Instead of buying gifts that will end up in the back of the closet collecting dust or hidden in a drawer, buy experiences instead. They can range in price from free to expensive.
Red Butte Gardens has concerts and movies in the summertime. Don’t forget to bring your favorite bottle of wine and a picnic dinner. Also, the Natural History Museum right next door has year-round exhibits.
Sign up for the Utah Film Center’s emails for a listing of free movies at the City Library, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, or the Utah Museum of Fine Art.
Skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing are favorite sports in our state. After all, we have the Greatest Snow on Earth and resorts less than an hour from downtown.
Explore your family history together at Salt Lake City’s Family History Library on 35 N West Temple.
Saddle up at a Dude Ranch. Rockin’ R Ranch, Boulder Mountain Guest Ranch, or Defa’s Dude Ranch. And there are many others.
If you’ve ever wished you could fly, try indoor skydiving with iFLY. http://iflyutah.com/
There are thousands of camping opportunities in our great state of Utah.
Try astro-tourism, also known as stargazing. Pick up a telescope and check out Utah’s website for the top five star gazing spots at https://utah.com/article/top-5-star-gazing-spots.
Buy tickets ahead of time or try your luck on standby for Sundance Film Festival movie tickets. The annual event runs from Thursday, January 19th through Sunday, January 29th. Or, just walk down Park City’s main street for a different kind of star gazing.
For a change of scenery and climate, fly to a major city out west such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego or Los Angeles for a day trip or a weekend getaway.
Learn something together: try a new language, decorate cupcakes, make soap, master the guitar, dabble in the art of French cooking or how to build a website.
Break out with a group of friends from an Escape Room, a physical adventure game where you are locked in a room and have to solve a series of puzzles to escape within a set time limit. Escape Room adventures are inspired by “Escape the Room” video games. Try your luck at these local Escape Rooms: Mystery Escape Room (Salt Lake City), Getout Games (Provo), Alcatraz Escape Games (Draper), Escape Room Park City (Park City), The Mystery Parlor (Layton), Escapes in Time (Orem), Great Room Escape (Layton), and The Escape Key (Salt Lake City).
The sky’s the limit! Let your imagination and creativity run wild. Get out there and experience the world and this wonderful state we live in.
