30 long distance date ideas that don't feel like a chore

The trap of long distance date nights is that “let’s have a virtual date” starts feeling like a calendar invite for a meeting. By the third Tuesday in a row of “FaceTime dinner at 8 PM,” one of you is tired and the other is performing fun. The ritual that’s supposed to bring you together becomes another small obligation.

Most lists of long distance date ideas miss this. They tell you to “have a Netflix Party!” without addressing why it doesn’t quite work. The problem isn’t the platform; it’s the format. A good long distance date is one that doesn’t feel like screen time you owe your partner.

Below are thirty ideas, grouped by what kind of effort they take. Pick three or four to keep in rotation. Don’t try to do all of them. Pick the ones that match what you’d actually do if you lived together — and if “watch a movie on the couch” is what you’d do together, that’s what your virtual date should be too.

Both of you at home, screens involved

The default mode of long distance dating. The trick is doing the things you’d actually do, not the things people perform for Instagram.

1. Watch the same movie at the same time

Pick a movie. Hit play within thirty seconds of each other. FaceTime audio in a separate window — not video. The silence is the point. You’re each in your own room, knowing the other is watching the same scene. Don’t try to talk over the dialogue.

The right service matters less than you’d think. Mubi (one curated film a day, ~$15/month) is our pick. Netflix Party / Teleparty also works.

2. Cook the same recipe

Same ingredients, same timing, your separate kitchens. Phone propped against a cup with audio on. You don’t have to be on video the whole time — the act of doing the same thing in parallel does the work. Milk Street has a good “cooking-for-one” archive. Nigel Slater’s Real Fast Food is the cookbook we recommend most often for couples doing this.

3. Play one specific online game

Forget “couples games” apps. Play a real game, well-made, that takes brain. Codenames Online for word lovers. Boardgame Arena (~$3/month for premium) for 7 Wonders Duel or Hanabi. Chess.com if either of you has any interest. Play one game, talk briefly afterwards, end the call.

4. Read the same book, on a schedule

Buy two copies. Mail one ahead. Read on a fixed schedule — one chapter a week, every Sunday evening. Discuss what you read on your weekly call. Slower than book club; more intimate.

Books that have worked for couples we know: Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, Helen Garner’s diaries. Don’t pick “self-help for couples.” Pick anything that lets two adults have a real conversation.

5. Read aloud to each other

The thing people don’t expect: reading out loud is one of the most intimate things you can do over a phone. Pick a short story. Take turns reading paragraphs. It feels theatrical at first; by the second time, it’s something you’ll keep doing.

We’ve seen this work especially well with poetry. Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, Ross Gay. Read one poem out loud each. Don’t analyze it.

6. Watch a sunrise or sunset together

If your time difference allows, schedule a single moment: their sunset, your sunrise, or vice versa. FaceTime audio. Both of you outside or by a window. Don’t try to fill the silence.

This is the rare LDR ritual that actually uses the time gap as a feature instead of a bug. The asymmetry — one of you starting the day, the other ending it — becomes the whole point.

When one of you is out

Most “date ideas” lists assume both of you are at home. The most underrated category is when one of you is doing something and brings the other along.

7. The walk-and-talk

Earbuds in, FaceTime audio, both of you walking at the same time. You’re each somewhere outside in your own city. The conversation goes wherever, but the moving doesn’t. Better than sitting on a screen. The most underrated call format we know.

8. Bring them grocery shopping

You’re at the supermarket. Hit FaceTime audio. Ask their opinion on dinner choices. Show them weird produce. It’s a five-minute call, fully banal, and weirdly sustaining.

9. The errand-day debrief

You’re running Saturday errands. Three short calls during the day, one at each errand: at the coffee shop, at the dry cleaner’s, on the way home. Cumulatively, you’ve spent 15 minutes on the phone but they were with you for the day.

10. Take them to a museum

You’re at a museum, gallery, bookstore. FaceTime them, walk the room, show them what you’re looking at. Better than sending photos afterwards. They get a tour from someone who knows what they like.

Asynchronous — leaving each other something

These don’t require both of you to be awake. Useful when overlap is small.

11. The care package open on call

You mail them a small box. Don’t tell them what’s in it. When they’re ready, they call you and open it. The reaction-on-call is the whole gift.

Cost is whatever you put in the box. We’ve seen these range from $20 (snacks + a note) to $200 (a real curated assortment). The hit-rate of joy-per-dollar is the highest in this list.

12. Build a shared mood board

Pinterest, Are.na, or a shared Notion page. Pick a project — your next trip, your future apartment, an aesthetic for the relationship — and add to it asynchronously. Not a daily ritual; an ongoing weeks-long collaborative thing.

