At the end of your life, when you reflect on what mattered most, what will you remember? Not the hours at desks, not the social media likes, not the things you bought. You'll remember the people you loved, the places you explored, the moments you felt truly alive. The best things to do in life aren't mysteries—research, psychology, and the wisdom of those in their final years reveal them clearly. The real question is: are you actually doing them? And are you doing them with people who make them memorable? Wakao exists to help you answer "yes" to both questions.
The 15 Best Things to Do in Life (Research-Backed)
Based on extensive research from hospice workers, psychologists, and happiness studies, here are the experiences that create a life well-lived—and how Wakao helps you actually do them:
Build Deep, Lasting Friendships
Why it matters: The longest-running study on happiness (Harvard's 80+ year study) found that close relationships are THE single biggest predictor of life satisfaction and longevity. Not wealth, not fame, not achievement—relationships.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
The Problem: Making deep friends as adults is notoriously hard. Where do you even meet people? How do you go from acquaintance to genuine friend?
The Wakao Solution:
- Shared activities create natural friendship foundation: Meeting through hiking or cooking gives you instant common ground
- Activity Chats facilitate gradual connection: Chat before meeting reduces awkwardness, chat after maintains connection
- Hubs provide repeated exposure: See same people weekly in your hub—research shows this builds deep bonds
- Personal Messaging deepens specific friendships: After meeting in groups, connect 1-on-1 for deeper conversations
- Activity creation together: Planning activities with friends strengthens bonds through collaboration
"I moved to Austin knowing nobody at 32. Through Wakao's hiking hub, I've built a friend group of 8 people I genuinely love. We hike weekly, fika weekly, and text daily. These are real, deep friendships—not just activity buddies. It took 4 months of consistent participation, but now I have what I was missing for years: a chosen family." — Rebecca, Austin
Travel & Explore the World
Why it matters: Travel expands perspective, creates transformative memories, and reminds us how vast and varied human experience is. People consistently rank travel experiences as their most cherished memories.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Find travel companions: Global Chat connects you with people planning same destinations
- Local activities anywhere: Discovery shows activities wherever you travel—instant local experiences
- Travel hubs: Join destination-specific hubs before trips to meet locals and travelers
- Trip planning activities: Organize group trips with full coordination through Activity modules
- Solo travel made social: Join activities at your destination—never eat alone again
Learn New Skills & Grow Continuously
Why it matters: Growth creates meaning. Learning keeps minds sharp, provides purpose, and the achievement of mastering new skills brings deep satisfaction.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Find learning partners: Join language exchange, cooking class, photography workshop activities
- Skill-specific hubs: "Photography Beginners" or "Salsa Dancing Learners" provide supportive communities
- Teach what you know: Create activities sharing your skills—teaching deepens your own mastery
- Progress tracking: Activity Checklists help groups track collective learning goals
Spend Time in Nature Regularly
Why it matters: Nature exposure reduces stress, improves mental health, and provides perspective. Regular nature time correlates strongly with life satisfaction.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Outdoor activity discovery: Find hiking, camping, beach, park activities near you
- Nature-focused hubs: Join communities that make outdoor time regular, not occasional
- Accountability through groups: Commit to "Sunday Morning Hikers"—you'll actually go
- All-weather participation: Activity Details helps prepare for any conditions
Create & Express Yourself
Why it matters: Creative expression provides flow states, emotional processing, and tangible evidence of your unique perspective and existence.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Creative community support: Join "Urban Sketchers" or "Writing Circle" hubs
- Collaborative creation: Create group art projects, photography walks, writing workshops
- Sharing and feedback: Photo Gallery and Comment Section provide supportive critique
- Inspiration from community: Hub chats full of ideas, techniques, and encouragement
Help Others & Contribute to Community
Why it matters: Contributing to something larger than yourself creates purpose and meaning. Helping others releases endorphins and builds self-worth.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Find volunteer opportunities: Discovery shows community service activities
- Organize giving-back activities: Create beach cleanups, food drives, community projects
- Service-oriented hubs: Join communities dedicated to specific causes
- Coordinate impact: Activity modules help organize large volunteer efforts
Have Deep Conversations
