Winter can be an expensive season. Around the holidays we spend a lot of money on gifts which is nice, but not so fun for our wallets. Electricity prices go up and we have to pay them if we want to stay warm and cozy inside our home. During winter there are also more illnesses going around so more doctor appointments and medication to pay for. All of these things are so expensive!
So that’s why we need FREE activities to bring some joy to our lives without robbing our bank accounts. There aren’t many totally free things. For example when you want to have a drink, even when at home, you are still paying for that drink so let’s focus on very cheap activities here.
The activities on this list are mostly free of charge so I hope you find some you like and have a great time this winter!
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11 Free Activities Winter Vibes
1. Christmas Market
Having a stroll over a Christmas market without spending a dime can be quite fun! The holiday vibes you catch there are contagious, and not in a see the doctor straight away way. Okay, you can catch a cold doing this activity, I’m not gonna lie to you. You can make this activity as cheap or expensive as you want!
Go with friends or family members and have a wonderful time looking at every stall, enjoying some free entertainment and Christmas vibes. You can spend a little money on having a yummy bratwurst or some festive glühwein, you have to eat anyway right?
There are Christmas markets everywhere! You can do one every weekend and compare them on things like coziness, entertainment, and maybe even pricing then you know the cheapest one to go to next year ;).
2. Local Sight Seeing
If you don’t know every corner of your hometown, it can be a good time to go exploring! You can do this by bike or by walking around like a proper tourist. Make sure you dress warm enough so you can face the cold for some time. You never know what you will find in your neighborhood!
When I go around my neighborhood once in a while, I love seeing extraordinary things in an ordinary world. Like an extremely decorated house for Halloween or Christmas and seeing how this citizen went all the way with it! Watching fields from farmers grow and get harvested, houses popping out of the ground, and watching dogs walk by now and then. Love it!
Take a camera or smartphone along with you to make some unique photos and let the artist inside of you go wild. You can have some fun on this explorative trip looking for new things along the way and beautiful or special things to capture with your lens. Let your inner artist be free!
3. Ice Skating
You might think that ice skating always costs you money, as you have to pay for a ticket and rent of skates, but there is a free alternative! You do have to own your own ice skates though, for it to be free of charge.
Ice skating on a local river or lake that has been frozen during wintertime! However, it is important to know whether or not you are allowed to ice skate over there! Not all places allow this as it can be dangerous when the layer of ice is too thin. So check this before you go ice skating on a random river.
Dress yourself appropriately to stand the cold and don’t forget to put on mittens. Afterward, you can treat yourself to a nice cup of hot chocolate back at home!
4. Library Trip
My local library is an amazing place. The calm and zen atmosphere it has is lovely, and the collection of books is endless. If you are a bookworm this can be a great free trip! And even if you are not a book lover, most libraries have a good collection of music and films as well.
When you want to take books home, you probably will have to pay for a yearly subscription, which is often very low cost. But you can read books and magazines over there without paying anything! How nice is that?
Head over to your local library and spend some time scanning through their material and choosing a book or magazine to read. Check this with your library first, but it is probably okay if you bring your coffee or tea and sit there the whole afternoon enjoying yourself while reading books.
If you are a bookworm, I think you should get an annual subscription so you can enjoy reading your books in your own home as well. But if you don’t want to spend a single penny, then read over there. One of the best free activities there is, gaining knowledge or diving inside amazing stories.
5. Family Visits
If you have a big family, family visits can be like many different free activities. But you probably don’t like your whole family if you have a very big one and this list was supposed to inspire you to do fun free activities!
I hope you love some family members and like to spend some time with them during this cold winter period. You can enjoy spending time with close family members just by talking with them and seeing how they are doing in life.
Have a cup of tea and maybe dig up some old photo albums to have a good laugh or dive into the family history. Quality time with your family is so important.
6. Plan Your Year
Okay so this is what I call fun, but you might think otherwise. I love planning and organizing things, so getting inspired and planning my year is a fun activity for me!
Are there things you certainly want to do next year? Planning a holiday or moving out of your parents’ home, graduating, changing jobs, or getting married? Setting a timeframe for them or doing some research on how to do these things will help you a lot in advance and when the time is there.
