I know that it’s easy to get fed up with not being able to hang out with all your friends in person, whether that is because some of them are remote or because they live in different residence halls. You might be even more fed up with people telling you to just use FaceTime or Zoom, but you know what? I’m about to tell you to do that anyway. Here are some ideas for activities that you can do with your friends over video call and still have a fun time. I’m going to organize these by least to most involved, but none of these ideas should take more than $20 at most, depending on what you want to plan.
First, let’s go over some ideas that cost no money and need no prep time. So, my favorite type of activity in all honesty. The first video call friendly idea is having a trivia night with your friends. This takes no more prep time than the time it takes to google for trivia questions. It’s the choice of you and your friends if you want to keep score or not — nothing wrong with some friendly competition, but it is just as fun for things to be easy breezy. You can either designate one friend as the trivia master who delivers all of the questions, or for maximum fairness each person can pull up a different list of trivia questions (perhaps about different subjects) and you can take turns asking the questions.
The next activity is charades. This takes no more prep than trivia, so great news! Depending on the number of friends you have you can decide if you want to just do charades in pairs or with small teams. To get prompts easily, just search charades words generator and you will find several websites that do just that. Typically they also allow you to change the difficulty of the words, so you can play at your preferred level.
The next minimal prep idea is to have a scavenger hunt. This activity can take a little more prep depending on how you decide to go about this. One option is to use a premade list of in-house scavenger hunts online, which takes no prep time. Alternately you or your friends could collaborate to make a list, and all contribute ideas, but this does give the potential for unfair advantage if one person contributes more list items. A scavenger hunt can be judged by closest to completion of the list or based on time.
In the same sense as a scavenger hunt, the next idea can be done with prep time or without. Hear me out on this one, guys… a talent show. Okay, so maybe it sounds silly, but it would be so fun to show off little weird skills that your friends might not know you have. Especially if you can show off any new skills you developed during quarantine. My understanding is that some people got quite crafty.
Speaking of crafty, how about a craft night over zoom? You would need to decide ahead of time what craft you wanted to do so everyone can make sure they have the supplies they need, but it would be super fun and cute to all make something while hanging out. As for what you should make… that’s up to you! Check pinterest for inspiration, and maybe keep an eye out for future articles since I might give you some cute craft suggestions. I will say though, it is spooky season, so maybe make some decor!
One level up from crafting, I would say, is cooking. Pick out a recipe ahead of time so all your friends who want to participate can ensure they have the proper ingredients. Also, make sure you plan for when you all have enough time set aside, so no one has to run out halfway through cooking. That being said, even if it takes more prep time, and also a bit of a budget for ingredients, cooking together is a fun way to practice a practical skill. If your friends are at different levels of kitchen confidence, I would recommend my personal go to — sauté some vegetables and then serve them over pasta, and whatever sauce you like. It’s easy, super customizable and tasty! Also, by making the same dishes simultaneously over video call you can all share a meal even if you’re hundreds of miles apart!
Last, but certainly not least, is a remote spa night! I put this last because depending on how stocked up on self care goodies you and your friends are, some of you may need to spend a bit of money. That being said, doing face masks, hair masks, scrubs, peels or any other spa like treatments over zoom is a great way to creatively spend time with your friends and relieve and build up stress from the semester. Don’t forget to set the atmosphere with aromatherapy or with scented candles if you aren’t in an on campus residence.
