25 Team Away Day Ideas That Bring Your Team Closer

I’ve been delivering team away day workshops for over ten years, for teams at UNICEF UK, NHS teams, and plenty of companies you won’t have heard of.

So I’ve seen what a good away day does for a team. I’ve also seen the other kind, the day that cost a fortune, felt awkward, and was forgotten by Friday.

This blog gives you 25 team away day ideas that work, grouped by type so you can build a day around what your team needs. There’s a free itinerary planner further down to help you put the day together. Take what’s relevant for you.

What is a Team Away Day?

A team away day is a day where your team steps away from the usual routine and does something together, usually somewhere that isn’t the office. That might be a workshop, a long walk, a cooking challenge, or a mix of a few things across the day.

Some organisations call it a company away day, a staff away day, or an offsite. Same thing. The point is the same wherever the name lands. People get time to connect as human beings rather than as job titles, and the team comes back a bit closer than it left.

Planning a wellness day at the office instead? I’ve written about 25 wellness day ideas separately.

Why Run a Team Away Day?

When I ask teams at the start of a session how often they talk to each other about anything that isn’t work, there’s usually a pause. And then some laughter, because everyone knows the answer. Most teams spend all day side by side and barely know each other.

A good away day changes that. People talk, they solve things together, they see a colleague be brilliant at something nobody knew about. The benefits you’ll read about everywhere are real ones. Better communication, higher morale, stronger relationships, fresh thinking, and a culture people want to stay in.

What I’d add from the room is this. The away days that work are the ones where people feel comfortable. Nobody bonds while they’re dreading a forced icebreaker. Pick activities your actual team will enjoy, not the ones that look good on a slide, and give the day some breathing space rather than packing every minute.

Wellbeing Team Away Day Ideas

These first five are the ideas closest to my heart, because this is the work I do every week. They’re also the ideas that keep paying off long after the day itself, because people take the tools home with them.

1. Deliver a Tailored Wellbeing Workshop

This one is what I do, so of course it’s first on the list. But it’s first because it works.

Last year UNICEF UK brought me in for their team away day. The team cared deeply about their work, and that was exactly the problem, because caring that much about a big mission can wear people down. We ran a session called Turning Stress Down and Gratitude Up. We started with a stress meter so everyone could see where they were, we got honest about what was actually causing the stress, and we finished with a gratitude exercise in small groups.

One of the team said afterwards, “I love that the session focused on stress and gratitude. I feel like when you’re truly grateful for the things you have in your life, your stress levels go down, and sometimes it’s a privilege to be stressed about certain things.”

Two weeks later, a senior leader emailed to say the team was still talking about the workshop, particularly how small actions can create meaningful change. That’s what a good away day session does, it outlasts the day. You can read the full story in my blog on the UNICEF team workshop.

A tailored wellbeing workshop can cover coping with stress, beating burnout, building healthy habits, or whatever your team is carrying at the moment. And if you want someone to shape the session around your team and run it on the day, that’s exactly what I do as a team away day facilitator.

2. On-Site Chair Massage

We bring qualified massage therapists to your venue, set up in a quiet corner, and give everyone 15 to 20 minutes in the chair across the day.

It sounds like a small thing. It isn’t. People carry a surprising amount of tension in their neck and shoulders, and you can see the difference in someone’s face when they get up from the chair. It also works brilliantly alongside the other ideas on this list, because it runs in the background while the rest of the day carries on.

Have a look at our on-site massage page if you’d like to add it to your day.

3. A Guided Breathing Session

A guided breathing session is the simplest thing on this list and one of the most useful. Slowing your breathing is the quickest way I know to calm a busy mind, it costs nothing, and it works in the middle of a stressful Tuesday just as well as it works on an away day. When I've run these in workshops, it's the part people remember. A session with someone who knows what they're doing gives your team a tool they'll keep using for years, at their desk, on the commute, anywhere they need it.

4. Group Yoga

A group yoga session gets everyone moving gently, stretches out the damage from all that sitting, and settles the room. You don’t need a bendy team, a good instructor will meet everyone where they are, and the beginners falling over tends to produce more laughter and bonding than most team-building games manage.

