30 indoor side quests for a rainy day, a cold night, or a weekend you don't feel like leaving. Sorted by who's home with you.
Pick one for meStaying in doesn't have to mean switching off. A side quest at home is a small project with a finish line (a jar of pickles, a first linocut print, a game night with rules you made up) that turns an evening in into something you did instead of something that happened.
The list is sorted by what kind of night in it is: friends over, the two of you, just you, a kitchen project, or something to make at the table. Every card links to a full guide with steps, time and gear.
Start here: six that work in any apartment. Something to cook, something to print, something to build, and a game night with a twist.
Cheap produce in, a pantry you're proud of out.
Grab a friend and spend an afternoon turning a pile of cheap produce into jars you'll be proud of. You'll make crunchy sauerkraut, quick fridge pickles and a small batch of jam that seals with a satisfying metallic pop. Then taste everything together and pick a favorite.
Carve it once, print it forever, give the best one away.
Grab a friend and spend an afternoon carving a design into a soft linoleum block, then rolling on ink and pulling print after print of the same bold image. Your first pull is the big moment: peel the paper back and your drawing is suddenly there in crisp black.
Say yes to the silliest idea in the room
Clear the living room floor, invite six to eight friends over, and spend two to three hours playing short improv games. You'll pass invisible sounds around a circle, throw yourselves into instant scenes, and laugh at the weird choices nobody saw coming. No acting experience needed.
One sheet of paper. Eight pages. Your name on it.
Grab one sheet of printer paper, a few folds and a cut, and you've got an eight-page booklet waiting to be filled. Draw it, write it, glue in cutouts, then run 20 copies at the library for about two dollars and hand them to your people.
Surprise ingredients. Forty-five minutes. One very smug winner.
Everyone gets the same bag of mystery ingredients and 45 minutes to cook something worth bragging about. One friend plays Quartermaster: they shop, they time, they judge out loud. Then everyone eats every dish family-style and argues about who should have won.
Wave your hands. Hear it sing back.
Want to make music without touching anything? Over two or three sessions you'll solder a theremin kit together, stand up its two antennas, and tune it until a wave of your hand pulls a clear tone out of the air. Bring a friend for the first wobbly note.
Hosting without the pressure: a mystery-box cook-off, an improv parlor, a skill-swap evening, a craft night. Quests that give the group something to do besides pick a movie.
Every morning, a tiny dare with their name on it.
Make an advent countdown for someone you love, filled with dares instead of chocolate. Write 24 five-minute real-world challenges, tuck each into a numbered envelope and string them on a line by their door. Every morning they open one and do something small and fun, like waving at a stranger's dog.
Everybody teaches a dish, everybody swaps jobs
Gather four to eight friends in your kitchen and cook a four-part meal together, swapping stations every 45 minutes so everyone teaches and learns something. Three to four hours later you sit down to fresh pasta, a slow-simmered main, a bright salad and dessert you all made.
Whoever holds the stone has the floor, and nobody talks over them
Invite six to twelve people into your living room, hand them one good question, and watch what happens when nobody interrupts. You pass a heavy stone around a circle of chairs, and whoever holds it gets three to five uninterrupted minutes. Ninety minutes later, your friends won't want to leave.
Hands busy, snacks out, and suddenly everyone's talking.
Invite six or eight people over, put one simple craft project on the table, and spend an afternoon making the same thing together. Everyone leaves with something they built, a few new jokes, and a reason to come back next month. Snacks on a lazy susan, music low, nobody rushing.
Cook once. Get fed for the next five months.
Gather four to six friends who live within half an hour of each other and start a dinner club where one person cooks each month. When your turn comes around, you pick a theme, make four dishes, and put them all on the table at once for everyone to pass around.
Your neighbor knows something you'd love to learn.
What if your neighbors spent one evening teaching each other the things they're secretly great at? Invite 15 to 20 people, set up four teaching corners, and run three 30-minute rotations. By the end, the woman two doors down has taught you to sharpen a knife properly.
For two, on the couch side of the door. Cook a country you've never eaten, pull a first print, or learn to use a knife properly together.
By the last carrot, your hands already know what to do
Grab a bag of carrots and a friend, and turn your kitchen counter into a practice station. You'll learn the safe claw grip, cut neat matchsticks, then race the clock to see how much faster your hands get by the third carrot.
Butter or shortening? Let the forks decide.
Get your family or friends around one apple pie with a secret. Half the crust is all-butter and half is butter mixed with shortening, and only the baker knows which is which. Everyone tastes both slices blind, votes, and your kitchen gets its very own house crust.
Grandma says a pinch. Exactly how big is that?
Sit down with a relative and record them telling the story of one family dish, from who made it first to how it's done. Then cook it side by side, following their spoken directions word for word. Yes, even "a splash of milk, not too much."
Sharp knife, steady hands, and carrots that never stood a chance.
