By Expedia Local Expert, on November 16, 2018

Thanksgiving weekend things to do

Here’s a recipe to make your Thanksgiving weekend fun-filled and stress-free. Add a pinch of spice to your Friendsgiving menu with international flavors gleaned from a fascinating food tour. Toss in some memorable moments while sightseeing with your relatives before dinner. Stir in a cup of gratitude and a dollop of your favorite football team. Then, top off your Thanksgiving weekend with exciting Black Friday vacation deals to plan your next getaway.

Diversify Your Thanksgiving Weekend Menu
 Thanksgiving Weekend Food Tour

Take a food tour or cooking class to bring some delicious diversity to your favorite Thanksgiving appetizers. Eat your way through New York’s Hell’s Kitchen or Chinatown. You may be inspired to add baba ganoush, empanadas, or candied crab to your Turkey Day menu. Spice it up by infusing Latin, Italian, or Cajun cuisine into your bites. If cooking is not your forte, learn some new recipes on your next vacation with a paella-making class in Barcelona. Or check out a Vietnamese cooking class in Hanoi to surprise your family next Thanksgiving.

Cooking class in Hanoi, Vietnam

Entertain Relatives Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving Weekend Indoor Skydiving

If your house is filled with relatives sleeping on the couch and giving advice on how best to baste the turkey, don’t stress about having too many cooks in the kitchen. Take your relatives out to see the sights with a CityPass in places like Chicago, New York, and Boston. Visit all your hometown’s biggest attractions while skipping long ticket lines of other people’s out-of-town relatives. If your family has already been to Space Center Houston or the New England Aquarium, you can always head to iFLY and take mom skydiving instead.

Friendsgiving Activities

Celebrating Friendsgiving at an escape room

Can’t head home for Thanksgiving weekend this year? Gather your buddies to celebrate Friendsgiving by cooking a meal or making it a potluck. Continue the spirit of Friendsgiving throughout Thanksgiving weekend with some activities to deepen friendships, make memories, and work up an appetite for all that leftover green bean casserole. From Des Moines, Iowa to Anchorage, Alaska, explore your town with Operation City Quest, a mobile scavenger hunt game. Snap silly group pictures and pool your brain power to answer trivia questions. Or avoid the chilly November weather by racing against the clock to solve puzzles in an escape room challenge with your best buds.

Thanksgiving Weekend Getaways

Thanksgiving Weekend at Colonial Williamsburg

Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a federal holiday in 1863. You can use your extra time off to give him thanks by visiting his memorial in Washington, D.C. Get away to other historic cities, like Boston, Plymouth, and colonial Williamsburg, where early Americans celebrated Thanksgiving as a fall harvest festival. If you just want to relax and let someone else do all the cooking and cleaning, slip away to somewhere warm with a deal on a Thanksgiving cruise to the Caribbean. Or test your luck with a cheap flight to Las Vegas.

Experience Gratitude

Thanksgiving Weekend Gratitude Tours

During Thanksgiving you may reflect on what you are grateful for, but you can also let gratitude inspire your next vacation. Go on a pilgrimage to Johannesburg or Atlanta to pay homage to peacemakers like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. Find life-changing moments while helping others. Donate to charity or contribute to the local community when you travel, such as joining a tour led by a homeless person in Vienna or taking tours that support wildlife conservation.

Thanksgiving Weekend Football Tickets

Thanksgiving Weekend Football line of scrimmage

If you’re a football fan, you’ll likely be tuning into the smorgasbord of football games this Thanksgiving weekend. The Chicago Bears will take on the Detroit Lions while the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints go head-to-head. And don’t forget the cornucopia of college football games that run throughout the Thanksgiving weekend. Make football a bigger part of your weekend by getting tickets to an NFL game, organizing your own touch football game, or visiting the Pro Football Hall of Fame Museum in Canton, Ohio.

Shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday From the Couch

Trip to Hawaii bought at the Expedia Black Friday Sale

When you’re getting a little sleepy from all the turkey’s tryptophan, it’s the perfect time to daydream about the next trip you want to plan. Take some Turkey Day inspiration and browse things to do in Istanbul while checking out Expedia’s stellar Black Friday Deals to book a flight, tour, or hotel. Snag a Cyber Monday sale to the warm shores of Hawaii. Or make the most of winter’s bounty with a thrilling mountain getaway.