5. A Gratitude Exercise

I finish a lot of my sessions with gratitude, and it’s the exercise people mention when they email me weeks later. In small groups, everyone shares something they appreciate at work and something they appreciate outside it. Simple as that sounds, the room changes. People hear colleagues say things out loud that never get said at a desk.

If you run one part of your away day yourselves, make it this one. It costs nothing and it sends everyone home a little lighter.

Active and Outdoor Team Away Day Ideas

Fresh air does half the team building for you. These work best in spring and summer, but a well-prepared team in coats can enjoy most of them all year round.

6. A Scavenger Hunt

Split into small teams, hand out a list of clues and challenges, and let people loose on a town, a park or a city centre. It gets people problem-solving with colleagues they don’t normally work with, and the competitive ones on your team will reveal themselves within minutes.

7. A Countryside Walk

The most underrated idea on this list. Pick a route, sort out lifts and a pub or café at the end, and walk. Something about walking side by side makes conversation easier than sitting face to face ever does. It’s also the cheapest away day you’ll ever run, and often the one people ask to repeat.

8. A Sports Day

Egg and spoon, sack race, rounders, tug of war. A grown-up sports day is silly on purpose, and that’s why it works. Nobody can stay guarded while balancing an egg on a spoon. Mix the teams so people compete alongside colleagues they rarely see.

9. Go-Karting

A reliable crowd-pleaser. Everyone races, everyone talks about it for weeks, and the quietest person in the office winning the podium is a story that never gets old. Just remember it suits some teams better than others, so check appetite before you book.

10. An Obstacle Course or High Ropes

Outdoor activity centres run team challenges, obstacle courses and high-ropes sessions built exactly for groups like yours. People encourage each other through the wobbly bits, and that encouragement carries back into the office. Make participation a choice though. Cheering from the ground counts too.

Creative Team Away Day Ideas

Creative sessions relax people in a different way to physical ones, and they suit the team members who’d rather not spend the day running around a field.

11. A Painting or Pottery Workshop

An artist walks the group through a piece step by step, and everyone leaves with something they made. Nobody needs to be good at it. The wonky pots are the ones that end up on desks as souvenirs, and making something with your hands is a rare break from screens.

12. An Improv or Acting Workshop

Improv sounds terrifying and turns out to be the funniest hour of the day. A good facilitator starts small and safe, and before long the whole room is playing. It builds listening, quick thinking and trust, which is team building without anyone calling it that.

13. A Drumming Workshop

Everyone gets a drum, and within half an hour a room of self-conscious colleagues becomes one very loud rhythm section. Drumming workshops are a favourite for big groups because nobody can hide, and nobody wants to. Energising is an overused word, but this raises the energy in a room faster than anything else I’ve seen.

14. A Public Speaking and Communication Workshop

Useful and enjoyable at the same time. A practical session on speaking with confidence gives people a skill they’ll use in every meeting, presentation and interview for the rest of their careers. Keep it hands-on with short, low-pressure exercises rather than lectures, and people who dreaded it at 9am are volunteering to go again by 3pm.

Food and Drink Team Away Day Ideas

Food brings people together. It always has. These ideas turn that into the main event rather than the break between events.

15. A Cooking Class

A chef teaches the group a menu, everyone cooks in pairs or small teams, and then you all sit down and eat what you made. Cooking together involves negotiating, sharing jobs and rescuing each other’s mistakes, which is a normal workday in disguise, except at the end you get dinner.

16. A Bake-Off Challenge

Teams bake against the clock, someone senior judges with mock seriousness, and the kitchen chaos does the bonding for you. You’ll learn who plans, who panics and who gets on with the icing without any fuss. All useful intelligence, and the losers still get cake.

17. Cocktail or Mocktail Making

A mixologist shows the group how to build a few drinks, everyone has a go, and the results are drinkable roughly half the time. Include mocktails as a first-class option rather than an afterthought so the whole team can join in properly.

18. Chocolate Making

Hard to be stressed while tempering chocolate. A chocolatier-led session is hands-on, indulgent and different enough that even away day veterans won’t have done it before. Everyone takes a box of their own creations home, which makes it the only idea on this list with a built-in gift for the family.

