30 Things to Do Instead of Scrolling: Fall Edition

Fall is one of those seasons I always want to make the most of, and somehow it still goes by ridiculously fast.

One minute it’s the first cool morning and I’m excited to pull out sweaters again. The next, the leaves are gone, holiday decorations are everywhere, and I’m wondering how October disappeared so quickly.

And while I love my phone as much as anyone, I don’t particularly want to spend the best parts of fall watching other people enjoy theirs.

So I put together a list of 30 things to do when you have a little free time and find yourself automatically reaching for your phone. Think of it as a fall bucket list without the pressure to actually complete the bucket list.

Pick something that sounds good, ignore everything that doesn’t, and add your own ideas along the way.

30 Things to Do Instead of Scrolling This Fall

1. Go for a fall foliage walk. Find a neighborhood, park, or trail with changing trees and take your time. If you go back every week or two, you’ll get to watch the season change in real time.

2. Make hot apple cider. Add cinnamon sticks, orange slices, or cloves and let the whole kitchen smell like fall.

3. Visit a pumpkin patch. Pick out pumpkins, wander around, take the cheesy pictures, and bring home one that’s far too large for wherever you plan to put it.

4. Spend an afternoon at a bookstore. Browse without a list and choose something purely because you want to read it.

5. Bake an apple crisp. Or pumpkin bread, cinnamon rolls, muffins, cookies—anything that requires turning on the oven and makes your house smell amazing.

6. Take your morning coffee outside. Grab a sweater and enjoy ten or twenty minutes of crisp fall air before getting on with your day.

7. Go apple picking. Find a local orchard, bring someone you love, and inevitably come home with enough apples to feed a small village.

8. Make a fall playlist. Fill it with whatever sounds like fall to you: cozy acoustic songs, country, old favorites, mellow Sunday-morning music. There are no rules here.

9. Take a scenic drive. Choose the pretty road instead of the fast one. Stop somewhere for coffee or lunch and make an afternoon of it.

10. Have a fall movie marathon. Pull out the blankets, make popcorn, light a candle, and revisit the movies you somehow want to watch every October.

11. Visit a farmers’ market. Buy seasonal produce, fresh flowers, bread, local honey, or something you’ve never cooked before.

12. Make soup from scratch. Find a recipe you’ve been meaning to try and make enough for leftovers. Bonus points for really good bread on the side.

13. Read outside under a blanket. Find a sunny spot, bring something warm to drink, and read until the temperature convinces you to go back inside.

14. Decorate your front porch. Pumpkins, mums, a wreath, fall leaves—go subtle or fully embrace the fact that you now apparently own 14 decorative gourds.

15. Watch the sunset. Look up what time it sets, find somewhere with a good view, and go specifically to watch it.

16. Have a bonfire night. Invite friends over, make s’mores, bring out the blankets, and spend the evening around a fire instead of around a television.

17. Try a new fall recipe. Dig through all those recipes you’ve saved and choose one involving apples, squash, pumpkin, cinnamon, maple, or whatever else sounds good.

18. Make your house smell like fall. Simmer apple slices, orange peel, cinnamon sticks, and cloves on the stove, or finally light the fall candle you’ve been saving.

19. Go on a golden-hour walk. Head outside just before sunset when everything gets that ridiculously pretty fall glow.

20. Work on a puzzle. Clear off a table, put on music, pour something warm, and start one that’s difficult enough to leave out for a few days.

21. Send someone a handwritten card. Pick someone you haven’t talked to in a while and send them an actual piece of mail just because.

22. Have a cozy coffee-shop morning. Bring a book or journal, order the seasonal drink, and stay for a while instead of immediately taking it to go.

23. Go stargazing. Bring a thick blanket and a thermos of cider or hot chocolate, bundle up, and find somewhere dark enough to see the sky.

24. Take a fall bath. Run a hot bath, light an apple, cedar, cinnamon, or pumpkin candle, make ginger tea, and turn your bathroom into October for an hour.

25. Visit somewhere you’ve never been in your own town. Try a trail, café, antique store, farm stand, garden, or little place you’ve driven past a hundred times.

26. Have a chili night. Make a giant pot, invite a few people over, add cornbread, and keep hosting as uncomplicated as humanly possible.

27. Do something creative with your hands. Paint, knit, bake, arrange flowers, carve a pumpkin, make a wreath, or try the craft you bought supplies for six months ago.

28. Take fall photos. Go somewhere beautiful and photograph the changing leaves, your dog, your family, your coffee, yourself—whatever you want to remember about this particular fall.

29. Spend a lazy Sunday at home. Make breakfast, stay in comfortable clothes, read, cook something good, watch a movie, take a nap. You are allowed to have an entire day that produces absolutely nothing.

30. Do absolutely nothing for a little while. Sit on the porch. Lie on the couch. Look out the window. Let yourself be bored long enough to see what you actually feel like doing next.

Make Your Own Fall List

You definitely don’t need to do all 30.

This isn’t another challenge to complete or a list of ways you should be spending your free time. Save it for the next afternoon when you have an hour to yourself and can’t think of anything to do except open the same three apps you’ve already checked all day.

Choose the bookstore. Make the soup. Take the drive. Or keep scrolling because that’s genuinely how you want to spend the afternoon.

What matters to me is that little moment of choice.

It’s one of the ideas I explore in Reclaim: How to Stop Scrolling Through Your Life and Start Living It. Our phones are incredibly good at filling every empty pocket of time, and sometimes we forget how many other things we enjoy doing when there’s nothing immediately demanding our attention.

Fall gives us a particularly good excuse to remember.

There are apples to pick, books to read, soups to make, sunsets to watch, candles to burn, and approximately six weeks to consume an unreasonable amount of cinnamon.

Enjoy it while it’s here.