Have a go
Things to do
Things worth doing, near you and anywhere, each with how to start, where to go and, for more and more of them, someone who has done it. Make a list of your own at any age: choose your own number and take as long as you like. You don't have to do them all.
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Find things to do, near and far
Collections: Military physical challenges (11)
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Take on the PARAS' 10
This 10-mile endurance race is based on the 10 miler from The Parachute Regiment's P Company test week, and it is open to the public.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Take a kitesurfing lesson
Flying a power kite on a beach teaches you to read the wind in a way few other sports do.
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Move · Moderate
Try indoor rock climbing
Every route on a climbing wall is a puzzle you solve with your whole body, and the grades let you start very gently.
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Move · Demanding
Climb Ben Nevis
It is the highest mountain in the UK, and the Mountain Track takes you from the glen floor to the summit plateau on foot.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Climb Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon)
The highest mountain in Eryri National Park has several distinct paths to the top, so you can choose a route that suits you.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Climb Scafell Pike
England's highest mountain rises straight out of Wasdale, one of the quietest and most dramatic valleys in the Lake District.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Hike to the top of Half Dome
Yosemite's most recognisable summit is reached by a 14 to 16 mile round trip with 4,800 feet of climbing.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Hike to the summit of Mount Whitney
The trail from Whitney Portal gains more than 6,200 feet to a summit that is also the southern end of the John Muir Trail.
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Move · Demanding
Hike up Mount Washington, New Hampshire
The highest of New Hampshire's White Mountains has a staffed weather observatory on its summit and a reputation for some of the wildest weather in the country.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Moderate
Stand on the highest point in your state
Every one of the 50 states has a highest point, and the first person to stand on all of them finished in 1966, according to the Highpointers Club.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Walk the Coast to Coast Path
This 190-mile National Trail crosses England from St Bees on the Irish Sea to Robin Hood's Bay on the North Sea.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Walk the West Highland Way
The route runs 96 miles from Milngavie, on the edge of Glasgow, to Fort William in the Highlands.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Hike a section of the Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail runs for more than 2,190 miles from Georgia to Maine, and you can sample it as a day hike or a few nights out.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Do a parkrun
parkrun is a free, weekly, timed 5km held in parks around the world and open to everyone.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Swim in open water
Swimming in a lake, river or the sea is a completely different experience from following a black line in a pool.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Ride a sportive
A sportive is a signposted, non-competitive road ride with feed stops, so you can take on a long route without navigating or carrying everything yourself.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Join a masters swimming session
Masters swimming is coached, structured swimming for adults, whether you want to race or simply swim better lengths.
Someone who did it
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Move · Gentle
Play a game of walking football
It is small-sided football with one firm rule: no running, so one foot must be on the ground at all times.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Complete your first triathlon
Swim, bike and run in one go, with the clock running through the changeovers.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Take a Learn to Row course
Rowing is a rare sport where a whole crew has to move as one, and you feel it the moment the boat runs smoothly.
Someone who did it
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Move · Gentle
Try stand-up paddleboarding
Standing on a board gives you a view down into the water and across it that you never get from a kayak or the bank.
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Move · Moderate
Go to a Scottish country dance class
Reels, jigs and strathspeys are danced in sets to lively music, with patterns you learn as you go.
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Move · Gentle
Take a yoga class with a qualified teacher
A teacher in the room can adjust a posture for you in a way no video can.
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Move · Gentle
Learn a tai chi form
A tai chi form is a long, slow sequence of linked movements that you memorise piece by piece, which makes it as much a mental exercise as a physical one.
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Move · Moderate
Learn to lift with a barbell
Squat, press and deadlift are technical skills, and good coaching makes them satisfying to learn.
Someone who did it
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Move · Gentle
Play a game of lawn bowls
The bowls are weighted to curve, so every delivery is a judgement of line and weight.
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Move · Moderate
Complete an orienteering course
You navigate between checkpoints on a detailed map, choosing your own route, so thinking counts as much as speed.
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Move · Moderate
Play a game of pickleball
Played with a solid paddle and a perforated ball on a small court, pickleball is quick to pick up and produces long, lively rallies.
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Move · Moderate
Learn to sail a dinghy
Making a boat move using nothing but the wind is an absorbing skill that keeps unfolding the more you do it.
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Move · Gentle
Join a Walk to End Alzheimer's
The Alzheimer's Association describes this as the world's largest event raising awareness and funds for Alzheimer's care, support and research.
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Move · Moderate
Cycle the Great Allegheny Passage
This 150-mile rail-trail through Pennsylvania and Maryland follows old railway lines on a crushed limestone surface, away from traffic.
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Explore · Gentle
Go on a guided mushroom foray
Fungi are a hidden kingdom, and a wood you thought you knew turns out to hold dozens of species once someone shows you where to look.
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Explore · Moderate
Take up beekeeping
A hive is a working society of tens of thousands, and learning to read it is absorbing in a way few hobbies are.
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Explore · Gentle
Take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch
For one hour you count the birds that land in a garden, balcony or park, and your tally joins hundreds of thousands of others.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Moderate
Join an Audubon Christmas Bird Count
This is one of the world's longest-running community science projects, and each count circle spends a day tallying every bird it can find.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Gentle
Complete 500 classifications on a Zooniverse project
Researchers have more galaxies, wildlife photographs and old manuscripts than they can ever examine, so they ask volunteers to help sort them.
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Explore · Gentle
Record 50 species in the City Nature Challenge
Cities around the world spend the same few days photographing every wild plant and animal they can find.
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Explore · Gentle
Spend a night under the stars at an International Dark Sky Place
Most of us have never seen a properly dark sky, with the Milky Way bright enough to stop you mid-sentence.
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Explore · Moderate
Find your own fossil on the Jurassic Coast
On these beaches ammonites and belemnites wash out of the cliffs and lie among the pebbles, waiting for a sharp pair of eyes.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Moderate
Walk a geology trail in a UNESCO Global Geopark
A geopark is a landscape chosen because its rocks tell a remarkable story, from ancient volcanoes to vanished oceans.
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Explore · Moderate
Go for your first wild swim
Swimming in a river, lake or the sea puts you inside the landscape instead of looking at it.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Moderate
Volunteer for your local Wildlife Trust
You get behind the scenes of a nature reserve, doing the work that keeps it rich in wildlife, from clearing scrub to surveying otters.
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Explore · Demanding
Become a certified Master Naturalist
Master Naturalist programmes give you a thorough grounding in your own state's ecology, taught in the field by working scientists.
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Explore · Moderate
Plant a native tree and see it through its first year
A tree you plant yourself becomes a landmark you will check on for decades.
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Travel · Demanding
Walk a Camino route to Santiago de Compostela
People have walked these paths across Spain for over a thousand years, and the rhythm of walking day after day with strangers from everywhere is unlike any other journey.