Why it matters: Superficial small talk leaves us feeling empty. Deep conversations about ideas, values, dreams, and fears create genuine connection and help us understand ourselves.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- "Deep Conversation" activities: Structured dialogue sessions with meaningful prompts
- Philosophy discussion hubs: Communities exploring life's big questions
- 1-on-1 personal messaging: Build depth with specific people after group meetings
- Book clubs with substance: Literature that sparks meaningful discussion
Experience Different Cultures
Why it matters: Cultural experiences expand empathy, challenge assumptions, and enrich your worldview with diverse perspectives.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Cultural exchange hubs: Connect with people from cultures worldwide in Global Chat
- Cultural celebration activities: Join Diwali, Lunar New Year, Oktoberfest events in your city
- Language exchange: Learn culture through language with native speakers
- Ethnic dining groups: Explore world cuisines with cultural guides
Challenge Yourself Physically
Why it matters: Physical challenges prove to yourself that you're capable of more than you think. The confidence and pride from pushing limits transfers to all life areas.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Training groups: Find marathon training, mountain climbing, triathlon prep groups
- Accountability partners: Fitness hubs provide the support to actually follow through
- Progressive challenges: Start with beginner activities, build to advanced with community support
- Celebrate together: Cross finish lines with friends who trained with you
Fall in Love (Romantic or Platonic)
Why it matters: Love—romantic partnership, deep friendship, chosen family—provides life's richest experiences and greatest source of happiness and meaning.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Natural meeting through shared interests: Unlike dating apps, you meet doing things you both actually enjoy
- Observe character in action: See how potential partners treat others in group settings
- Low-pressure connection: Group activities before 1-on-1 dates reduce pressure
- Built-in date ideas: Your shared activities become your relationship foundation
- Friend-of-friend networks: Hub communities often lead to romantic introductions
Make a Positive Impact on Others' Lives
Why it matters: Legacy isn't about monuments—it's about the positive influence you have on individual people's lives.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Mentor through activities: Host beginner workshops in your skill areas
- Create inclusive activities: Welcome newcomers warmly to activities and hubs
- Build communities: Start hubs that give lonely people a home
- Introduce connectors: Actively introduce hub members who'd get along
Laugh—A Lot
Why it matters: Laughter releases endorphins, strengthens immune system, and creates bonding. Shared laughter is one of the fastest friendship accelerators.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Comedy show outings: Find groups attending stand-up shows
- Game night activities: Board games and party games that create hilarious moments
- Casual social activities: Relaxed gatherings where laughter flows naturally
- Hub banter: Friendly, funny communities where humor builds bonds
Create Traditions & Rituals
Why it matters: Traditions create continuity, belonging, and anticipated joy. They anchor you through life's chaos and create the "remember when" stories.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Recurring activities: "First Friday Game Night" becomes your tradition
- Annual events: Create yearly camping trips, holiday parties, celebration activities
- Hub traditions: Communities develop their own rituals and inside jokes
- Photo galleries as memory: Look back on years of tradition photos
Face and Overcome Fears
Why it matters: Conquering fears expands your life. Each fear faced makes you braver and opens experiences previously closed to you.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Group courage: Easier to try scary things with supportive group (public speaking, skydiving, cold plunging)
- Beginner-friendly activities: Find "First Time Welcome" activities that reduce intimidation
- Progressive challenge activities: Start small, build to bigger challenges with same supportive community
- Celebration in Activity Chat: Share fear-conquering victories with people who understand
Be Fully Present in Moments
Why it matters: Life is experienced in moments. Being present—not distracted by phones or worries—is how you actually LIVE your life rather than just passing through it.
🎯 How Wakao Helps You Do This:
- Mindfulness activities: Join meditation groups, mindful walking, yoga sessions
- Phone-free activities: Some activities specify "present mode"—no phones during
- Meaningful activities: Doing things you actually care about makes presence easier
- Real connections demand presence: Engaging conversations pull you into the moment
The Common Thread: These Things Are Better Together
Notice the pattern? Almost every "best thing to do in life" involves or is enhanced by other people:
🤝 Friendships are #1
The foundation. Everything else is better with deep friendships.
✈️ Travel with companions
Solo travel is growth; travel with friends is joy and shared adventure.
