Virtual Date Ideas
Watch, play, explore and make things together from two screens, one idea at a time.
- Time
- Ten minutes to a full evening
- Players
- Two people
- Best for
- Nights you cannot spend in the same room
- Deck
- 100 ideas in 5 categories
How to use these virtual 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 a virtual date
A call that is only for catching up runs out of news by the third night. A virtual date gives the screen a job: something to watch, play, visit or make while you are both looking at it.
Living apart
Play together online and Explore from your couch give the weekly call somewhere to go, even before the next visit is booked.
One of you is traveling
A hotel room and a phone are enough for a low-energy call date or one episode from Watch together online.
Hours apart on the clock
When one of you is eating breakfast and the other is heading to bed, a short call from Low-energy call dates fits the overlap.
Ways to use these date ideas
Two cards to choose from
Open this page on both phones during the call. Each of you reads your top card aloud, and you do whichever one sounds better tonight.
Match the category to your energy
Choose the category before the card: Make something on a call for a free Saturday, Low-energy call dates for a weeknight after a long shift.
Take turns holding the deck
Alternate who picks each week. The picker can skip as many cards as they like, the other can pass on one, and the card after that stands.
Tips for a good virtual date
- Open the game, stream or tour on both devices a few minutes early, so the date does not begin with loading screens.
- Plug in the charger before you start. A phone that dies halfway through ends the evening sooner than anything else.
- Put a lamp in front of you rather than behind you, so your face is lit instead of a silhouette.
All 100 virtual 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.
Watch together online
Shows, streams and live broadcasts for two screens, beyond the usual movie night.
- Swap childhood cartoons: each pick one episode the other never saw growing up, and watch both back to back.
- Rewatch a film you both love with the director’s commentary track on, and pause for every surprise.
- Choose a short online talk for each other on a subject the other knows nothing about, then trade one takeaway each.
- Stream a filmed stage musical and see which song you are both humming by the curtain call.
- Watch videos of how everyday things are made, like crayons or pencils, and guess each step before it appears.
- Start a baking competition series and each quietly pick a favorite contestant in the first episode.
- Watch a favorite film again with subtitles in a language one of you is learning, and collect five new words.
- Follow a live chess broadcast with commentary and call out your guess for each move before it is played.
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- Look up TV commercials from the year each of you was born and pick the strangest product.
- Give a movie one of you gave up on a second chance, and agree to stop together if it still drags.
- Put on an old quiz show episode and both call out answers before the contestants buzz in.
- Spin a random country generator and watch a film made there, whatever the genre turns out to be.
- Write down your picks before a live awards show starts, then watch the whole ceremony together on the call.
- Watch a rocket launch livestream and count down the last ten seconds out loud together.
- Queue five music videos each that the other has never seen, and take turns pressing play.
- Leave a slow TV broadcast running, like a whole train journey filmed from the cab, and talk over it.
- Watch a documentary about a hobby one of you loves, with that person pausing to add footnotes.
- Each pick the one episode that best sells your favorite show, and watch both on the call.
- Watch an interactive film where the viewer chooses the path, and take turns making each choice.
- Find a long video essay about a film you both love, then rewatch the scene it spends the most time on.
Play together online
Co-op games, browser puzzles and three of this site’s games, played from two places.
- Make a code on this site’s long distance page and play most likely to, pointing at the camera for every answer.
- Open this or that with a shared code from the long distance page and say your picks out loud on three.
- Share a code on the long distance page and play two truths and a lie, guessing the lie over the call.
- Try an online co-op puzzle game made for two, where each of you sees clues the other cannot.
- Work through an online escape room for two, reading every clue aloud to each other.
- Play a street-level geography guessing game and talk through every road sign before you settle on a guess.
- Start a shared world in a block-building game and put up one small house there, half each.
- Begin a cozy farming game on one shared farm and plant the first row of crops together.
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- Play dots and boxes on a shared online whiteboard, one color each.
- Draw battleship grids on paper on each side of the call and call out squares until one fleet is gone.
- Play a guess-the-year game with old photographs, saying your guesses out loud before you check.
- Print a mystery game for two and solve it on a call, each holding a different set of clue sheets.
- Write a ten-question quiz on your own favorite subject in a free quiz maker, then take each other’s.
- Play an old text adventure game, one of you reading the screen and the other typing the commands.
- Try a frantic co-op kitchen game where you shout orders to each other and laugh at every dropped plate.
- Share one hidden object picture on screen and split it down the middle, each searching one half.
- Run a short tabletop role-playing adventure for two, one of you telling the story and the other playing the hero.
- Start a slow online word game with letter tiles and play one move whenever either of you has a minute.
- Wander an online open-world game side by side with no mission at all, stopping for screenshots of the best views.
- Play a two-player online word-clue game where one clue links several cards and the other has to find them.
Explore from your couch
Live webcams, street-level maps and virtual tours that travel without leaving home.
- Trace the route between your two homes on a map and drop into street view at five random points along it.
- Drive a famous coastal road in street view from start to finish, jumping ahead one town at a time.
- Open a live northern lights webcam on a winter night and wait together for the sky to turn green.
- Find a live beach webcam where the sun is setting right now, anywhere in the world.