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Travel · Gentle
Take a sleeper train journey
You board in a city in the evening, eat as the lights slide past, and wake somewhere completely different.
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Travel · Moderate
Cross Europe on a rail pass
One pass lets you string together cities, mountains and coastlines across dozens of countries, changing your plans whenever a place takes your fancy.
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Travel · Moderate
Skipper a canal boat holiday
At walking pace the country looks entirely different, and working your first lock as a crew is deeply satisfying.
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Travel · Gentle
Drive a National Scenic Byway end to end
America's Byways are roads chosen for their scenery, history or culture, and each has a clear beginning and end.
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Travel · Gentle
Visit a UNESCO World Heritage Site you have never seen
The World Heritage List gathers places judged to matter to all of humanity, from cathedrals and canals to reefs and rainforests.
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Travel · Demanding
Ride a long-distance cycle route
Covering real distance under your own power changes your sense of how big a country is.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Moderate
Take a trip entirely on your own
Travelling alone means every decision is yours, from when to get up to which street to wander down.
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Travel · Demanding
Walk a National Trail from end to end
England and Wales have a family of waymarked long-distance paths, each following a coastline, ridge or ancient border.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Moderate
Visit five national parks you have never been to
National parks hold a country's finest landscapes, and each has its own character, from moorland and fen to canyon and coast.
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Eat · Gentle
Bake a sourdough loaf from a starter you made yourself
With nothing but flour and water you can raise a living culture of wild yeast on your kitchen counter.
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Eat · Demanding
Take on an allotment
An allotment gives you room to grow food on a scale a garden rarely allows, among neighbours who are generous with advice and spare seedlings.
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Eat · Moderate
Grow food in a community garden
A community garden gives you a bed of your own, shared tools and a set of neighbours who all want things to grow.
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Eat · Moderate
Preserve a season's fruit
Turning a glut of fruit into jars of jam, chutney or bottled fruit is practical kitchen chemistry with a delicious result.
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Eat · Moderate
Pass a WSET wine course
A structured course teaches you to taste methodically and to understand why a wine tastes as it does, from grape to climate to cellar.
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Eat · Gentle
Grow five culinary herbs and cook with each
Herbs are among the most rewarding things to grow, because a windowsill pot can change a dish in seconds.
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Eat · Moderate
Cook for a community meal
Cooking for a full dining room alongside a team of volunteers is a different craft from cooking at home, and a sociable one.
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Think · Gentle
Join a chess club and play a rated game
A club night gives you an opponent across a real board, a clock ticking and someone to talk the game through with afterwards.
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Think · Demanding
Write the first full draft of a book
A finished draft, however rough, is something very few people who talk about writing a book ever hold in their hands.
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Think · Demanding
Learn a language to CEFR level B1
B1 is the point where you can hold your own in a conversation, follow the gist of a radio programme and sort out most situations while travelling.
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Think · Moderate
Learn an instrument and play one piece for an audience
Choosing one piece and one listener turns vague practice into a small performance with a date on it.
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Think · Gentle
Complete a free OpenLearn course and earn the statement of participation
The Open University gives away hundreds of short courses written by its own academics, from astronomy to law.
Someone who did it
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Think · Moderate
Finish an online university course from start to end
Universities around the world put real courses online, with lectures, assignments and fellow learners to argue with in the forums.
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Think · Gentle
Join a u3a or an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and attend a group
These are learning groups run for the pleasure of it, with no exams and subjects ranging from geology to jazz.
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Think · Moderate
Give your first prepared speech at a Toastmasters club
A first speech lasts a few minutes, is about a subject you know well, and is given to a room that wants you to do well.
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Think · Moderate
Trace one family line back to your great-great-grandparents
Census pages, service records and ship lists turn names into people with addresses, trades and neighbours.
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Tech · Moderate
Learn to code and finish one small project
Code is the nearest thing there is to making something from nothing, and the first working page you build is yours for good.
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Tech · Gentle
Work through a free digital skills course
Most of us picked up computers and phones by trial and error, and it leaves gaps.
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Tech · Gentle
Put two-step sign-in on your three most important accounts
An hour's work closes the door that most account break-ins come through.
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AI · Moderate
Complete the Elements of AI course
Artificial intelligence is easier to judge once you know roughly how it works.
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AI · Gentle
Plan a real project with an AI assistant, and check its work
The quickest way to find out what these assistants are good for is to give one a job you actually need doing.
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Money · Gentle
Get your State Pension forecast or Social Security statement
The official forecast shows what your record says today, which is often different from what people assume.
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Money · Moderate
Make or update your will
A will is the one document that puts your own decisions on record, in place of rules written by somebody else.
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Money · Moderate
Make and register a lasting power of attorney
A lasting power of attorney lets you choose who would make decisions for you if you could not make them yourself.
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Money · Gentle
Track down every pension from your past jobs
Jobs from decades ago often came with a pension that has been quietly sitting there since you left.
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Earn · Demanding
Start a small business and make your first sale
Turning something you know into something a stranger pays for is a real test of an idea.
Someone who did it
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Earn · Moderate
Become a volunteer mentor to a new business owner
Things you learned the hard way about cash flow, customers and hiring are exactly what a first-time founder is missing.
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Earn · Moderate
Go freelance and invoice your first client
One client and one invoice is enough to find out whether working for yourself suits you.
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Earn · Demanding
Train as a qualified tourist guide
Guides are paid to know a place better than anyone and to tell its stories well.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer with the National Trust
You get behind the ropes of a historic house, garden or stretch of coast and help look after it alongside people who know the place well.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer in a US national park
The Volunteers-In-Parks programme lets you help care for some of the most remarkable landscapes and historic sites in the country.
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Connect · Demanding
Become a charity trustee
Trustees have overall control of a charity, so your judgement and working experience shape what it actually does.
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Connect · Gentle
Join a choir with no audition
Singing pop and rock songs in harmony with a room full of people is a quick way to feel part of something.
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Connect · Moderate
Sing with a barbershop chorus
Barbershop is close four-part harmony sung without instruments, and the moment a chord locks into place is hard to forget.
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Connect · Gentle
Complete a first aid course
Knowing what to do in the first minutes of an emergency makes you useful to everyone around you, from family to strangers.
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Connect · Moderate
Pass a British Sign Language Level 1 qualification
BSL is a full language with its own grammar, and learning it opens conversations with people you could not otherwise talk to.
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Connect · Moderate
Take a beginner course in American Sign Language
ASL is a complete visual language, and even a beginner's grasp lets you start real conversations with deaf signers.
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Connect · Moderate
Join a community orchestra or band
Playing your part inside a full ensemble is a different thing entirely from practising alone at home.
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Connect · Gentle
Spend a morning at a Men's Shed
A Shed is a shared workshop where people make and mend things side by side, and conversation happens over the workbench.
