40 group side quests, organized by your actual situation — a night out, a free afternoon, a rainy evening in. Pick the scene, grab your people, go.
Pick one for meThe best side quests with friends give a group something to do together besides stare at a screen — a shared goal, a little friction, a story you retell later. But "with friends" means something different on a Tuesday night than on a free Saturday, so this list is carved by situation: out at night, outside in daylight, spending nothing, staying in, competing, or just the two of you.
Every quest links to a full guide with steps, time, and gear. Planning a night out days ahead (most of you are — we checked)? Skim the night section, send the link to the group chat, done.
Start here: the six we'd hand any group, any city, any budget. Each one needs nothing more than your people showing up.
Your life stats are stagnant—time to grind IRL and unlock new abilities.
Transform gaming mechanics into real-world quests with achievement tracking, skill trees, and XP systems that make personal development feel like your favorite RPG.
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.
That building you pass every day? It's been screaming details at you that you've never noticed.
Hunt for architectural details hiding in plain sight—corbels, keystones, terra cotta faces, and century-old brickwork patterns that tell your city's real story.
The best recipes get passed hand-to-hand, not screen-to-screen.
Cook alongside neighbors in a shared kitchen space where recipes become conversation starters and meals turn strangers into friends.
Let the dice argue. You just have to go.
Grab a friend, a handful of dice and a stack of pocket cards, then let the roll decide what you do next. You write the options, the dice pick one, and you go. Each outing takes 15 to 30 minutes, and arguing with the dice is not allowed.
Getting better at talking is weirdly fun with friends
Round up six friends, drag some chairs into a circle in your yard, and spend 90 minutes getting genuinely better at talking to people. One skill, eight-minute pair rounds, a soft chime to switch partners, and a lot more laughing than you'd expect.
The city after dark is a different map. Night photography walks, after-dark exploration, glow-lit challenges — the quests that turn "we should go out" into an actual plan. A $15 headlamp turns any of these into a night quest →
The city transforms after dark—learn to capture what your eyes can't see.
Learn night photography fundamentals through hands-on shooting. Master manual settings, long exposure techniques, and light painting in urban and natural environments.
Skip the barstool and hop three late-night stops instead.
Grab two or three friends on a weeknight and build an evening out of three stops, none of them a bar. A late museum night, a food hall, a dessert counter or a bookstore that stays open past ten. At the end, everyone votes for the winner.
The city you know transforms completely after 10 PM—time to meet its night shift.
Navigate your city after sunset with night markets, rooftop bars, street performances, and underground venues that come alive when darkness falls.
Seven stars, and suddenly you know which way is north.
Grab someone you like talking to, step out into the yard after dark, and find the Big Dipper together. You'll use a paper star wheel to know where to look, trace the two pointer stars to Polaris, and sketch all seven stars before you head back inside.
The city transforms when the sun drops—neon bleeds into wet pavement, headlights become rivers of light, and shadows reveal what daylight hides.
Learn to shoot sharp, dramatic night photos of cityscapes and street scenes using long exposure, light trails, and ambient glow techniques.
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.
Daylight, fresh air, and a shared mission — foraging walks, biodiversity hunts, guerrilla gardening. Sunscreen optional, group chat mandatory.
Round up your friends and paint that bare wall.
Grab three to five friends and spend a weekend turning a blank brick wall into a mural you all signed. You'll sketch a design together, block in the big shapes on Saturday, add the glowing details on Sunday, and invite people over to see it.
The city moves at grid speed—you'll learn to move through it like water.
Master city cycling through strategic route planning, mobility integration, and urban infrastructure literacy across diverse metro environments.
Let the universe choose your next destination and discover the extraordinary hiding in plain sight.
Use quantum randomness to discover hidden places in your area you'd never normally visit, breaking free from predictable patterns and autopilot routines.
Turn your neighborhood into a time machine—one footstep at a time.
Discover the hidden stories of your city by exploring historic landmarks, architecture, and neighborhoods on a self-guided walking adventure.
Go back until the neighborhood waves instead of posing.
Pick one ordinary corner near you, grab a friend, and go photograph it. Then go back. By the second visit the fruit seller stops noticing you and waves instead, and that's when the honest pictures show up. Your prize at the end: a 10 to 15 photo story of a place nobody else bothered to look at.
Turn your city into a living sustainability textbook—one mapped site at a time.
Map your city's sustainable infrastructure, from composting stations to solar installations. Create a comprehensive eco-living resource guide through boots-on-ground urban exploration.
Zero dollars, full adventure. Every quest here starts with what you already own — the only investment is an afternoon.
Your hands remember what YouTube tutorials can't teach.
Master real craft techniques from actual makers. Block printing, hand-building pottery, natural dyeing, and woodworking basics taught through hands-on practice.
Turn your city into a living laboratory for sustainable systems.
Document and audit your city's sustainability infrastructure through hands-on exploration, data collection, and community engagement.
Your library card is actually a treasure map—you just need to know how to read it.
