As the holiday season approaches this year, let’s take a cue from the slow gifting movement and ask, do your loved ones really need more stuff?

Or would they rather have the priceless memory of the perfect gift, an experience gift? Contribute to how cool your friends are—and reduce their potential clutter—by giving them experiences and memories instead of stuff.

Tip: Consider the Giftee

Take some of the pressure off gift giving! Start early and give yourself plenty of time. That way you can look for the right gift—the golf lessons for the friend who’s always wanted to learn—rather than spending a lot of money on a bunch of less perfect stuff—golf coasters? and a book on…anything?—and attempting to wrap it at the last minute. (Trust us, this was our 11pm Christmas Eve tradition for years. Do not recommend!)

Why Give Experience Gifts?

“Over the past decade, an abundance of psychology research has shown that experiences bring people more happiness than do possessions,” explains this article in The Atlantic. (The article is short but fascinating; go read it!)

Experiences become part of who your loved ones are. That's how they create memories. They will grow and incorporate it into their identities, and they’ll form even stronger connections with the people they do the experience with—and with you, whether or not you’re even there for it. It also allows them the joy of anticipation—the looking forward to something fun that is coming up. That’s why you love to plan travel as much as you love doing it. Here’s more on the benefit of giving experience gifts from Stanford Lifestyle Medicine.

Here are 25 ideas to get you started!

Outdoor Experience Gifts

1. A seasonal farm excursion such as apple picking, grape crushing, or helping a local nonprofit plant food crops

2. Bike rental gift certificate or golf gift card to be used in an interesting or beautiful location

3. Tickets for a local bus tour, trolley tour, day or dinner cruise, swamp tour, or whale watch (depending on where your gift recipient lives!)

4. Scenic railroad, observation point access, or other sightseeing tickets

5. Beach, pool, park, or amusement park passes to be used all summer

6. Outdoor adventure! Gift certificate for your loved one to go river rafting, sea kayaking, canoeing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, on a high ropes course, or the like (don't forget a picnic or to plan for food in some other way)

7. Trail-riding on horseback excursion in a beautiful area

Tip: Experience Gift Certificates

Be careful with gift certificates. They are easily given and fun to spend, but note the expiration date, any free returns options, and any caveats, and be sure to point them out to your friends!

Indoor Experience Gifts

8. Indoor adventure: Yoga class, rock climbing day, ice skating, escape room, paint party, or the like

9. Tickets to a museum that your loved one would be interested in: art, history, science, or whatever else they like. Don’t forget the smaller, more offbeat or specific museums that might be near you. They’re often treasures for people who are interested in their subjects! Search for “museum” near you and scroll past the first couple options.

Tip: Keep Your Giftee in Mind

Don't get too carried away by thinking of incredible potential experiences. Make sure they really fit your gift recipient! If your friend is afraid of heights, don't go for the indoor skydiving. (In fact, maybe just run indoor skydiving past anyone before you buy.) If your dad only likes relaxing in nature and dislikes live music, those orchestra tickets are not the purchase to make.

Experience Gift Ideas for Couples

10. Restaurant or coffee shop gift card—possibly even booking date night reservations, depending on your situation

11. Unique gourmet food experience—an opportunity for your loved ones to eat on a balcony, at a chef’s table, on a beach, on a food tour, or in some other interesting location

12. Vineyard or brewery tour, tasting, interactive event, or other experience

13. Tickets to a movie, concert, stand-up or improv, play, children’s theater, musical, ballet, opera, or other live music or performance show

14. Trip to a sporting event your loved ones will enjoy (don’t forget about minor league sports!)

15. Tickets for a local fair, arts festival, culture festival, renaissance faire, or other event your loved ones would like to attend

Tip: Facilitate Date Night

If you're giving a gift to a couple and they have a family, offer to babysit. Especially if your love language is acts of service! Whether it's a special occasion or a break from the excitement of toddler bedtime, they will have a great time with a trusted friend holding the fort at home. And they don't have to be one of those adventure challenge couples to reap the benefits; for parents, relaxing itself can be unforgettable.

