Four Summer Activities to Do With Friends

The summer is the UK’s favourite season – at least, according to these YouGov statistics, which show a third of Brits preferring balmy summer days over those of other seasons. The summer is a time of boundless possibility, as the weather enables all manner of activities often otherwise shelved. The possibilities are so great that it can often be hard to figure out exactly what to do! With this in mind, here are four ways you can make the most of the summer months with your friends in tow.

Host a Good Old-Fashioned Barbecue

Likely the first possibility to come to mind is that of hosting a barbecue; your summer simply wouldn’t be a British one without firing up the grill for a sunny afternoon with your friends! Barbecues are a great excuse for a meet-up, and also an inexpensive way to get a whole group together. By placing solar lanterns around your patio and down the garden, you can ensure your outside space is illuminated even after dark – meaning the fun can carry on long after the barbecue has cooled… 

Go to a Festival

After a few years of pandemic-related interruptions, festival season is back in full, and at long last. The UK’s music festivals are something of a time-honoured tradition, throwing major pop stars and the independent scene’s best-in-class together in world-class line-ups up and down the country.

Going to a festival with friends can be a formative experience, and is indeed often the best way to enjoy such an experience – but choosing which festival you go to can be a tough decision to make. Glastonbury is unparalleled for sheer scope, with something to discover round every corner; meanwhile, Green Man in the Brecon Beacons offers a much smaller, more intimate lost-in-the-mountains kind of affair.

Wild Camping

If festivals prove a little too noisy for your tastes, there are ways to access the most fun social parts of festival experiences while drinking in the best of the UK’s natural countryside in the process. Wild camping is completely legal in Scotland, legal in certain Welsh and English sites and otherwise legal with landowner’s permission – opening up a smorgasbord of outstandingly beautiful locales to which you and your friends could hike over a long summer’s weekend.

Movie Marathons

Fun as outdoor activities can be in the heat of the summer, sometimes the weather can get a little too stuffy for the more ‘active’ kind of activities. You’d be absolutely right to want for a humid day in, being tended to by oscillating fans and pampered by ice-cold refreshments. Enter the movie marathon!

On a particularly warm summer’s night, you could invite your friends around for a themed film night; have everyone bring a film of their own within a set theme, and create your own late-night showings in your living room. If you have the garden space, you could even set up a projector and have a ‘drive-in’ experience!