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Connect · Demanding
Apply to become a magistrate
Magistrates are volunteers who hear cases in their local courts, and no legal training is needed to apply.
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Connect · Gentle
Take something broken to a Repair Café, or go as a fixer
At a Repair Café volunteers sit down with you and mend the thing together, so you leave with a working toaster and a new skill.
Someone who did it
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Connect · Gentle
Record a conversation with someone whose story should be kept
Forty minutes of someone talking about their life, in their own voice, is something a family keeps for generations.
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Connect · Moderate
Organise a Big Lunch for your street
One afternoon of shared food is often all it takes to turn a row of front doors into neighbours.
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Connect · Gentle
Go to a Rotary club meeting as a guest
Rotary clubs are groups of local people who get practical things done, from fundraising to hands-on projects, in nearly every town in the world.
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Connect · Gentle
Go along to a Women's Institute meeting
The WI is the largest women's organisation in the UK, and its groups run talks, crafts, walks, campaigns and a good deal else.
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Connect · Gentle
Join a Ramblers Wellbeing Walk
These are short, free, led walks where the pace is set by conversation, and nobody is left behind.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer a regular shift at a food bank
Food banks run on people who turn up on the same day each week to sort, pack and welcome.
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Connect · Gentle
Walk a dog for someone who no longer can
The Cinnamon Trust matches volunteers with people who can no longer walk their own dogs, so pet and owner can stay together.
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Connect · Gentle
Stroll with a sanctuary dog in Kanab, Utah
Best Friends Animal Society runs a large sanctuary for homeless pets in Kanab, Utah, and invites volunteers to stroll with a dog, tidy a rabbit run or keep a shy cat…
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Move · Gentle
Borrow a neighbour's dog for regular walks
BorrowMyDoggy puts dog owners in touch with local people who would like to spend time with a dog, for walks, sitting or holiday care.
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Connect · Gentle
Walk rescue dogs at a Dogs Trust rehoming centre
Dogs Trust lists dog walker among its volunteer roles at its rehoming centres, alongside gardening and fostering.
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Connect · Gentle
Take a Kauaʻi shelter dog out for the day
Kauaʻi Humane Society lets visitors take a shelter dog out for the day, to a trail or one of the many beaches that allow dogs, and bring it back by 5pm.
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Move · Moderate
Hike Shenandoah National Park with your dog
Shenandoah is one of the few national parks that allow pets on most of its trails, so you and your dog can share Blue Ridge views together.
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Move · Gentle
Explore Acadia's trails with your dog and earn a Bark Ranger badge
Acadia National Park welcomes leashed pets on many of its trails, and dogs can become Acadia Bark Rangers.
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Move · Gentle
Walk the Towpath Trail through Cuyahoga Valley with your dog
Cuyahoga Valley National Park, between Cleveland and Akron in Ohio, welcomes leashed pets on over 100 miles of hiking trails and on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.
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Connect · Moderate
Help run a Scout group for a term
Scout groups have waiting lists because they are short of adults, not children.
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Eat · Gentle
Learn five dinners you can cook without a recipe
A dish becomes yours around the fifth time you make it, when you stop reading and start tasting.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Finish Couch to 5K
The plan starts with one-minute runs broken up by walking and adds a little more running each week until you can keep going for half an hour.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Take a Nordic walking lesson
Nordic walking looks like strolling with ski poles, but the pole work is a technique in its own right and takes a lesson to get the hang of.
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Move · Gentle
Shoot a beginners' archery course
Archery rewards stillness and repetition more than strength, and the satisfaction of an arrow landing where you meant it to is immediate.
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Move · Moderate
Learn to fence
Fencing is often compared to chess, because each bout is a contest of feints, timing and second-guessing as much as speed.
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Move · Gentle
Try curling on real ice
Two teams of four slide granite stones down a sheet of ice towards a target called the house, and sweeping the ice changes how far each stone travels and how much it…
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Move · Gentle
Play a proper game of croquet
Croquet on a club lawn is a tactical game, a long way from knocking balls about on a bumpy garden.
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Move · Gentle
Take a first set of golf lessons
Golf is unusual in that the ball sits motionless and waits, which makes a poor shot entirely your own work and a clean one deeply satisfying.
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Move · Gentle
Join a walking netball session
Walking netball is netball played at walking pace with the rules slightly tweaked, so the game turns on passing and positioning instead of sprinting.
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Move · Gentle
Join a table tennis session
Table tennis packs spin, angles and split-second decisions into a space the size of a dining table, and a rally can be enjoyable at any standard.
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Move · Moderate
Learn to ice skate
Gliding on a blade a few millimetres wide is a skill you build in small, definite steps, which is why the national programmes are set out in levels.
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Move · Moderate
Learn to paddle a kayak
A kayak puts you at water level on rivers, lakes and sheltered coast, moving under your own power and almost silently.
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Move · Moderate
Paddle in a dragon boat crew
A dragon boat only moves well when every paddle enters the water at the same instant, so it is one of the purest team efforts in sport.
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Move · Gentle
Breathe underwater on a try dive
Taking a first breath underwater and finding that it simply works is one of the stranger sensations on offer.
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Move · Demanding
Catch your first wave
Surfing compresses a great deal into a few seconds, from paddling and timing to the scramble to your feet, and the first wave you ride to the beach is hard to forget.
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Move · Moderate
Have a riding lesson
Riding is a conversation with a large animal carried on through your seat, legs and hands, and learning to make yourself understood is the fascination of it.
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Move · Moderate
Swim a Swimathon distance
Swimathon is a fundraising swim held in local pools across the UK, where you choose a distance to suit your ability and swim it alone or as part of a team.
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Move · Demanding
Walk a marathon at night at the MoonWalk
The MoonWalk London sets off after dark and takes walkers through the streets of the capital overnight, many of them in decorated bras.
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Move · Demanding
Ride from London to Brighton
The British Heart Foundation's ride covers 54 miles from Clapham Common in south London to the seafront at Brighton, mostly on roads closed to traffic.
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Move · Demanding
Run the Great North Run
The organisers call it the world's biggest half marathon, a single mass of runners heading from the Central Motorway in Newcastle to the coast at South Shields.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Compete at a state Senior Games
State Senior Games are multi-sport competitions held across the United States, with events ranging from archery, bowling and pickleball to swimming, track and field…
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Move · Moderate
Learn a ballroom or Latin dance
A waltz or a cha-cha is a small piece of choreography you improvise with another person in time to music, and a handful of steps is enough to get round a floor.
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Move · Demanding
Walk the Yorkshire Three Peaks
Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough are usually climbed in a single day on a 24-mile circuit with about 5,000 feet of ascent.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Hike below the rim of the Grand Canyon
Most visitors look down from the rim, but a short way down the Bright Angel or South Kaibab Trail the canyon walls rise around you and the scale changes completely.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Get back on a tennis court
Tennis is one of the few sports you can pick up again after decades away and find the strokes waiting for you, a little rusty.
