Valentine’s Day Date Ideas
Nights out, nights in, small budgets and long distances, one idea at a time.
- Time
- An hour to a whole day
- Players
- Two people
- Best for
- February 14 and the weekend around it
- Deck
- 72 ideas in 6 categories
How to use these Valentine’s Day date ideas
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the idea on the top card. If you both like it, put it on the calendar.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next idea”, for another. Ideas do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save an idea on this device, or tap “Make a 10-idea list” for a list you can copy.
When to plan your Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day arrives with plenty of expectation and very few free tables. Choosing an idea together a week or two early takes the pressure off and leaves room for what matters: an evening that feels like the two of you.
Two weeks before
Draw from A night out, minus the crowds and Make it by hand while there is still time to book a class or finish a card.
When the 14th is a weeknight
At home on the 14th fits between work and bedtime, and the weekend can hold the bigger plan.
When you are in two places
Several ideas in Long distance, on a call need something in the mail a few days ahead, so start early.
Ways to use these Valentine’s Day ideas
One card each, in secret
Each of you draws until you find an idea you love, without showing the other. On the 14th, do both: one in the afternoon and one after dark.
A week of small valentines
Start on February 8 and pick one idea a night from On a budget or Make it by hand, so the week builds up to the day itself.
Split the day from the weekend
When February 14 falls midweek, keep At home on the 14th for the day and save A night out, minus the crowds for the weekend after.
Tips for a good Valentine’s Day date
- Book anything with tickets or a class by the end of January. Valentine’s week fills up early.
- Agree on how big you want the day to be before either of you plans, so a grand surprise does not meet a quiet night in.
- Keep at least one idea small and free. A handwritten card or a short walk still counts on February 14.
All 72 Valentine’s Day date ideas by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
A night out, minus the crowds
Ways to go out on February 14 without fighting for the last table in town.
- Hold your Valentine’s dinner on February 13 instead: the same restaurant, half the crowd, and a private holiday of your own.
- Book the earliest dinner seating on the 14th, then spend the evening walking somewhere pretty while others wait for tables.
- Catch a romantic comedy on Valentine’s night and pass a candy heart across the armrest for every line that makes you groan.
- Find a dessert café, order only the heart-shaped things on the menu and score each one out of ten hearts.
- Walk a museum looking only for couples in the paintings, and pick the pair that seems most like you two.
- Skip the special set menus and go to your favorite everyday spot, like the noodle counter, where nobody fusses over the 14th.
- At a chocolate shop, each fill a small box for the other, piece by piece, while the other waits outside.
- Go to a swing or ballroom social on Valentine’s night, take the beginner lesson and stay for the last slow song.
Show all 12 in A night out, minus the crowdsShow fewer
- Get tickets to a Valentine’s concert of love songs, and each name the piece you would dedicate to the other.
- Learn to bake red velvet cupcakes at a one-night baking class, and save the best one for the walk home.
- Hunt down a claw machine and keep playing until one of you wins the other a stuffed heart.
- Call the restaurant ahead and ask them to set a card from you at the other’s place before you arrive.
At home on the 14th
Dinners, dances and small rituals for a Valentine’s night that never leaves the house.
- Cook an all-red dinner, from tomato soup to raspberries, where every dish on the table is some shade of red.
- Watch the romance you each loved most as a teenager, back to back, and admit which scene still gets you.
- Learn a simple waltz box step from a video and practice in socks until neither of you counts out loud.
- Spend an hour writing valentines to friends and family side by side, and save the last two cards for each other.
- Look up a fancy restaurant’s Valentine’s menu online and cook your own version at home, course by course.
- Bake a heart-shaped cake, cut it down the middle and each decorate one half without looking at the other’s.
- Cook a dinner from a famous movie date in secret, serve it, and let the other guess which film it came from.
- Dress up as if for a school dance and pose for the classic stiff photos on the stairs.
Show all 12 in At home on the 14thShow fewer
- Swap three small gifts that are all red, from socks to a pomegranate, and open them by candlelight.
- Try a beginner partner yoga video, where every pose needs both of you to keep your balance.
- Play twenty questions where every answer is a famous couple from a film, a book or a song.
- Write a love letter full of blanks, then ask the other for nouns and verbs to fill them without seeing it.
On a budget
Sweet ideas that cost little or nothing, because the day is about attention, not price.
- Buy marked-down chocolate on February 15 and hold your own Valentine’s Day a day late, once the rush is over.
- Make a playlist where the first letters of the song titles spell a secret message, and send it on the 14th.
- Pick a library book for each other in ten minutes flat, check both out and read the first pages side by side.
- Read each other the most dramatic cards in the Valentine’s aisle, in full voice, then put them back.
- Write each other a silly Valentine’s limerick and read it aloud in your grandest voice.