It could be very fun to see all these fun activities in your future, that you have some things to look forward to this year. Maybe even create a vision board to motivate and inspire you even more.
So for me, writing everything down in a planner or making a vision board is a lot of fun, and I hope it can spark some joy for you as well!
7. At Home Movie Night
Let’s talk more about free activities to do inside the warmth of your home. As it gets darker more quickly in winter, we are less likely to get out of our homes, that’s why a stay-in movie night is a great idea!
Homebodies will spend most nights of the year at home, chilling in their sofas, unwinding after a busy day. But even outgoing people would love this activity in the cold winter months. Putting on a movie and just doing nothing is so relaxing!
You can enjoy a good movie by yourself or invite some friends over to watch something together. Yes, you can provide snacks but they can be budget-friendly. Your friends can also bring something along with them, so everyone takes care of something, and the costs and efforts are shared.
A movie night at home is so much cheaper than going to the movies. You only have to pay for your TV or streaming service and they offer you a lot of movies and series to watch.
8. Board Game Party
Unpack the board games and have a board game party! Invite your friends or family over who share the same love for board games as you do. Spending time playing games can bring you back to your careless childhood.
There are also board games you can play by yourself if you are really into it and no one wants to play with you. Wingspan for example has a version that you can play on your own. You can ask for a new board game every year for Christmas and create a whole collection if this is something you like doing.
A board game that I got last Christmas was Paleo and I love playing it! It’s the first cooperative board game that I have in my collection. You have to work together with the other players to achieve common goals and survive in prehistoric times, it’s comes with many different levels so it will take you a while to get bored of it (if that ever happens!).
If you don’t have a lot of games and want to try some new ones, do some research online to see if there is a board game club anywhere near you. Most of the time the first play session is free and if you love it you can spend a little money on a membership. Maybe you even make some new friends over there!
9. Spa Day
This is one of the free activities that is also a great self-care activity. You can organize a spa day or evening to pamper yourself until all the stress has left your body. You could obviously also pay for it to have a wellness arrangement but we are talking about free activities over here!
Create your own spa day at home by making the bathroom a zen temple for the day. Decorate your bathroom with candles and aroma sticks and wear a bathrobe the entire time. Include activities like putting on a facemask, plucking your eyebrows, having a nice hot bath, shaving your legs, and treating your skin with hydrating creme.
You can also have a mani-pedi, paint your nails and toenails, have a hair mask, and enjoy a rejuvenating cup of cucumber water or tea.
Spoil yourself by taking excellent care of your body and taking it slow.
10. Local Free Activities
Cities often organize free activities for their citizens. Search online for free activities in your neighborhood or cities that aren’t too far away.
Visiting the local library is free but you could also look for free museums or other events. I think you will have even more success in summer as they organize more things outdoors but give it a go as you never know what you might find.
Free museums, free concerts, free street artists, free children’s activities, free walking routes… there are tons of possibilities. Go check them out for your area.
You can google free things to do in my area and see what is out there for you. You might not like all of them, but sometimes, there might be something entertaining for you!
11. Hobby Time
Most people spend some time on their hobbies in their free time. These hobbies can be expensive like horseriding, skiing, and collecting something luxurious, but they can also be cheap or even better, free!
Let me give you a few examples of free or cheap hobbies you can do today. Online Yoga classes, drawing, coloring, free online courses to learn something new, playing a musical instrument you already have, listening to music on YouTube, cooking, reading books or articles online and offline, writing, riding your bike, jogging, scrapbooking, knitting, etc.
So many options for hobbies for you to try. Go ahead and give some of them a go. Let’s see what you like to do in your spare time for fun.
Conclusion: There are plenty of free activities during Wintertime
There are so many expensive activities these days but with life getting more and more expensive each day, we need some free activities that are fun as well.
Free activities aren’t always as entertaining as paid ones, but I think this list has some pretty great options. You won’t be bored trying these free activities during wintertime!
Invite your friends or family to join you with these no-spend activities and have some fun together. You don’t have to have a lot of money to have a good time. Quality time with each other can also bring a lot of joy.