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Move · Gentle
Play a round of disc golf
Disc golf borrows the shape of golf, with tees, fairways and a par for each hole, but you throw a flying disc at a metal basket instead of hitting a ball at a cup.
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Move · Moderate
Learn to swim as an adult
Swimming is a skill plenty of adults never had the chance to learn, and both national bodies run programmes written for grown-up beginners.
Someone who did it
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Move · Gentle
Take a cycling confidence lesson
Bikeability, the cycle training programme run for the Department for Transport, is best known in schools but also teaches adults, one to one or in a small group.
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Move · Moderate
Join a guided group bike ride
British Cycling's Guided Rides are free local rides led by trained volunteer Ride Leaders who know the quiet lanes and the good cafe stops.
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Move · Moderate
Make a tandem skydive
On a tandem jump you leave the aircraft harnessed to a qualified instructor, fall freely for the better part of a minute and then drift down under one large parachute.
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Explore · Gentle
Fly in a glider
A glider has no engine, so once it is released it stays up on rising air alone, and the cockpit is quiet enough to talk in.
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Explore · Gentle
Find your first geocache
Geocaches are physical containers hidden all around the world, and the game is to follow your phone to within a few paces of one and then use your eyes.
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Explore · Gentle
Go on a guided bird walk
A good guide hears a bird long before anyone sees it, and an hour beside one teaches more than a season with a field guide.
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Explore · Gentle
Count butterflies for the Big Butterfly Count
Fifteen minutes in a sunny spot, counting the butterflies and day-flying moths that pass, becomes a record in a UK-wide survey run by the charity Butterfly Conservation.
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Explore · Gentle
Join the Great Backyard Bird Count
For four days each February, people all over the world count the birds they see or hear and send the lists to the same database.
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Explore · Gentle
Submit your first eBird checklist
An eBird checklist records where you went, when, how you birded and every bird you could identify, and it joins observations gathered around the world for researchers…
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Explore · Gentle
Go on a bat walk at dusk
Bats hunt by sound pitched too high for us to hear, and a handheld detector turns their calls into clicks and chirps as they pass overhead.
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Explore · Gentle
Spend a low tide rockpooling
When the tide drops, a rocky shore turns into a row of small aquariums holding crabs, starfish, anemones, blennies and shrimp.
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Explore · Gentle
Join a beach clean
A beach clean is also a survey, because volunteers record what they pick up and the tallies feed long-running databases of marine litter.
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Explore · Gentle
See Saturn's rings through a telescope
To the naked eye Saturn is a steady off-white point; through a modest telescope the rings are plain to see.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Gentle
Look through a telescope at an astronomy society
Saturn's rings and the craters along the Moon's shadow line look quite different through an eyepiece than on a screen, because the light reaching you is the real thing.
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Explore · Gentle
See the northern lights
The aurora is charged particles from the Sun lighting up the upper atmosphere, and during strong activity it reaches far further south than its Arctic reputation…
Someone who did it
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Explore · Moderate
Stand in the shadow of a total solar eclipse
For a few minutes the Moon covers the Sun completely, day turns to twilight and the corona, the Sun's outer atmosphere, becomes visible to the naked eye.
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Explore · Gentle
Let a patch of lawn grow wild
Stop mowing one corner and the lawn shows what was in it all along, from daisies, clovers and bird's-foot-trefoil to taller meadow flowers if you leave it longer.
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Explore · Moderate
Dig a wildlife pond
A wildlife pond is shallower than most people expect, with a gently sloping edge so animals can get in and out, and it is filled with rainwater.
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Explore · Gentle
Put up a nest box and watch it
The size of the entrance hole decides which species can move in, so choosing a box is a way of choosing your tenants.
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Explore · Gentle
Learn to identify twenty trees
A tree gives itself away through its leaves, bark, buds, twigs, flowers, fruit and overall shape, and the more of those clues you combine, the surer the name.
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Explore · Gentle
Visit a National Wildlife Refuge
National Wildlife Refuges are public lands managed first for wildlife, which is why they are often the best places to see large gatherings of migrating birds at close…
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Explore · Gentle
Watch for whales and dolphins from the shore
A headland and a pair of binoculars are enough to see dolphins, porpoises and sometimes whales, and watching from land does not disturb the animals at all.
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Explore · Moderate
Learn to navigate with a map and compass
Contour lines turn into hills and valleys in your head once you have practised matching the paper to the ground, and a compass bearing will take you across open…
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Explore · Demanding
Spend a night in a mountain bothy
A bothy is a simple shelter in remote country, kept up by the volunteers of the Mountain Bothies Association for anyone who loves wild and lonely places.
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Explore · Gentle
Visit a private garden on an open day
Private gardens that are closed all year open their gates for a day or two, from small back gardens to large estates, and the person who made the garden is often…
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Explore · Moderate
Go metal detecting and record what you find
A coin or buckle lifted from a ploughed field becomes evidence once its exact find spot is written down, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme exists to record such…
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Explore · Moderate
Dig on an archaeological excavation
Excavation is slow work with a trowel, and the reward is being the first person to see an object or a floor surface since it was buried.
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Explore · Gentle
Learn to fish
Fishing asks you to read water, to work out where a fish would sit and what it might take, and then to wait with real attention.
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Travel · Moderate
Walk a stretch of the Wales Coast Path
Wales is one of a few countries in the world with a continuous footpath along its coastline, running 870 miles from the outskirts of Chester to Chepstow.
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Travel · Demanding
Hike a section of the Pacific Crest Trail
The Pacific Crest Trail runs about 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada through desert, the Sierra Nevada, deep forest and the volcanic peaks of the Cascades.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Gentle
Walk or ride a rail trail
Disused railway corridors make fine paths because trains could not climb steep hills, so the gradients are gentle and the line runs through cuttings, tunnels and over…
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Travel · Moderate
Sleep in a fire lookout tower
Fire lookouts were built on summits so that one person could watch a whole forest for smoke, which means the view is the entire point of the building.
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Explore · Demanding
Build a length of dry stone wall
A dry stone wall stands without a trace of mortar, held up by nothing but the way each stone is chosen and placed.
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Travel · Gentle
Cross America by train
Amtrak's California Zephyr runs daily between Chicago and Emeryville, near San Francisco, crossing the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada on the way.
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Travel · Gentle
Ride a heritage steam railway
Heritage railways are working museums, where restored locomotives haul passengers along lines that would otherwise have been lifted for scrap.
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Travel · Moderate
Island-hop through the Hebrides by ferry
Caledonian MacBrayne, known as CalMac, sails to about 30 destinations along Scotland's west coast, from Arran in the south to Harris and Lewis in the north.