📚 Learn with others
Peer learning accelerates growth and makes challenges fun.
🌲 Nature in groups
Hiking alone is nice; hiking with friends is memorable.
🎨 Create in community
Creative communities provide inspiration, feedback, and motivation.
💪 Challenge with accountability
Support groups make difficult challenges achievable.
🎯 The Meta-Insight: The best thing to do in life might simply be: Do meaningful things with people you care about. Wakao is built entirely around making this happen.
From Bucket List to Reality: Taking Action
The Wakao Life Experience System
Most people have bucket lists that never get checked. Here's how to actually do the best things in life:
Step 1: Define What Matters to You
Review the 15 best things above. Which resonate most? Start there. Don't try to do everything—focus on 3-5 that call to you.
Step 2: Find Your People on Wakao
Search Discovery for activities related to your chosen experiences. Join hubs where people pursue these same things. Connect in Global Chat with people worldwide who share your values.
Step 3: Show Up Consistently
Join activities. Attend regularly. The magic isn't in one-off experiences—it's in showing up week after week until acquaintances become friends.
Step 4: Deepen Select Relationships
From your activity and hub connections, identify 5-10 people you truly click with. Use personal messaging to build 1-on-1 friendships. Plan activities together.
Step 5: Become a Creator
Start organizing your own activities. Create the experiences you want to have. Build the community you wish existed. Others are waiting for someone to organize—be that person.
Step 6: Reflect and Iterate
After 3 months, assess: Are you making memories that will matter? Building friendships that enrich life? If not, adjust your approach—try different activities, different hubs, different engagement styles.
The Ultimate Life Question: What Are You Waiting For?
You know what the best things to do in life are. Everyone knows. Build friendships, explore the world, grow continuously, experience nature, create, help others, have deep conversations, challenge yourself.
The question isn't "what?"—it's "when and with whom?"
The tragedy is that most people die with:
- ❌ Trips never taken
- ❌ Skills never learned
- ❌ Friendships never deepened
- ❌ Conversations never had
- ❌ Challenges never attempted
- ❌ Experiences never shared
Not because they didn't want these things. Not because they didn't have time. But because:
- They didn't know where to start
- They didn't have people to do it with
- They waited for "someday" that never came
- They prioritized urgent over important
Wakao removes these excuses. You now know where to start (Discovery tab). You can find people to do it with (Hubs, Activity Chats, Global Chat). "Someday" can be this weekend (join an activity today). Making it important becomes easier when community expects you.
Your Life, Starting Now
This Week's Challenge: Do One Best Thing
Pick ONE of the 15 best things to do in life. Then:
- Today: Download Wakao, join 2 hubs related to that thing
- Tomorrow: Find an activity in Discovery related to it happening this week
- Next 3 days: Engage in Activity Chat, introduce yourself, build excitement
- This weekend: Attend the activity, be present, connect authentically
- Sunday night: Reflect—did you just do one of the best things in life? Did you do it with others? How did it feel?
Now Project Forward:
If you do one meaningful activity with new people every week for a year:
- 52 meaningful experiences
- 200+ new people met
- 10-20 genuine friendships built
- 2-5 activity communities you're core member of
- Countless memories created
- A life that feels lived, not just passed through
This isn't fantasy. This is what active Wakao users experience. The infrastructure exists. The people are there. The only variable is your participation.
Conclusion: Life Is Happening Now
The best things to do in life aren't secrets. They're simple, accessible, and available to everyone:
Build friendships. Explore. Learn. Create. Help others. Experience nature. Challenge yourself. Love deeply. Be present.
What stops us isn't lack of knowledge or even lack of time—it's lack of infrastructure for connection. How do you meet people to travel with? Where do you find learning partners? Who wants to challenge themselves alongside you?
Wakao is that infrastructure. It's the connective tissue that turns isolated individuals into communities pursuing life's best experiences together.
Your life is finite. Your potential friendships, experiences, growth, and joy are not. The only question is: will you start?
Stop Planning. Start Living.
Download Wakao today and turn your bucket list into lived experiences. Find the people who'll make those experiences unforgettable. Life's too short for "someday."
Start Your Best Life TodayFree forever • Real experiences • Real people • Real life