- Cut the day’s meals into hearts with one cookie cutter: toast at breakfast, sandwiches at lunch, pizza at dinner.
- Host a pretend late-night radio show for two, reading out love-song dedications and playing each song.
- Paint a few small stones with hearts and leave them along a park path for strangers to find.
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- Each choose one single flower stem for the other at a florist, under five dollars, and say why you picked it.
- Recreate the cover of a cheesy romance novel with a phone timer, a fan for the wind and very serious faces.
- Learn to sign a short, sweet sentence in your local sign language from a free video, then use it across a room.
- Bake one giant heart-shaped cookie the size of a dinner plate and eat it from opposite edges toward the middle.
Make it by hand
Cards, crafts and small keepsakes you make for each other at the kitchen table.
- Make valentines for each other only from what’s in the recycling bin, like cereal boxes and old magazines.
- Decorate a shoebox mailbox for each other, school-style, and slip a small valentine into it every day that week.
- Roll out powdered-sugar dough, cut tiny candy hearts and paint a two-word message on each with food coloring.
- Press the flowers from a Valentine’s bouquet inside a heavy book, then frame them together a few weeks later.
- Sew a small fabric heart inside the other’s coat lining, where only the two of you know it’s there.
- Cut a paper heart for every month you have known each other and string them across a window.
- Make a scratch-off valentine: write a message, cover it with tape and paint mixed with dish soap, then hand over a coin.
- Hammer small nails into a board in a heart shape and wind red thread between them for string art.
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- Press both thumbs in red ink so the prints overlap into one heart, and frame it with the date.
- Seal handwritten letters with a wax seal kit, pressing your initials into the warm red wax.
- String a bracelet that spells a short message in Morse code, long beads for dashes and round ones for dots.
- Whip up homemade marshmallows, tint them pink and cut them into hearts for a week of cocoa.
Daytime and outdoors
Fresh air, winter light and a few hours outside before the evening plans begin.
- Take binoculars to a nature reserve and count every bird you spot in a pair.
- Write a message for each other at the waterline of a winter beach and watch the tide take it.
- Visit a maple sugar shack in late winter and taste warm syrup poured over snow.
- Plan a walk or bike route that draws a heart on a fitness app map, then follow it together.
- Find a tunnel, canyon or underpass with a good echo and call out something sweet to hear it come back.
- Book a beginner trail ride on horseback, side by side on two calm horses.
- Sit on a busy bench and invent the love stories of the couples who walk past.
- Visit the zoo on a cold morning and look for the animals snuggled up together against the chill.
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- Walk a trail neither of you knows and agree on a name for it by the time you reach the end.
- Try a beginner archery session and aim for the gold like a pair of cupids.
- Walk a winter farmers’ market and buy the other one red thing to taste, like a blood orange.
- Find every street nearby with a sweet name, like Rose Lane or Honey Court, and walk them all in one afternoon.
Long distance, on a call
Ideas for spending Valentine’s Day together when you are miles apart.
- Stay on a call to count down to midnight on the 13th, so you are the first to say happy Valentine’s Day.
- Send each other’s favorite dessert to arrive at the same hour, and open both boxes together on camera.
- Mail a small box of five numbered gifts, and open one every ten minutes during your Valentine’s call.
- Hold up paper hearts to the camera one by one, each with one thing you love about the other written on it.
- Mail a bag of candy conversation hearts, then pick them out one by one on the call and answer whatever each says.
- Take a screenshot of the call every few minutes, then turn the best four into a photo-booth strip.
- Mail a short love letter in a simple code, then read out the key on the call so they can crack it.
- Mail a sweater you’ve worn all week so it arrives by the 14th, and ask them to wear it on the call.
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- Recreate your very first call: the same time of day, the same snack and the first question one of you asked.
- Each put together the reddest outfit your closet allows and show it off on camera, runway style.
- Light the same scented candle at both ends of the call, so for one evening your rooms smell alike.
- Trade Valentine’s Day questions on the call, one each, and keep going until one of you yawns.
Frequently asked questions
How many Valentine’s Day date ideas are there?
There are 72 ideas, 12 in each of six categories: a night out minus the crowds, at home on the 14th, on a budget, make it by hand, daytime and outdoors, and long distance on a call. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
What can we do on Valentine’s Day without a reservation?
Nearly everything in At home on the 14th, On a budget and Daytime and outdoors works without a booking. For more evenings that never leave the house, see at-home date night ideas.
What are good Valentine’s Day ideas for long distance couples?
Long distance, on a call has ideas built for two places, like a box of numbered gifts opened during the call. For the rest of the year, try long distance date ideas or write a set of open when letters.
Is there something to talk about on Valentine’s night?
Yes. Valentine’s Day questions has cards to ask each other over dinner or dessert, from school card swaps to plans for next February.