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Travel · Moderate
Drive the North Coast 500
The North Coast 500 is a 516-mile loop around the far north of Scotland, through the Black Isle, Caithness, Sutherland and Wester Ross.
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Travel · Gentle
Drive a stretch of Route 66
US Highway 66, the Mother Road, became a symbol of American mobility, and long stretches of the old alignment can be driven today.
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Travel · Gentle
Stay in a hostel
A hostel puts you in a mountain valley or a city centre for a fraction of a hotel bill, and the shared kitchen and lounge make conversation with strangers almost…
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Travel · Moderate
Walk a British pilgrim route
Britain is threaded with old pilgrim paths to cathedrals, holy wells and prehistoric sites, and the British Pilgrimage Trust has mapped routes across England,…
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Travel · Gentle
Ride the West Highland Line
The West Highland Line leaves Glasgow Queen Street and splits at Crianlarich, one arm running to Oban and the other climbing over Rannoch Moor to Fort William and…
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Travel · Moderate
Take a Road Scholar learning trip
Road Scholar is a not-for-profit that has run what it calls learning adventures since 1975, built around expert instructors and special access rather than sightseeing…
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Travel · Moderate
Spend a day at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The Fringe began in 1947 when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited to the Edinburgh International Festival, and it now fills the city with performing arts for…
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Travel · Moderate
Watch a play standing in the yard at Shakespeare's Globe
Standing in the yard at Shakespeare's Globe in London puts you where the groundlings stood, on your feet under the open sky with the actors within arm's reach.
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Travel · Moderate
Join the Queue at Wimbledon
Wimbledon is one of the few great sporting events where you can turn up on the day and buy a ticket, provided you are willing to queue.
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Travel · Moderate
See free Shakespeare in Central Park
Joseph Papp founded Free Shakespeare in the Park to make great theatre open to everyone, and The Public Theater continues to stage it at the open-air Delacorte…
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Travel · Gentle
Go behind closed doors on Heritage Open Days
Heritage Open Days is England's largest festival of history and culture, when buildings and places that are normally shut or charge for entry open free of charge.
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Think · Gentle
Go to the National Book Festival
The Library of Congress National Book Festival brings best-selling authors and book fans together in Washington, DC, for a day of author talks, panel discussions and…
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Eat · Moderate
Brew a batch of your own beer
Brewing is cookery, chemistry and patience in one pot, and the result is a beer that exists nowhere else.
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Eat · Moderate
Give a home to ex-commercial hens
The British Hen Welfare Trust places hens from commercial laying farms with people who have a garden and a secure coop.
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Eat · Moderate
Train as a Master Gardener volunteer
Extension Master Gardeners are volunteers trained through a state land-grant university and its Cooperative Extension Service to pass on research-based gardening advice.
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Eat · Moderate
Study for an RHS Level 2 horticulture qualification
The Royal Horticultural Society's qualifications turn a gardener's instincts into knowledge of how plants actually grow, and Level 2 is a common place to begin.
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Eat · Gentle
Save seed from your own vegetables
Saving seed closes the loop on a vegetable plot, since next year's crop comes from this year's best plants rather than from a packet.
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Eat · Gentle
Enter the World's Original Marmalade Awards
Each year home cooks from around the world post a jar of marmalade to Dalemain Mansion in Cumbria, in the north of England, to be judged in the Homemade Awards.
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Eat · Moderate
Help plant or tend a community orchard
A community orchard is a patch of shared ground planted with fruit trees and looked after by the people who live near it.
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Connect · Gentle
Deliver Meals on Wheels
A Meals on Wheels volunteer collects meals from a central location and delivers them along a set route to people at home, with a greeting and a brief chat at each door.
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Move · Moderate
Go to a ceilidh or contra dance
At a ceilidh, barn dance or contra dance a caller walks the whole room through every figure before the band strikes up, so nobody needs to know a step in advance.
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Connect · Moderate
Sing Handel's Messiah with a scratch choir
The Really Big Chorus fills the Royal Albert Hall in London with singers for Messiah from Scratch, a performance in which the choir is the audience.
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Connect · Demanding
Steward a music festival
Oxfam recruits volunteer stewards for UK music festivals to check tickets at the gate, patrol campsites and arenas and staff the accessibility platforms.
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Travel · Gentle
Follow London's blue plaques on foot
London's blue plaques scheme, begun in 1866 and thought to be the oldest of its kind in the world, marks the buildings where notable people lived and worked.
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Think · Gentle
Brush up your everyday maths
The National Numeracy Challenge is a free online tool from the UK charity National Numeracy that works on the maths of daily life, at home and at work, in manageable…
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Think · Moderate
Submit a work to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
The Royal Academy of Arts in London describes its Summer Exhibition as the world's largest open-submission exhibition, and the judges first look at every entry as a…
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Think · Gentle
Draw on location with Urban Sketchers
Urban Sketchers is a worldwide network of local chapters, each a community that meets to sketch on location and share the results.
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Think · Moderate
Learn an endangered heritage craft
The charity Heritage Crafts publishes the Red List of Endangered Crafts, which ranks traditional crafts by how likely they are to survive to the next generation.
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Connect · Gentle
Knit or sew a blanket for Project Linus
Project Linus gives new, handmade quilts and blankets to children who are ill, distressed or in difficulty, and every one is made by a volunteer.
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Think · Moderate
Learn to ring church bells
Tower bell ringing is a team activity in which each ringer controls one bell by rope and keeps it in time with the others.
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Think · Moderate
Pass a graded music exam
A graded music exam gives your playing or singing a fixed target, on a ladder that runs up to Grade 8.
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Think · Gentle
Read a whole Booker Prize shortlist
Each year a panel of five judges cuts a longlist of 12 or 13 works of long-form fiction to a Booker Prize shortlist of six, then chooses a winner.
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Think · Gentle
Learn to play bridge
Bridge is played by four people with one pack of cards, as one pair against another.
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Tech · Moderate
Get an amateur radio licence
An amateur radio licence gives you a unique call sign with which to identify yourself when you transmit.
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Tech · Moderate
Build something with a Raspberry Pi
A Raspberry Pi is a small computer that you set up yourself, installing its operating system onto a storage card with the official Imager tool.
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Tech · Gentle
Make your first edit to Wikipedia
Wikipedia is written by volunteers, and anyone can correct or improve an article.
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Tech · Gentle
Add your street to OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is a free map of the world made by a community of mappers, and anyone can edit it.
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Think · Gentle
Transcribe documents for a national archive
Volunteers at the Smithsonian Transcription Center type out handwritten and typed pages, from invention notebooks to astronomical records, so that the text can be…
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Tech · Gentle
Move your passwords into a password manager
A password manager stores your passwords for you, which means every account can have its own unique password without your having to remember any of them.
