workout. With so many options available, you never know – you may just find your next favorite hobby while taking an online class with friends. Platforms like Coursera offer free courses in everything from learning a new language to photography, so it’s a great place to start exploring,
33. Watch a Sports Game
Many colleges offer free or discounted tickets to students for on-campus sporting event. You can save even more money by purchasing a ticket to watch a less popular sport, such as field hockey, rowing, tennis, or rugby. Even if you are not into sports, supporting your school’s sports teams is a great way to show school spirit and also can be a way to meet and make new friends.
34. Host a Sleepover
Just because you’re in college doesn't mean you need to stop having sleepovers. You can always move your mattresses to a friend's dorm room or opt for a futon or couch. Watch a movie, build a pillow fort, and catch up on life. You can make this a weekly or monthly tradition or take turns sleeping over at each other's place to mix things up.
35. Try Each Other’s Hobbies
You and your friends likely do not share all the same hobbies and therefore it could be fun and open up a whole new interest by trying one or more of their hobbies, whether it is running, crocheting, martial arts, or origami. Even if it’s a one-time thing, trying a friend’s hobby may help you get out of your comfort zone and even lead to a new pastime. Not only will you get to spend quality time with your friends, but you may be able to save money as well by sharing the costs of some hobbies.
36. Make a Scrapbook or Photo Album
Making a scrapbook or photo album with your closest friends could be a very sentimental experience. It's a wonderful way to preserve memories that you can cherish for years to come. You can print out your favorite photos and arrange them in a unique way or use a convenient online template, like on Canva, to create your book. To make it even more special, you could create a photo album specifically to include the pictures you took with friends while completing the fun activities in this list.
You don't need to spend a lot to make college memories with your friends. Whether you're hanging out with your best friend or a close-knit group, there are plenty of ways to have fun without spending too much. Prioritizing budget-friendly experiences in college will save you money and help you create unforgettable memories that will last long after you graduate.
