9 Unique and Creative Date Ideas

Are you looking for a unique date that goes beyond the dinner-and-a-movie cliche? Read on for seven creative and fun date ideas designed to break the ice, free the spirit, and pave the way for another date even greater than the one before.

1. Buy a cheap disposable camera and take a random walking tour through your city. Take turns snapping pictures of the unusual and the beautiful (that includes you two!). Drop the film off at a one-hour developing shop and chat over cappuccino while you wait for the prints.

2. Create a snack picnic together. Stop by a deli or specialty foods shop and buy baby carrots, fruit, potato chips, tinned oysters, French bread, ambrosia salad, packets of raisins – anything that strikes your fancy. Dine together anywhere from a quiet park to the bench at a busy bus stop.

3. Find out if your local animal shelter is in need of volunteer dog walkers. Arrange for you and your date to spend a Saturday afternoon with a pooch each. Nothing breaks the ice – and brings the smiles – like joyous, uninhibited dogs.

4. Make a reservation at a posh restaurant – and take your date thrift store shopping for some special duds beforehand. You could pick a theme, such as retro-chic or senior prom, or just select a look that is as outrageous as possible.

5. Buy the cheapest take-out fast food dinner you can get your hands on, and complement it with a bottle of the most expensive champagne or wine you can afford. Dine in dichotomy on a secluded beach or riverside.

6. Go to a fortune teller and have your joint fortunes told. Dismiss or believe as you like – and then go for coffee to discuss, and invent your own predictions for the fortune teller.

7. Swap lists of five favourite things – for example, colour, scent, food, texture, and movie star. Set a time limit of one hour and a maximum expenditure ($10 is good) and buy five little gifts to correspond with your date's favourites. Meet for coffee or drinks to do the exchange, and find out how well you already know each other.

8. Be tourists for an afternoon or evening and visit a place of cultural interest. But no art galleries or natural history museums – call the tourist information center in your city and ask for the most unusual place they can think of. Be it a bug zoo, infectious diseases museum, or graffiti gallery, the conversation at your post-excursion coffee date will breeze along.

9. Determine a common interest you share with your date, such as music or painting, and head out to a scenic locale with a backpack full of supplies to spend an afternoon creating something together. No talent? No problem. Nobody ever said you had to be a genius to enjoy banging a cheap drum or sketching the face of that fascinating new person sitting beside you.

If you want to create a unique date that is both carefree and meaningful, pick your favourite from any of the ideas above – or, mix and match to create a date hybrid that best suits your personality and your sense of fun - or come up with something unique of your own. Don't forget – unusual, creative kinds of dates work just as well for that special evening with someone you've already spent half a lifetime with. Leave the tired dinner-and-a-movie expectations at the door and experience something completely new!