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Tech · Gentle
Back up your photos in two places
A backup is a copy of your important data stored in a separate, safe location, and photographs are among the files that cannot be replaced.
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Tech · Gentle
Switch an account to a passkey
A passkey lets you sign in to a website or app without a password, using the fingerprint, face or PIN that already unlocks your device.
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AI · Gentle
Learn to spot an AI-made video or voice
A deepfake is a video, picture or audio clip made with artificial intelligence to look or sound real, and a cloned voice needs only a short clip of someone speaking.
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AI · Gentle
Draft a complaint letter with an AI assistant
A complaint letter is a good test of an AI assistant, because you already know the facts and can see at once whether the draft has them right.
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Think · Gentle
Join a camera club
A camera club puts your photographs in front of other photographers, which is a quick way to find out what works in a picture and what does not.
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Connect · Moderate
Join an amateur theatre company
Amateur theatre groups stage everything from pantomimes to musicals, in venues that run from small village halls to large theatres.
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Think · Moderate
Turn a bowl on a lathe
Woodturning shapes a block of wood with hand-held tools while it spins on a lathe, and a bowl is one of the classic things to make.
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Think · Gentle
Trace the history of your house
The history of a house is pieced together from records made for other purposes, such as census returns, tithe maps and the Valuation Office Survey of 1910 to 1915.
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Think · Gentle
Find a relative in the war graves records
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission keeps searchable records of the dead of the two World Wars, which can be searched by name, service number, regiment and country.
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Move · Moderate
Take your first motorcycle training course
Compulsory basic training, known as CBT, is the course most learners in Britain must take before riding a moped or motorcycle on the road, and it is not a test you…
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Think · Moderate
Take an advanced driving course
IAM RoadSmart's Advanced Driver Course is built around the police system of car control and is taught one to one, in your own car, by a volunteer Observer from a…
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Earn · Moderate
Qualify to lead walking groups
Mountain Training's Lowland Leader qualification is for people who want to lead groups of walkers through lowland countryside, woodland and similar terrain.
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Earn · Demanding
Qualify as a Mountain Leader
The Mountain Leader qualification is for people who want to lead groups in the mountains, hills and moorlands of the UK and Ireland.
Someone who did it
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Connect · Gentle
Become a telephone befriender
Age UK's Telephone Friendship Service matches a volunteer with one person on the strength of shared interests, and the two then talk for half an hour every week.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer through AmeriCorps Seniors
AmeriCorps Seniors is a federal volunteering service with three distinct programmes, each built around a different kind of help.
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Connect · Gentle
Help a child learn to read
Reading charities place trained volunteers in schools to sit with one child at a time and read at that child's pace.
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Connect · Moderate
Become a school governor
A governing board sets a school's strategic direction, holds the headteacher to account for performance and makes sure the budget is properly managed.
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Connect · Gentle
Give blood
Blood cannot be manufactured, so every unit a hospital uses began with someone sitting in a donor chair.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer with Citizens Advice
Citizens Advice is the charity people turn to when a problem with money, housing or work has become too tangled to sort out alone.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer with the RNLI
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the charity that saves lives at sea, and it depends on volunteers to do it.
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Connect · Moderate
Join the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary
The Auxiliary is the uniformed volunteer component of the United States Coast Guard, and its main purpose is recreational boating safety and education.
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Connect · Demanding
Raise a guide dog puppy
A future guide dog spends its early life in an ordinary home, where a volunteer teaches it house manners and takes it into shops, offices, parks and public transport.
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Connect · Gentle
Volunteer with the NHS
The NHS has a single website for volunteering, where its organisations advertise roles meant to improve the experience of patients and their families.
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Connect · Demanding
Help build a house with Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity builds homes with volunteer labour, so a day on site means working on a house that a family will live in.
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Connect · Moderate
Work a lock as a volunteer lock keeper
Volunteer lock keepers help boaters through historic locks, welcome visitors to the towpath and look after the site with jobs such as painting and cutting back…
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Connect · Gentle
Organise a litter pick on your street
A litter pick is about the simplest piece of civic organising there is, since it needs only a picker, a bag, strong gloves and a patch of ground.
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Connect · Gentle
Host an international student for a weekend
HOST UK arranges for international students at British universities to visit residents in their own homes for a day, a weekend or three days at Christmas.
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Connect · Gentle
Swap postcards with strangers around the world
Postcrossing gives you the address of a random member somewhere in the world, and once your card arrives and is registered, another member is asked to send one to you.
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Connect · Gentle
Sit at a Chatter and Natter table
A Chatter and Natter table is a table in a café or community venue set aside for anyone who is happy to talk to whoever else sits down.
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Connect · Gentle
Join a Lions club
Lions clubs are local groups of volunteers who take on service projects in their own town, and there are clubs around the world.
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Move · Moderate
Go on a Ramblers group walk
Ramblers groups across Britain put on led walks through the year, each guided by a walk leader who knows the route.
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Connect · Gentle
Become a Dementia Friend
A Dementia Friend is someone who has taken a short session on what life with dementia can be like and on practical, everyday ways to support people living with it.
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Connect · Gentle
Take your dog visiting as a therapy pet
Therapy pet charities send volunteers and their own animals to visit places such as hospitals, care homes and schools.
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Connect · Moderate
Foster a rescue animal
Fostering means giving a rescue animal a temporary home while the charity looks for a permanent one, which suits animals that struggle in kennels.
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Connect · Moderate
Volunteer with Crisis at Christmas
Each Christmas the homelessness charity Crisis runs services for people with nowhere to go, in London hotels and day centres and at its Skylight centres in England,…
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Connect · Moderate
Mentor a young person
Mentoring comes down to turning up reliably for one young person and listening.
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Connect · Moderate
Work at a polling place on election day
Poll workers set up the polling place, greet voters, verify registrations, issue ballots and explain how the voting equipment works.
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Connect · Gentle
Find out what standing for your local council involves
Local councillors are elected by their neighbours, and the Local Government Association runs a "Be a Councillor" site explaining what councils and councillors do.
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Move · Moderate
Take part in Race for Life
Race for Life is Cancer Research UK's series of fundraising events, with courses of 3k, 5k and 10k that you can walk, jog or run.
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Connect · Gentle
Host a Macmillan Coffee Morning
A Macmillan Coffee Morning is a fundraising get-together over cake and coffee that anyone can put on at home, at work or in a village hall.
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Connect · Moderate
Walk at a Relay For Life
Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society's volunteer-led community event, in which teams take turns walking laps to raise money.
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Money · Gentle
Read your own credit report
A credit report is the file lenders look at when you apply to borrow, and you are entitled to see it yourself.
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Money · Gentle
Run a benefits check
Official benefits checkers estimate what help your household might be able to claim, which is hard to work out from the rules alone.
