100+ Experience Gift Ideas for Kids and Families

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We usually do experience gifts for our kids’ big holiday gift. And we also love doing experience birthday gifts! We sometimes do a trip, but often find smaller experience gift ideas for kids to create memories and opportunities for connection. Some of these are activities, while others are useful products that facilitate connective experiences together.

I compiled over 100 ideas for experience gifts for families, including toddlers, kids, and adults so there’s something for everyone. I didn’t include books here since those would take entire posts in themselves, but I have lots of other book lists you can check out for suggestions. I hope it helps you to give the gifts of time and connection! experience gift ideas for kids

Classes for Experience Gifts

family experience gifts

Outdoors Family Experience Days

  • Visit a lighthouse
  • Beach trip
  • Boat tour (this one year us looks so fun!)
  • Fruit picking
  • Camping Trip
    • My kids LOVE camping, so they’d be delighted with a planned camping trip, especially if it were to their beloved Yosemite. You could include some camping gear like a kids sleeping bag or the best kids hiking backpack if you don’t have any. Or you could just wrap up a s’mores kit with graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows. One of the best experience gifts for kids who love the outdoors.
  • National Parks Annual Pass
    • Why visit just one park when you could visit as many as you’d like? For $80, the annual pass allows you into as many NPS sites as you’d like in a year. You can also get a free pass if you’re a current member of the military or if you have a 4th grader at home (and for this year, it’s free for 5th graders, too!). One of my favorite family experience gifts!
  • Waterpark
  • Farm visit or stay
  • Visit a vineyard
  • Whale watching
  • Family picnic
  • Gold panning
  • Family nature walk (add this fun explorer kit for kids!)

Active Experience Gifts for Kids

  • Weekly of monthly family hike
    • Gifts certainly don’t need to be expensive to be valuable. The gift of time, especially together in nature, is incredible! Plan a weekly or monthly hike for the whole family. It would be so fun to give this along with kids hiking backpacks and other kids hiking gear.
  • Mini golf passes
  • Surrey ride
  • A bike, bike trailer
    • This is our very favorite bike for kids – the braking system is so much safer for young riders and their customer service is incredible! This 2-seat bike trailer has also been invaluable. Here’s all our favorite gear when biking with kids.
  • Trampoline
    • This was our kids’ gift last year and they’ve used it nonstop. Definitely one of my favorite experience gift ideas for families!
  • Basketball hoop
    • We gave the whole family a basketball hoop one one year and it was an enormous hit. The whole families uses it all the time!
  • Roller skates
  • Pogo stick

Adventurous Experience Gifts for Kids

Travel Experience Gifts

Fun Activities For Kids Experience Gifts

  • High tea at a fancy restaurant
    • We’ve done this a couple and it’s one of the most unique and special experience gift ideas for kids.
  • Staycation at home or a local hotel
    • Explore your own town and either stay in a fun hotel or Airbnb. Explore parks, go on hikes, and eat delicious food.
  • Visit to a planetarium
  • Restaurant gift certificate
  • IMAX movie
  • Passes to get ice cream
  • Tickets to paintball
  • Chocolate tasting
  • Monster truck rally
  • Trampoline jump passes
  • Escape room (or an at-home escape room!)
  • Factory tour
  • Train ride
  • Family coding dates with code.org or with this coding book for kids (which we really like)

At Home Experience Gifts

Many of these include a “thing” to help facilitate the experience and connection, but some don’t!

Tickets For Kids Experience Gifts

These are some of my favorite gifts to give and what one of our kids’ main gifts is this year!

  • Theater (or children’s theater)
  • Broadway play or musical
  • A concert or recital
  • Disney on Ice
  • Sporting event (basketball, baseball, soccer, etc.)
  • Ballet
  • Harlem Globetrotters
  • Dance shows
  • Symphony
  • Cirque du Soleil
  • Comedy show

Gift A Membership for A Family Experience Gift

There are hundreds of membership possibilities out there. Here are just a few!

FREE Experience Gift Ideas for Kids

I included some of these in other sections, but also wanted to compile them here to make it easy to find inexpensive experience gifts! It’s definitely possible to gift experience gifts on a budget. My kids LOVE special one-on-one time so any of these could also be used for an individual date with a child. It will definitely feel special and the gift of time is so precious!

  • Dance party
  • Playground date
  • Hike
  • Blanket fort day
  • Floor tea party
  • Board games
  • Building LEGOs or Magna Tiles
  • Baking together
  • A sewing date
  • Rock painting
  • Sleepover in Mom & Dad’s bed
  • Picnic
  • Bike/scooter ride
  • Splash pad
  • Nature walk
  • Cloud watching
  • Planting a garden
  • Jumping in leaves
  • Making a snow cave
  • Painting outside
  • Chalk art
  • Tide pooling
  • Rock collecting

Other Experience Gift Ideas for Kids

Finally, there are some other terrific ideas for experience gifts that kids of a variety of ages will love! They’re perfect for experience Christmas gifts or for any other holiday or birthday experience gifts.

Monthly Subscription Boxes For Kids Experience Gift Ideas – Gift An Experience Box

  • KiwiCo STEM box
    • There are a lot of subscription boxes out there, but KiwiCo is one of the very best as far as I’m concerned. The monthly STEM-based boxes are perfect for inspiring curiosity and fun in kids. They’re great for learning in a really enjoyable way, and won’t clutter up your home. There are boxes for every age from babies to adults! I especially love the original Kiwi Crate, the Tinker Crate for slightly older kids, and the Atlas Crate for families who love learning about other countries and cultures. I’d also love to try the Yummy Crate! Definitely one of my favorite experience gift ideas for kids!
  • BitsBox Coding Box
    • It’s really important to me that my kids are familiar with coding principles and are comfortable with the basics. BitsBox is such a great tool that helps kids learn to code in a fun and exciting way.
  • MEL Science
    • We love these amazing science subscription boxes.
  • Raddish Kids
    • We love this kids cooking club! I especially love the ones that feature recipes from different countries. Such a fun experience box!
  • Little Passports
    • We care a lot about global education over here, and there’s no better box than Little Passports to learn about the world.
  • OwlCrate Jr.
    • A literary subscription box aimed at kids 8-12 with a new book each month plus some bookish goodies. Great for any family that loves books. Use the code PASSPORT15 to save 15% on any subscription!

experience gifts for kids

Experience Gifts for Men and Gift Experiences for Couples: Husband Gift Guide

It can be tricky to think of gifts for men sometimes, so I really love these gift experiences for him. These would also make great birthday experiences for him or other gift experiences for her!

Experience Gifts Parents and Grandparents

  • Any of the ticket ideas above would be perfect!
  • The classes would work great, too!
  • Family photo album
  • Photo calendar
    • We’ve given this to our parents every single year for the past 7 or 8 years. I’ve used Mixbook for years and love them.
  • Flights
  • National or state parks pass
  • Food tour or DIY food crawl – one of my favorite experience gifts for dad that he can do with the whole family!
  • Digital photo frame of the grandkids
    • We did this a couple years ago but got them a Google Home with a screen to display our Google Photos
  • DoorDash gift card

Whether you give experience gift cards or print out a voucher for fun experience gifts for kids, I hope these are helpful in focusing on connection and time together without accumulating too much stuff!

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