Self-Care Gifts

16. Massage, facial, manicure, pedicure, spa trip, or other self-care treatment

17. Red Cross CPR and/or first aid class. Seriously: We gave this to a new parent one time and have never stopped hearing about how it is the best present he’s ever received. <3 New skills can be invaluable.

18. Classes at a local community center, arts center, library, or the like: cooking classes, arts or crafts classes, gardening classes, meditation sessions, language classes…the list is endless. Think about what your loved one enjoys and lean in. The opportunity to build skills and express their creativity or expand their interests will be one of the best experiences you can offer.

Tip: Self-care is for the Whole Self

Self-care may be wonderful for relaxing, but it's not just for relaxing. It's also about finding ways to care for one's life and wellbeing in general, whether that's caring for one's home, body, food quality, or financial wellness, just as some examples.

Local Gift Experience Ideas

19. Event or activity with a local beekeeping club, foraging club, mushroom club, birding group, service organization, or whatever else is interesting to your loved one

10. A special event or behind-the-scenes experience at a zoo, museum, or other institutions. Tickets to a concert in the atrium or an opportunity to feed the giraffes can be a memorable gift.

21. Local membership: Aquarium, zoo, botanical garden, culture garden, or arboretum tickets, subscription, or membership. Is your person a foodie? Nothing is more local than a farm share.

Travel Gift Experience Ideas

22. Overnight in a treehouse, yurt, caboose, or other unique airbnb or motel near you

23. Walking tour tickets for your area or for somewhere you know your loved one will be traveling. There are tours for every interest, from history to architecture to literature to ghost stories.

24. Local tourism: Is there something cool near you that people come from miles to see, but tends to get overlooked by nearby residents?

25. National Parks pass (keep in mind that some parks and historic sites are free to visit, so take into account which parks are nearby and what their admission requirements are; if your loved one is a traveler, though, this is a wonderful option)

How to Wrap an Experience Gift

Presentation is everything! Fortunately, sometimes the best gifts come in small, lovingly curated packages. Make or buy a lovely card or small gift box to present your perfect experience gift in, whether it's a physical gift card, a printed certificate, or a handwritten note explaining the idea.

It's the memories that will last a lifetime, but receiving your gift can still be a joyful moment. And honestly, gift giving will be joyful too.

If you can, snap one really great photo of the gift recipient while they experience their gift. (If you won't be experiencing it with them, recruit someone who will be in the escape room with them. Or simply say, “I hope you'll send me a picture of you on the zipline!”) It's a fun way to preserve their memories. Print it out, frame it, and present it as a follow-up gift. They will love it. How fun would it be to document their cooking classes on their kitchen refrigerator!

Gift Experiences for Kids

In some ways, it’s harder to do experience gifts for kids than it is for adults. (For one thing, there's nothing at the spa that a kid wants.) There’s just something magical about a younger child’s excitement when they’re opening presents, and it’s hard not to want to contribute to that.

But as parents, we can tell you this: gift experiences for kids are just as valuable as gift experiences for adults. Those experiences contribute to their sense of the world and who they are in it in a lovely way. And at least in our house, the new stuffed animal may be well loved in the moment it is received, but most eventually get relegated to the pantheon of stuffed animals that the child is quickly growing out of and the parents wish took up less space.

Tip: Give the Child the Gift Card

Young children may not fully understand money, but they see you using it and have identified that it's important and grown-up. They are typically delighted to be able to hand over their own gift card.

How to Choose a Gift

As with any gift-giving, the best thing to do is start by thinking about the child in question and what they enjoy. Here are some ideas to get you started! (And here is a Pinterest board for further inspiration.)

Experience Gift Ideas for Kids

1. Ice skating or roller skating trip.

2. Carousel ride.

Tip: Take Pictures

Carousels are particularly exciting if you’re looking for experience gifts for toddlers! And the colors and animals make for fantastic photos. It will be unforgettable for the parents, too, even if the kids aren't quite forming a lot of memories yet.