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Money · Gentle
Check your tax code or withholding
The tax taken from pay or a pension before it reaches you rests on a code or a form that few people ever look at.
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Money · Gentle
Book a free Pension Wise appointment
Pension Wise is a free, impartial, government-backed guidance appointment about the options for taking money from a defined contribution pension.
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Money · Gentle
Do a home energy check
The GOV.UK "Find ways to save energy in your home" service asks about your house, when it was built, its insulation and its glazing, then suggests improvements.
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Money · Gentle
Track every pound or dollar for a month
Writing down every purchase for a month shows where money actually goes, which is rarely where people guess.
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Money · Gentle
Search for lost savings and accounts
Old bank books and forgotten accounts do not vanish, and there are free official routes for tracing them.
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Money · Gentle
Find out how the Rent a Room Scheme works
The Rent a Room Scheme is a UK tax arrangement for people who let a room in the home they live in, whether or not they own it.
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Walk the Cateran Yomp
The Cateran Yomp asks teams to walk up to 54 miles in 24 hours through the Perthshire hills from Blairgowrie, with shorter 22 and 36 mile options.
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Walk the Four Days Marches at Nijmegen
For four consecutive days, walkers cover 30, 40 or 50km a day in and around the Dutch city of Nijmegen, and those who finish receive the 4Days Marches Cross.
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Walk 100km at Trailwalker
Teams of four trek or run 100km non-stop along the South Downs Way, aiming to finish in under 30 hours with a support crew meeting them along the route.
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Take on the Gurkha Doko Challenge
A doko is a Nepali basket carried on the back, and in this event you carry one loaded with 5kg, 10kg or 15kg round a 5km cross-country course.
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Walk the Frontline Walk
The Western Front edition of this walk covers 100km on foot through the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium, from Lochnagar Crater on the Somme to the…
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
March the Bataan Memorial Death March
This memorial march at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico offers a full marathon-length course and a shorter honorary course, and it remembers the surrender at…
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Run the Marine Corps Marathon
Known as The People's Marathon, this race offers no prize money and runs through Arlington, Virginia, and Washington.
Someone who did it
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Run the Army Ten-Miler
This ten-mile road race has been held each October since 1985 and is based at the Pentagon, just outside Washington.
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Finish a GORUCK event
Rucking means covering ground on foot with a weighted rucksack, and GORUCK, a private company, sells places on team events built around it, from city rucks to its…
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Military physical challenge · Demanding
Complete the Murph Challenge
The workout is a one-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats and a second one-mile run, done by registered participants on Memorial Day.
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Move · Moderate
Walk 1,000 miles in a year
A thousand miles sounds like an expedition, yet spread across a year it works out at a little under three miles a day.
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Move · Demanding
Climb a Colorado fourteener
A fourteener is a peak higher than 14,000 feet, and Colorado has more of them than any other state, several with walking routes that need no ropes.
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Move · Moderate
Swim in the Serpentine
The Serpentine Lido lets you swim in open water in the middle of Hyde Park, inside a buoyed area of the lake watched by lifeguards.
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Move · Moderate
Ride a velodrome track
A velodrome's banked wooden track looks like a wall from the bottom, and riding round it on a fixed wheel bike is unlike any cycling you can do on the road.
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Move · Moderate
Play walking rugby
Walking rugby keeps the oval ball and the passing but removes the tackling, and every player has to walk at all times.
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Move · Moderate
Step onto a judo mat
Judo is a grappling art built on balance and timing, in which a smaller person can throw a larger one by using their momentum against them.
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Move · Demanding
Row a 2,000m test on a rowing machine
Two thousand metres is the classic racing distance in rowing, and on a machine it becomes a hard, exact test that you can repeat and compare.
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Explore · Moderate
Snorkel over a reef or kelp bed
With a mask, a snorkel and a pair of fins you can float over a kelp forest, a coral reef or a shallow shipwreck and watch what lives there.
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Travel · Moderate
Paddle a marked canoe trail
A paddling trail is a planned route along a river, canal, lake or coast, which takes the guesswork out of where to launch and where to stop.
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Travel · Moderate
Camp for a night in a national park
A night in a tent keeps you in a national park after the day visitors have gone home, for the dusk, the dark and the dawn.
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Travel · Gentle
Watch the midsummer sunrise at Stonehenge
Stonehenge was built to line up with the sun at the solstices, and at midsummer the sun rises behind the Heel Stone and its first rays shine into the heart of the…
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Travel · Gentle
Cross the tidal causeway to Holy Island
Twice a day the sea covers the road to Holy Island, also called Lindisfarne, off the Northumberland coast, so every visit has to be timed around the tide.
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Travel · Gentle
Ride the Settle to Carlisle line
This railway crosses the high country between the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria, carrying ordinary passenger trains over the stone arches of the Ribblehead Viaduct.
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Travel · Gentle
See the cherry blossom in Washington, D.C.
The cherry trees around the Tidal Basin were a gift from Japan in 1912, and for a short spell each spring they turn the memorials pink and white.
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Travel · Gentle
Drive the Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway winds for 469 miles through the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina, a road built for slow driving and long views over the Appalachian…
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Travel · Gentle
Go to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
Established in 1967, this festival brings master artisans, musicians and other tradition bearers to the National Mall in Washington each summer to show how their…
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Travel · Gentle
Visit every Smithsonian museum in Washington
The Smithsonian calls itself the world's largest museum complex, and most of its museums stand on or near the National Mall, with admission free at every Washington…
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Think · Gentle
Cover a table with the hat tile
The hat is a 13-sided shape that covers a flat surface without gaps but never in a repeating pattern, the first single tile known to do so.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Hold a plank for five minutes
A plank works the whole trunk with no kit, and a clock makes every gain easy to see.
Someone who did it
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Eat · Moderate
Grow a pumpkin from seed
A pumpkin goes from a seed on a windowsill to a fruit you can barely lift in a single summer, and growers chasing world records start the same way.
Someone who did it
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AI · Gentle
Answer a call as a Be My Eyes volunteer
A blind or partially sighted person points their phone camera at something and you tell them what you see, live, from wherever you are.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Demanding
Crew a yacht at sea
On a yacht at sea everyone has a job, from steering to sail handling to cooking, and on a live-aboard course you learn them by doing them.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Learn to skateboard
A skateboard is an inexpensive way to learn a whole new way of moving, and every session gives you something to measure, from your first rolling stop to a timed run…
Someone who did it
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Earn · Gentle
Test-drive a new career with a free careers adviser
Most people who change direction start by hearing someone describe a job they had never considered.