Navigate your local library like a pro with this hands-on scavenger hunt that builds research skills while uncovering hidden sections, rare books, and community resources most patrons never find.
Millions of hidden containers are waiting in your city right now—you just need coordinates to find them.
Find hidden containers using GPS coordinates in urban parks, forests, and wild terrain. Join millions worldwide in this outdoor treasure hunting game.
Your neighborhood has characters worth knowing—start collecting their stories instead of just walking past them.
Transform from neighborhood stranger to familiar face through structured social micro-missions that build genuine connections without forced networking energy.
Your block has a soundtrack, and nobody's hit play
Can you build a tour of your block that a neighbor can follow with their eyes shut? Walk a ten-block circle with a friend, listen for six places that sound completely different, record a few minutes at each, then string the best ones into a ten-minute audio tour.
Rain, winter, or nobody wants to leave the apartment — indoor quests that turn a night in into the event: cooking circles, craft nights, tabletop builds.
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.
Five hundred years of printing, one afternoon, your words
Grab a friend and book a beginner letterpress workshop at a community print shop or makerspace. You'll pick metal or wood letters out of a case by hand, set one short line, ink the press, and pull a stack of cards you printed yourselves. Then trade your best print.
Turn the quiet library into your personal adventure playground—shh, seeking allowed!
Explore your local library through a self-guided scavenger hunt that reveals hidden literary treasures and unexpected discoveries.
The future of city living isn't in a TED talk—it's in the compost bins, solar panels, and greywater systems you can touch and test yourself.
Explore hands-on sustainability demonstrations, regenerative systems, and eco-tech at your local green living hub to upgrade your urban environmental impact.
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.
Somewhere near you, an empty basement wants a microphone.
Grab three or four friends and build a recording studio your whole block can use. You'll find a room, tame its echo with foam and rugs, set up a mic and headphones, then throw open the doors for drop-in hours. Someone's first song gets recorded in there.
For groups that need a scoreboard: scavenger hunts, real-life challenge runs, photo battles. Loser buys the post-quest food.
Turn your market trip into a culinary adventure by letting chance decide your menu.
Navigate your local farmer's market with creative challenges that push you to discover new ingredients, chat with vendors, and cook something adventurous.
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.
The jar decides. You two just have to go.
Want a year that looks different? Grab a friend, fill a jar with 52 small missions you both actually want to try, then draw one together every Sunday. One to three hours a week, a photo traded back and forth, and a wall chart that slowly fills with checkmarks.
Your city just became a playable map—here's how to rack up points while exploring it.
Transform city streets into interactive game boards using location-based apps, AR challenges, and point systems. Complete missions, collect digital badges, and compete with friends in real-world urban environments.
Your food has stories—go ask the people who grew it.
Turn your farmer's market run into a real conversation. Talk to five vendors, learn where their food comes from, and walk away with stories that change how you eat.
Send a friend clue by clue to a secret treat.
Pick a friend, keep it secret, and build them a three-stop walking adventure through your own neighborhood. Each stop gets a clue and one tiny task, and the last one ends with a treat you bought ahead of time. You hand over the first clue and stroll along while they figure it out.
Everything above works for two — these are built for it. Conversation-first, date-adjacent, and better with exactly one other person.
Most community events trap you in 'What do you do?' loops—this format gets to the real stuff in 10 minutes.
Create recurring community meetups where strangers discuss meaningful topics using structured conversation frameworks that bypass surface-level chatter.
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.
The timer ends every chat before it gets awkward
Ever wish you could practice conversation somewhere everyone else is practicing too? Find a conversation club at a library or community center and spend 90 minutes rotating through short rounds with a new partner each time. A big timer counts down, a card deck hands you the topic, and nobody expects you to be smooth.
Your phone can't teach you how to hold eye contact or read the room.
Practice structured conversation techniques in everyday settings. Learn active listening, small talk strategies, and body language through intentional real-world interactions.
Browse a category, grab the gear, or let the generator pick.
Group-friendly side quests include hosting a neighborhood swap meet, a skill-swap dinner, a night-photography walk, a group urban scavenger hunt, or a tabletop firepit night. Anything with a shared goal works.
Night-photography walks, after-dark urban exploration, stargazing missions, and glow-lit challenges all work best after sunset. See the "At Night" section above — each links to a full guide with steps and safety notes.
Most group quests cost nothing: scavenger hunts, conversation workshops, skill swaps, photo walks, and neighborhood exploration all start with what you already own. The "Free" section above only lists quests with zero required purchases.
Indoor group quests include cooking circles, craft nights, skill-swap dinners, and tabletop projects — see the "At Home" section. They work for rainy days, winter nights, or any evening nobody wants to leave the apartment.
Yes — conversation-driven and two-person quests work naturally as dates. The "For Two" section lists quests built for exactly two people, and the generator can filter for duos.
Yes — set the 'who are you with' filter to friends or a group and the generator only returns quests that work for more than one person.