- Watch the live camera from the space station and look for the line where day turns into night.
- Take a free virtual tour of a national park and pick the trail you would hike first.
- Zoom into a famous painting in a high-resolution online gallery until you find a detail neither of you had noticed.
- Find each of your childhood homes on a satellite map and trace the way you used to walk to school.
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- Lay an old map of your town over today’s map online and find out what used to stand where you live.
- Follow a live deep-sea exploration stream and name the strangest creature the camera finds.
- Fly through the solar system in a free online space simulator, each choosing a planet to stop at.
- Open a live webcam of a busy city square on the other side of the world and guess the local time before checking.
- Climb a famous mountain trail in 360-degree photos, step by step, all the way to the summit.
- Swim over a coral reef in underwater 360-degree imagery and count how many fish you can name.
- Hunt a satellite map for the most remote house you can find and imagine a week of living there.
- Spin a free radio globe and listen to live stations around the world, stopping on any song you know.
- Browse digitized old postcards of each other’s hometowns and find the view that has changed the least.
- Check a live volcano webcam after dark and watch for the glow at the top.
- Find the spot on the far side of the globe from each of your homes and look at what is there.
- Open a live flight tracker and follow one plane all the way to a city you would like to visit together.
Make something on a call
Small crafts and digital projects to build side by side, each on your own camera.
- Make pixel art together on a shared online canvas, coloring squares until a small picture appears.
- Draw a mixed-up creature over the call: one draws the head and says only where the neck ends, the other draws the rest.
- Build a tiny web page together for an imaginary shop you would run, with a name and three products.
- Design a travel brochure for your own town in a free design tool, written to tempt the other to visit.
- Sculpt a tiny creature in a free beginner 3D modeling tool, taking turns adding one shape each.
- Make a beat in a free online drum machine, one of you on the rhythm and the other on the melody.
- Build an avatar of the other in a free character creator and reveal both at the same moment.
- Make a five-slide presentation on a topic you love, then present it to each other with screen share.
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- Shake homemade ice cream in a zip bag of ice and salt on camera, each choosing your own flavor.
- Invent a constellation for the two of you on an online star map and write the legend that goes with it.
- Lay out a magazine cover starring the other in a free design tool, headlines and all.
- Turn your handwriting into a font with a free online tool, then type each other a note in it.
- Draw a map of an imaginary island on a shared whiteboard, taking turns adding one place at a time.
- Follow the same pop-up card video and hold yours up the moment the paper springs open.
- Decorate a plain mug each with paint markers on a call, drawing something that reminds you of the other.
- Invent a band for the two of you: a name, a logo and a track list for the first album.
- Make a tiny game on a free block-coding site for beginners, one of you drawing the characters and the other snapping the code.
- Carve a small animal from a bar of soap with a butter knife, both working on camera.
- Build a homemade lava lamp from oil, water and a fizzy tablet on each side of the call.
- Roll strips of paper into a quilled flower each, following the same beginner video.
Low-energy call dates
Short, easy calls for tired evenings and time-zone gaps, with no setup at all.
- Turn the lights off, point the cameras at the ceiling and talk with only your voices.
- Show each other the last five photos in your camera roll and tell the story behind each one.
- Keep the cameras off and describe the view in front of you in detail, then switch them on.
- Keep it short: ten minutes, one good moment from each day, then goodnight.
- Save the funniest short videos you saw this week and play them for each other, one at a time.
- Put the same crackling fireplace video on both screens and sit by your two fires.
- Play the packing game half asleep: “I packed my bag with…”, each adding one item to the list.
- On a wiped-out night, call for the length of one song and say goodnight when it ends.
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- Describe your day as a weather report, from the morning fog to the evening outlook.
- Trade the strangest headline or fact you read today, and let the conversation wander from there.
- Rank everything you each ate today from best to worst, snacks included.
- When one day is ending and the other is starting, hand it over: one tip, one hope, one thing to look out for.
- Look up what happened on this date when you were each ten, then say where you were that year.
- Tell each other last night’s dream, or make one up if you forgot, and let the other guess which it was.
- Give each other one minute to grumble about something tiny, like socks that slip, then switch.
- Hold a fridge show-and-tell: the oldest jar, the strangest sauce and the best leftover.
- Read aloud the funniest online reviews of a place near you, in your most serious voice.
- Trade the corniest jokes you can find, one each, until one of you groans.
- Play word association with the lights low, answering with the first word that comes to mind.
- Each name one small thing you are looking forward to tomorrow, and ask about it on the next call.
Frequently asked questions
How many virtual date ideas are there?
There are 100 ideas, 20 in each of five categories: watch together online, play together online, explore from your couch, make something on a call, and low-energy call dates. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
How are these different from the long distance date ideas?
Everything here happens on a screen, the same evening. Letters, parcels and plans for the next visit belong to the long distance date ideas, and the two decks do not repeat each other.
Which games on this site work over a video call?
Three ideas in Play together online use them. One of you creates a code on the long distance games page and shares the invite; open the same game and category on both phones and the cards line up, so all that is left is to talk.
Do we need special apps or paid accounts?
No. A video call and a web browser cover almost every idea, and the games and design tools mentioned all come in free versions. The few craft ideas use things many homes already have, like paper, soap or paint markers.