Someone who did it
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Think · Moderate
Finish the degree or course you once left unfinished
Credits from a course you left years ago can still count, and a counsellor can often tell you in one appointment how close you are.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Gentle
See Ice Age cave art
The painted horses, aurochs and stags of Lascaux in south-west France are around 17,000 to 21,000 years old, depending on whose dating you follow.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Gentle
Walk through seven million years of human evolution
The Natural History Museum's free Human Evolution gallery in London runs from the first hominins to modern humans, with a 3.5-million-year-old canine from Laetoli,…
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Climb to the crater rim of Mount St. Helens
You climb a volcano that blew off its top in 1980, from a summit of 9,677 feet down to a crater rim that now reaches 8,365.
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Move · Moderate
Walk a stretch of the Oregon Coast Trail
The trail follows Oregon's 362-mile coastline from the Columbia River to California, mostly on the beach and over headlands, through 28 coastal towns.
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Explore · Demanding
Walk the Timberline Trail around Mount Hood
This trail of about 40 miles circles Mount Hood through west-side Cascade forest and alpine meadows, past waterfalls and wide views.
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Move · Demanding
Walk Hadrian's Wall Path
This 84-mile National Trail follows a Roman frontier across England from Wallsend, near Newcastle, to the Solway coast beyond Carlisle.
Someone who did it
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Explore · Moderate
Walk the clifftops above the Giant's Causeway
The National Trust's Red Trail runs along the cliffs above the Causeway's basalt columns, with views out over the North Channel, then drops back down 162 stone steps.
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Move · Demanding
Hike Angels Landing in Zion
The last part of this hike climbs a narrow sandstone fin from Scout Lookout to the summit, holding a chain for much of the way.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Moderate
Ride the Katy Trail across Missouri
The Katy Trail runs 240 miles across Missouri on the bed of the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, mostly beside the Missouri River.
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Explore · Gentle
Paddle a canoe trail on the Norfolk Broads
The Broads are Britain's largest protected wetland, and the calm upper rivers are made for a canoe or paddleboard.
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Move · Gentle
Walk or cycle the Monsal Trail through its tunnels
This flat 8.5-mile trail follows an old Midland Railway line through the Peak District between Bakewell and Blackwell Mill, crossing the Headstone Viaduct.
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Move · Moderate
Walk a stretch of the South West Coast Path
England's longest National Trail runs 630 miles around the South West peninsula, from Minehead in Somerset to Poole Harbour in Dorset.
Someone who did it
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Move · Moderate
Walk the Malvern Hills from end to end
The Malvern ridge rises straight out of the Severn plain, and a walk along its crest from Chase End to North Hill takes in every main summit, with views across…
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Move · Demanding
Walk the Tongariro Alpine Crossing
This one-way crossing in New Zealand's Tongariro National Park climbs to Red Crater at 1,886 metres (6,188 feet), past steaming vents, lava flows and the vivid…
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Travel · Moderate
Walk the last 100 km of a Camino to Santiago
Pilgrims have walked to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain for centuries, and many routes now have a village and a bed every few kilometres.
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Climb Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, is the highest mountain in Africa and the world's highest free-standing volcano, its summit at 5,895 metres (19,341 feet).
Someone who did it
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Move · Demanding
Hike the W Trek in Torres del Paine
The W Trek takes you through the granite towers, glaciers and lakes of Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia.
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Travel · Moderate
Walk the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage trail in Japan
The Nakahechi route of the Kumano Kodo has linked the Grand Shrines of Kumano through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula for more than 1,000 years.
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Travel · Moderate
Sail to Antarctica
Most visitors reach Antarctica by expedition ship from Ushuaia in Argentina, Punta Arenas in Chile or Montevideo in Uruguay, crossing to the Antarctic Peninsula.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Demanding
Hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
The classic Inca Trail covers 43 km over four days and climbs above 4,000 metres, passing Inca sites on the way before you arrive at Machu Picchu on foot.
Someone who did it
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Travel · Demanding
Walk a section of the Larapinta Trail in Australia
The Larapinta Trail runs 231 km along the West MacDonnell Ranges from the Alice Springs Telegraph Station to the summit of Mt Sonder, past gorges and waterholes such…
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Travel · Moderate
Hike to Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) in Norway
Preikestolen is a flat-topped rock that stands 604 metres above the Lysefjord, and the hike to it is about 8 km there and back with some 500 metres of climbing.
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Travel · Moderate
Hike to the Lake Agnes teahouse above Lake Louise
A 3.4 km trail climbs 385 metres from the shore of Lake Louise in Banff National Park to a small European-style teahouse beside Lake Agnes.
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Move · Moderate
Hike up Table Mountain by Platteklip Gorge
Platteklip Gorge is the most direct way up Table Mountain, about 3 km of steady climbing from Tafelberg Road to the Upper Cableway Station high above Cape Town.
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Move · Demanding
Walk the Laugavegur trail in Iceland
The Laugavegur crosses Iceland's southern highlands for about 55 km (34 miles), from the hot springs of Landmannalaugar to the birch woods of Þórsmörk, past rhyolite…
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Travel · Moderate
Climb to the Monastery at Petra
Petra was carved into the rock of southern Jordan by the Nabataeans more than 2,000 years ago, and the Monastery (Ad-Deir) is one of its great monuments.
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Explore · Gentle
Watch Old Faithful erupt in Yellowstone
Old Faithful throws water an average of 130 feet (40 metres) into the air, roughly every 100 minutes, and the National Park Service predicts each eruption.
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Explore · Gentle
Watch the sunrise from the summit of Haleakalā
Watching dawn break from the summit of Haleakalā, more than 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) up on Maui, takes a reservation from the National Park Service.
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Explore · Gentle
Ride the park bus into Denali National Park
Only the first 15 miles of the gravel road into Denali National Park are open to private cars, so most visitors go deeper into the Alaskan wilderness on park buses.
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Travel · Moderate
Walk the streets of Pompeii
Pompeii was buried by the eruption of AD 79, and today you can walk its excavated streets, go inside its open houses and see the plaster casts shown in the park's…
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Explore · Moderate
See the wildlife of the Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos National Park manages 176 visitor sites across the islands, 85 on land for walking and 91 at sea for snorkelling, kayaking, diving and panga rides.
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Explore · Moderate
Walk among the lakes and waterfalls of Plitvice
In Croatia's first national park, 16 named lakes cascade one into the next over natural tufa barriers, from the twelve Upper Lakes down to four Lower Lakes in a deep…
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Travel · Gentle
See the Taj Mahal at sunrise
The white marble tomb that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan began in 1631 for Mumtaz Mahal took about 17 years and some 22,000 artisans to complete, and stands beside…
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Travel · Gentle
Drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park
Built in the late 1920s and early 1930s, this road crosses Glacier National Park for about 50 miles, climbing past glacier-carved peaks and alpine lakes to Logan Pass…
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Explore · Moderate
Track mountain gorillas in Uganda
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in south-west Uganda, is home to roughly half the world's mountain gorillas.
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