How to Host the Greatest Picnic this Summer

Posted on January 22, 2024

Granny flat livers are lovers of the outdoors, nature, the simple things in life, so it’s no surprise that picnics are right up our alley. Hosting a great picnic can also be a really effective way to entertain when you don’t have the space at home. Here’s how to get the most out of your holiday picnicking this summer, based on many picnic experiments (purely for research purposes).

1. Choosing the Perfect Location

Your requirements for a perfect picnic location will differ depending on your guests and plans for the event. The main things to consider are:

• Aesthetics and Environment
• Ocean views or forest surround?
• Are you and your group more inclined to privacy, or do you want to be in amidst community fun
• Might your guests be scared of bugs?
• Consider these things first before narrowing down your location options
• Activities
• Do your guests want to swim?
• Is there space to run around safely?
• Is alcohol permitted?
• Amenities
• Does the location have bathrooms close, or public barbecues you could take advantage of
• Consider who you’re inviting and whether you should to choose a place with park benches or tables
• Accessibility
• Is it a hike, or with parking nearby?
• Can all invitees get to the spot safely?
• Are dogs allowed?

A quick research should tell you these about any potential location, or you could search for a specific requirement and easily find local dog friendly places, easily accessible spots, public barbecues or lesser known private spaces.

2. Bringing the Aesthetics

Wherever you end up, you’ve got the advantage of natures beauty surrounding you. Now you can just make some little touches to perfect your own space.

• Bring some throw pillows
• Once you’ve laid down your picnic rug(s), line the edges with some decorative throw pillows that ensure extra comfort to really elevate your set-up

• Choose pretty utensils (Single use plastic is out, and not only is that a great achievement for the environment, but for our picnic aesthetics, because what an eye sore)
• Harder plastic reusable wine glasses can be so pretty and survive the most outrages of picnics e.g. these trending crystal-looking champagne flutes we discovered at The Cabana that can be found at most higher end homeware stores in a variety of colours

• A travel cheese board set is so cute, convenient and ideal for any picnicker, available at Sunnylife or as a Good Pair Days reward
• Bamboo cutlery is an eco-friendly picnic option that goes great with the environment
• A pretty picnic basket goes a long way, but if you don’t have one and it’s not in your budget, once you’ve set up your food return your bag to the car or put it aside out of the instagrammable area (p.s Sunnylife’s round cooler picnic basket is on sale at the moment)
• Fairy lights!
• Whatever you’ve got, a little decorative string of fairy lights helps the atmosphere, and provides some soft lighting if you stay past sunset
• Consider shade if you’ll be under the sun
• You could choose to set yourself beneath a tree if there’s the available shade
• If you or a friend has one, bring a beach umbrella, or beach cabana to set up as an escape to shade when needed
• It also makes a great spot to hang your fairy lights 

• Bring a bin solution
• Bin bags/boxes/baskets may not be the prettiest of things, but they look a lot better than rubbish flying around, and everyone will be grateful to have a spot to put any waste that comes from the event without constant travel from the picnic to the public bin
• Don’t forget you can always ask your friends and family to bring something, it all ads to the picnic joy

3. Feeding the Family

• If you don’t want to bring an esky, choose food that can last the travel
• Certain store-bought dips like salsa don’t need refrigeration til opened, and in my experience, once opened at a picnic it disappears before any thought about the need to keep it cold
• Similarly an unopened avocado and crackers
• If your location is close enough to shops, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with bringing some good take-away food or pastries and presenting them in picnic fashion, reducing any cooking, preparation and refrigeration hassles
• Prepare a solid esky/cooler with ice and/or icepacks and eat what you please
• Soft cheeses should be eaten within 2 hours out of the fridge, but a properly prepared esky should do the trick to get your cheese safely to the picnic with enough time to spare to enjoy it

• Dips like fresh guacamole and beetroot dip never go astray
• Fresh fruit to keep your guests healthy (strawberries and grapes are fan-favourites, especially with cheeses)
• Wether your esky-ing or not, be sure to have enough bread and/or crackers for your group, and chocolate for dessert
• Be aware of people’s dietary requirements and possibly ask them for advice about what food to bring
• Insulated wine tumblers are also a growing picnic essential to keep drinks cold, fresh and free of bus (I scored mine for free from Good Pair Days rewards store) but a bit costly if you’re covering a number of guests, so a BYO cup/glass requirement could be a handy way to make sure everyone is happy and always knowing which drink is theirs
• If hosting a larger event you can suggest everyone brings one snack, or assign specific meals or materials to different people to avoid double ups

4. Preparing the Entertainment

• Check out some games you could play without equipment - their are options for all ages to keep the picnic going strong (and most can easily be adopted to a drinking game if that’s your cup of tea and you’ve found an alcohol permitted zone - but drink responsibly, especially in public or near the water)
• Bring some outdoor games like ring toss or a frisbee (Planet Finska has an impressive range of aesthetically pleasing wooden outdoor games, or there are some fun and cute options currenlty on sale at Sunnylife)
• Assign someone to bring a speaker that will be fine in the environment to quietly provide your group with some atmospheric songs of the Summer
• If you’re group might appreciate a little live music for that round the campfire feel, consider bringing a guitar or ukulele (even if it does’t get used, still a cute decoration)
• Give your guests as much detail about the event and location as you can to see what ideas other people bring to the table/blanket

Enjoy your picnics and make the most of the Summer of '24!

Author and posted by Alysha de Ruyter.