3. Single class or short series of classes. This is limited only by what’s near you: juggling, acrobatics, art of any kind, music of any kind, sports camps, or the like.

4. Tickets to see a local sports team playing the child’s favorite sport.

5. Session at a rock climbing gym or play gym.

6. Children’s museum subscription or children’s science museum trip.

7. Art museum or other “adult” museum trip. Check ahead to see if there are any events or activities coming up that would make it even more special.

Tip: How Kid-Friendly Is Your Museum?

A lot of museums are incredibly child-friendly, even if they aren’t specifically for children. If you’re not sure, read some reviews or call the ticket desk and ask.

8. Trip to a local national park to become a junior ranger.

9. Trip to see a children’s theater performance.

10. Magic show or juggling show tickets.

11. Tickets to see a child-friendly musician or musical group.

12. Natural wonders. If you live within day-tripping distance of a waterfall, cave, look-out point, or other gem they don’t see every day, pack a picnic and head off on an adventure to find something incredible.

Tip: Imagine the World New

You may have seen a hundred waterfalls, but remember how impressive the first one was?

13. Possibly related: Child-friendly nature excursion. Take them hiking, creek-walking, river rafting, or sledding. Or bring the nature to them with a birthday-party visit from an animal keeper, insect specialist, or falconer.

14. Planetarium trip. If the child in your life loves space, find a planetarium with family-friendly talks at a local science museum. Or if there’s an observatory near you, find out if/when it’s open to the public. (Hint: the sun sets before bedtime in the winter.)

Tip: Look for Astronomical Events

For good measure, find out the likelihood of a meteor shower visible from your part of the world.

15. Vintage amusement park tickets.

Tip: Local Amusement Parks

Did you know that the oldest continually operating amusement park in North America opened in 1846? (It’s Lake Compounce in Connecticut.) So a trip to an amusement park doesn’t have to involve airfare and thousands of dollars in mouse-themed merchandise. Instead it can be a fun day of family-friendly rides and activities much closer to home. Depending on where you live, you may not have to look far at all—there are ten historic amusement parks in Pennsylvania, for example.

Making Gift Experiences for Kids Fun to Open

As with adult gifts, children’s gifts should be fun to open! We’ve had success with a few different options here.

A carefully selected card. The more personal the better; if your five-year-old gift recipient loves cats, they will love a card with cats and a big 5 on it. Tell them about the experience inside the card.
Younger children can be very attached to their favorite colors. Go for the envelope in their hue of choice. (Careful to get the hue right! Some kiddos practically spec a Pantone.)
Make your own envelope for the card or for a gift certificate inside it using scrapbook paper, plain paper you decorate, old comics pages or magazine pages, or the like.

Tip: DIY Envelopes

This is easy: trace an envelope template onto the paper you want to use, cut it out, fold it together, slip a piece of scrap paper inside it, and use a glue stick to fasten the edges together.

Wrap something small and related. Yes, this is straying dangerously close to a thing and not an experience! But in some cases, some sort of thing might be required anyway—water shoes to be worn to the water park, sunglasses and child-friendly sunscreen for an outdoor activity, a picture book of the play they’ll be seeing, or the like.

Get a blank cardboard puzzle from a craft store. Write a short letter to the child explaining the present. Then disassemble the puzzle and put the pieces in a special envelope. (Technically you could use a regular piece of paper and cut it up, but this makes it a little more difficult for small hands to assemble.)
Treasure hunt. For our child’s last birthday, we left her a series of clues to follow. She had to practice her reading skills on each clue, figure out where it led, and find the next one.

Tip: Treasure Hunts Work on Adults Too

However, just be aware that while children are generally up for adventures and it's a secret opportunity to teach them skills, a puzzle-loving adult is going to see right through your process, and they are going to be a lot harder to challenge! That's not to say that it wouldn't be completely unforgettable if you do it, just know that before you decide to try your hand at setting one up.

So here’s your challenge! Find a way to choose experience gifts for kids in your life, next time you’re present shopping.

25 Experience Gifts to Give Your Friends