19. A Proper Long Lunch

Sometimes the best team activity is a table, good food and no agenda. If your team is stretched and tired, a generous unhurried lunch where nobody talks about deadlines can do more good than any organised activity. Don’t underestimate it, and don’t schedule anything straight after.

Games and Puzzle Team Away Day Ideas

Puzzles and games get people collaborating fast, because a ticking clock removes any awkwardness about talking to each other.

20. An Escape Room

Lock your team in a themed room with sixty minutes of puzzles and watch the roles appear. A leader emerges, a details person spots the hidden key, someone insists on pressing everything. You learn more about how your colleagues work together in an hour than you would in a month at the office, and the debrief over coffee afterwards is half the value.

21. A Murder Mystery

An actor-led whodunnit over lunch or dinner, with colleagues as suspects and detectives. It’s theatrical, slightly ridiculous and a gift for teams with a few big personalities. People who’ve worked together for years discover entirely new sides of each other, usually involving a terrible accent.

22. A Team Quiz

Cheap, easy and endlessly customisable. Mix general knowledge with rounds about your own organisation, baby photos of the leadership team, guess the desk from the mess, that kind of thing. Mixed teams across departments work best, and the trophy should be small and absurd.

23. Social Games Venues

Venues built around darts, mini golf, bowling, shuffleboard or table tennis have popped up in most UK cities, and they’re made for groups. The format does the work, short games, small teams, plenty of rotating, so nobody is stuck anywhere and everyone talks to everyone by the end.

Team Away Day Ideas That Give Something Back

Doing something useful together beats most team-building exercises. The attention goes on the cause instead of on the team, and the bonding happens on its own.

24. A Volunteering Day

Clear a community garden, help at a food bank, plant trees, support a local charity for the day. Pick a cause that means something to your people and let them get their hands dirty for it. Teams come back from these days with a shared story they’re proud of, and the community gets something real out of your away day budget. If you’re London-based, there’s a searchable list of corporate volunteering opportunities.

25. A Charity Challenge

Build bikes or hampers for a local cause, or set a team fundraising challenge with a target to hit by the end of the day. There’s a deadline, a bit of friendly competition and a real outcome at the end of it. I deliver workshops like this as part of social value programmes for organisations with public-sector contracts, and I’ve watched what it does for the teams delivering them, not just the communities receiving them.

Team Away Day Ideas in London

Planning your day in the capital? I’ve put together a separate guide to team away day ideas in London, with specific venues and experiences across the city.

And if the venue is the bit you’re stuck on, there’s a guide to cost-efficient team away day venues in London too.

Team Away Day FAQs

How long should a team away day be?

A full day gives you room for two or three activities with proper breaks, and it’s what I’d recommend for most teams. If a full day is too big an ask, a half day with one great activity beats a rushed full day every time. Whatever you choose, leave gaps. The chats in between the activities are where a lot of the connecting happens.

How much does a team away day cost?

It varies more than any other question on this page. The big factors are group size, venue hire, whether you’re bringing in facilitators or instructors, and food. A countryside walk with a pub lunch costs next to nothing, a full facilitated day with a workshop, catering and a hired venue costs a lot more. Decide what you want the day to achieve first, then get quotes against that, rather than starting from a number and squeezing a day into it. If you’d like a quote for a facilitated wellbeing away day, tell us what you’re planning and we’ll come back with real numbers.

What makes a team away day successful?

Three things, in my experience. The activities suit the actual people on your team, including the quiet ones and the ones with limited mobility. The day has breathing space instead of a packed agenda. And something from the day carries back into work, a tool, a habit, or just the fact that two people who never spoke now do. If you want the full checklist, read my guide on planning a successful team away day.

Can you mix several of these ideas in one day?

Absolutely, and the best away days usually do. A common shape I see is a wellbeing workshop in the morning while heads are fresh, a long lunch, then something lighter in the afternoon like a quiz, a games venue or a walk. Use the free itinerary planner further up this page to lay out the timings and download it as a PDF.

Bring Your Team Closer

Whatever you pick from this list, the aim is the same. People go back to work feeling a bit closer to the people they spend their days with, and a bit better looked after.

If you’d like help with the wellbeing side of your day, a tailored workshop, chair massage, breathing, gratitude, or all of it, that’s what we do, anywhere in the UK. A happy workforce is a productive workforce.