13. Write a poem, or a story, together

Shared Google Doc. They write a paragraph. You write the next. No editing each other’s lines. Over a month you have a small thing only you two share.

14. Curated playlist that grows

A Spotify playlist titled something silly. Whenever you hear a song that makes you think of them, add it. They do the same. Don’t comment. Once a month, listen through the new additions on a call.

15. Send a postcard from where you are

Not a fridge magnet. A real postcard — bought at a museum, a bookstore, a tourist spot — with handwriting on it. TouchNote does this from your phone for ~$3 if you can’t be bothered to find a postcard. Real postcards are better.

Coordinated but not on screen together

Things that are date-like even though no video is involved.

16. The “same-day-everything” date

You both wake up at the same hour (gap-adjusted). Same breakfast. Same outfit, roughly. Same coffee shop kind. Photograph each step. Compare at the end of the day.

It’s silly. It works. The synchronization itself is the date.

17. The shared Spotify listening hour

Spotify lets you do collaborative listening. Pick an hour. Both put on the same playlist (a new album, a curated thing). Sit with it. No commentary. Compare reactions in a 15-minute call afterwards.

18. The yoga or workout class

Same class on YouTube, same time. Yoga With Adriene is the universal recommendation here. Caroline Girvan, Heather Robertson for harder workouts. Don’t be on video; just sweat at the same time.

19. The drawing-each-other date

Both of you sketch a portrait of the other. Time-limited (30 minutes). Send each other the result at the end. Most of you will be terrible. That’s the point.

20. The “what should we do tonight” walk

You both take a 30-minute walk, separately. During the walk, voice-message each other half a dozen times — what you’re seeing, where you’re going, what you’d do for dinner if you were together. Compile into a single audio thread.

Splurge / occasional

Less frequent than weekly. Worth saving for the months when the daily rituals are tired.

21. A virtual concert with paid tickets

Bandcamp, Stationhead, or specific artist livestreams. Pick a real concert with real tickets. Both buy them. Watch at the same time.

The reason “watch a music video together” doesn’t quite work is that there’s no occasion. A ticketed concert has occasion built in.

22. A class taken together over weeks

Skillshare or Domestika has paired classes (cooking, drawing, photography). Pick one. Take it together over six weeks. End with each of you having made something.

23. A virtual escape room

These have improved a lot. The Escape Game and Puzzle Break both have remote couples versions. ~$30-50 for an hour. Genuinely fun, and the puzzle-solving forces collaboration in a way conversation doesn’t.

24. A travel-planning session that actually goes somewhere

Not “we should go to Italy someday.” Pick a specific weekend in the next 6 months. Both spend 90 minutes planning the actual trip. By the end of the call, hotels are booked or itinerary drafts exist.

25. A fancy dinner, takeout

Both order from somewhere good in your respective cities. Set the table. Light a candle. Dress up if you want. Eat together on FaceTime. The performance of formality matters here — the date works because you treated it like one.

The slow-burning ones

Worth mentioning even though they’re not single nights.

26. The shared subscription experiment

For three months: a wine club, a book of the month, a snack subscription. Both of you subscribe. Discuss each delivery on a call. Dropped after three months if neither of you cares.

27. The language exchange

Both of you start learning the same new language on the same app. Compare progress weekly. Drops, Duolingo, Pimsleur for harder languages. By month three you can have a one-minute conversation in the new language. By month six it’s a private language between you.

28. The ongoing creative project

Pick something with a clear deliverable: a zine, a podcast (just for the two of you), a small website, a song you’ll co-write. Work on it in 30-minute chunks weekly. Finish in six months. Have a small thing that exists because you’re together.

29. The relationship documentary

One of you films small moments — the room you’re in, what you ate, the walk you took — across a year. Edit a 5-minute video at the end. It’s the most personal, most worth-it gift you can give someone you’ve been long-distance with.

30. Plan the move

If a permanent move is on the horizon: dedicate one date a month to actually planning it. Visa logistics, apartment hunting, the timing. Unromantic on paper. The most romantic thing in this list, in practice.

Things to skip

We’d avoid:

• Generic Zoom dinners with no structure — they’re meetings.
• “Couples truth-or-dare” apps — the questions are usually shallow.
• Anything with “virtual” in the marketing copy. Virtual date nights have become a category that smells like content marketing. Don’t do the things on those lists; do the things you’d do anyway.

The pattern with date ideas: the best ones aren’t about being long distance. They’re things you’d want to do regardless, that happen to translate well across screens. The worst ones are designed for the LDR-content market and feel performed.

Pick the ones that match how you’d spend an evening together if you lived in the same place. The whole point of a date — long distance or not — is to feel like you’re in the same room for an hour or two.