Family Bucket List Ideas

*Updated January 2024

Have you ever dreamed of creating a family bucket list, but didn’t know where to start or what to include? I would love to help you make your list a reality, so I am sharing family bucket list ideas from our very own list!

Our approach to the family bucket list might be a little different from what you have seen before. Every year on New Year’s Eve we take some time to sit down together and write out our family bucket list ideas for the coming year. We come up with 12 ideas that we want to try to accomplish in 12 months. We don’t always cross off every single item on our lists by the end of the year, but we have fun trying! Whatever doesn’t get crossed off can be added to the next year’s list, or not…it’s up to you!

Feel free to use any of our ideas that you like, toss the ones that you don’t, and add in new things to make your list your very own. Most importantly, have fun!

Family Bucket List Ideas

Visit Charlotte, North Carolina

My daughter and I flew to Charlotte in February so she could spend a day visiting one of her besties. We spent a year living in the area in 2020/2021 and still miss it. While in Charlotte we visited a few favorite spots and also tried a new to us coffee shop.

Enderly Coffee Co. 2620 Tuckaseegee Rd, Charlotte, NC. 28208

What to order: Gingerbread Latte, Chai Latte

Ring the doorbell at the Dude Perfect office in Frisco, Texas

When we visited the Dude Perfect office to ring the doorbell we brought a box of donuts, hoping to temp someone into opening the door. We rang the doorbell and waited, but no one answered. However, as we were leaving we saw Sparky getting out of his car. We gave him the donuts and he was nice enough to pose for a picture before heading inside. Success!

Volunteer as a family

We chose to volunteer together at the Tarrant Area Food Bank, a charity providing food assistance to people in thirteen North Texas counties. Our time at the food bank was spent sorting food donations, as well as packing meal kits to be distributed. It also happened to be May 4th, and they had a fun Star Wars theme for the evening, which is why we are all wearing matching Star Wars shirts.

Hand out gift cards to strangers during the holidays

This is the one thing we did not get done and therefore were not able to cross off our list.

Dress up and go eat at a fancy restaurant

Reata Restaurant is an upscale ranch themed restaurant located in Fort Worth, Texas. On this occasion we enjoyed brunch with some of our family that is local. We recommend the Rancher’s Choice with Chicken Fried Steak, Stuffed French Toast, and Stacked Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Cream Sauce.

Get smoothies at Mamaka Bowls

It is hard to describe just how good the smoothie bowls at Mamaka Bowls are. All I can say is that they are the closest thing to a perfect bowl that we have ever had. They are definitely a favorite around here! We recommend The Babe, The Bean, The Bro, Maui Sunrise or Pura Vida.

Treat Yo Self Day (1 per person)

The way this family bucket list item worked was that each person could pick any day of the year they wanted as their Treat Yo’ Self Day. The budget for the day was $100 per person. We all chose to spend our day and our budget in different ways. Some of the places where we chose to treat ourselves were Interabang Books, Mamaka Bowls, Salad and Go, and Etsy.

Watch all the Spider-Man movies in order

Prior to this being a family bucket list item, I had only seen the first three Spider-Man movies with Tobey Maguire. That was years ago. We decided not to include in our list the various movies where Spider-Man makes an appearance or is somehow related to the story (Venom, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, etc). In the end we all agreed that Andrew Garfield is our favorite Spider-Man, followed by Tobey Maguire, and then Tom Holland.

Stranger Things: The Experience (currently in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and London)

My daughter and I ended up attending the Stranger Things Experience in Atlanta after visiting friends in Charlotte. In fact, we spent the weekend driving all over Georgia visiting Stranger Things filming locations. That road trip was a blast!

Pottery Painting

The Painted Teacup is a creative pottery painting studio, one of the best I have ever been to. After choosing our pottery pieces and paint palette, we had fun painting together. We ended up with three plates, a small bowl, and a car. My son is generally not a fan of painting, or anything messy, but even he ended up having a good time.

Murder Mystery Dinner

Texas Star Dinner Theater is home to entertaining murder mystery dinners in historic downtown Grapevine. Dinner is included with your show ticket, and there are four options to choose from (beef, chicken, fish, vegetarian). You also get to choose a dessert. We enjoyed the whole experience!

Family Thrifting Day (1 item per person)

Uptown Cheapskate is our favorite thrift store, and where we chose to shop on our family thrifting day. I am not generally a fan of thrift stores because they can be so overwhelming. Trying to comb through endless rows of unorganized clothes, smashed together on the rack so that you can barely move them, is not my idea of a good time. Uptown Cheapskate is different! It is a smaller store, nicely organized, and they only accept and sell certain brands. No digging through fifty old church camp shirts to find that one hidden gem here.

Now that you have read our list, what do you think? Did you see anything that you want to add to your own family bucket list? Leave me a comment and let me know, I love hearing from you!

Need more bucket list ideas? You can also use my personal bucket list, which includes my top 40 bucket list ideas for travel and life, as well as our 2024 family bucket list for inspiration!

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