Grab a friend, a few carrots and a chef's knife, and spend an afternoon learning the four cuts that make restaurant food look like restaurant food. You'll sharpen your blade on a whetstone until it slices paper cleanly, then race each other to the most perfect matchsticks.
A quiet evening and one project: illustration, a home recording corner, a portfolio, a reset ritual. Indoor quests for one.
Clocking out should feel like actually leaving.
What if the drive home wasn't the only thing separating work from the rest of your life? Over two weeks you'll test a handful of quick ways to shake off a hard shift, rate how you feel before and after, and keep the two or three that actually work for you.
Clap once. Hear the problem. Then go fix it.
Grab a friend and turn a spare room, closet or basement corner into a recording space that actually sounds good. You'll find the echo with a clap, hunt down the trouble spots with a mirror, hang treatment in the corners, then record a voice that sounds clean and close.
Your shoulders have been waiting all day for this.
Been at the screen so long your shoulders have opinions? Give yourself twenty minutes and a handful of tiny moves: shoulder rolls, a long look at the farthest thing you can see, a stretch over your own desk, and one wobbly minute balancing on one foot.
Tune your drawing setup, then finish the face you've been putting off.
Pick a face you'd love to draw, then spend an afternoon giving yourself the setup that makes drawing it feel easy. You'll keep only the brushes you love, put undo and the eraser under your spare hand, and finish with a shaded character portrait that's yours.
Cook something you've never cooked: ferment a jar, drill knife skills, roll sushi, or eat your way around the world one cuisine at a time.
Everyone brings one dish. Everyone leaves with eight.
Invite your neighbors over for a night where everyone brings one street food dish, portioned out small, and trades it plate by plate. You'll taste eight countries in one evening, hear how each dish is really made, and end up sitting down together with a plate of everything.
Same fridge, brand-new dinner. Who remixes best?
Gather everyone in your house the day after Thanksgiving and give each cook 30 minutes to turn yesterday's feast into one brand-new dish. Think stuffing waffles, turkey tacos or a cranberry grilled cheese. Then the whole household tastes everything and votes for the best remix.
The best dinner parties end with everyone leaving smarter than they arrived.
Turn dinner into a learning experience. Each guest teaches something they're good at while you share a meal together.
Turn your kitchen into a food science lab—no chef's coat required.
Learn professional molecular gastronomy techniques using accessible tools. Create spherified liquids, edible foams, and flavor gels in your home kitchen.
Everyone knows something worth teaching—this dinner makes it happen.
Transform dinner into a teaching circle where every guest shares a 15-minute skill lesson while you eat, building genuine connections through shared knowledge.
Turn 5 pounds of pork shoulder into 12 links of chorizo that taste better than anything at the butcher shop.
Learn to grind, season, and case traditional sausages from scratch using regional spice blends and time-tested preservation methods.
Candles, prints, zines, a theremin. Hands-on projects for the kitchen table that end with something you can keep, gift or plug in.
Your whole table starts this one clueless, and that's the fun
Gather four or five friends around one table, pick one art medium nobody has tried, and give yourselves 90 minutes to make something. Watch a short tutorial together, then race the timer. Halfway through, everyone walks the table and says one nice, specific thing about someone else's piece.
Salt, crayon wax and junk mail walk into a painting
Grab a friend, cover a table in newspaper, and make three postcard-sized experiments together. Salt on wet paint, torn junk mail, white crayon hiding under a wash of color. Nobody knows what will happen, which is exactly the fun part.
Those big bold arrows were always meant to be worn
Grab a friend, go photograph the boldest street signs on your block, then come home and print them onto fabric. You'll burn your favorite sign into a screen, pull the ink yourself, and watch a crisp white arrow or route number appear on a shirt that didn't exist this morning.
Break your camera on purpose—the glitches are the art.
Master analog glitch photography by circuit bending cameras, corrupting film data, and creating unpredictable visual artifacts through hardware manipulation.
Carve once, print forever—your hands make better cards than Hallmark ever could.
Learn relief printmaking by carving and printing custom greeting cards. Master basic linocut techniques with linoleum blocks, carving tools, and water-based inks.
Carve once, print forever—turn blank fabric into wearable art with hand-cut stamps.
Carve your own stamps and print repeating patterns on fabric. Turn blank tote bags and tea towels into custom pieces using traditional block printing techniques.
Browse a category, grab the gear, or let the generator pick.
Start a ferment, print a linocut, make a zine, build a theremin, or host a mystery-box dinner. Each has a finish line you can reach in an evening or a weekend, and every card above links to a full guide.
Give the evening a format: a mystery-box cook-off, an improv game night, a skill-swap evening, or a craft night. The "With Friends" section lists indoor quests built for a group.
Pick one small project and finish it tonight: a zine, a first print, a knife-skills drill. For quick ones that need nothing at all, see the side quests for when you're bored.
Cook a cuisine neither of you has tried, start a ferment you will open together in a few weeks, or print something side by side. The "Date Night In" section lists indoor quests for two.