One of my favorite things to do as an activity is an Ice Cream Crawl. We started doing these after I moved to San Francisco and they are super fun. The concept behind it is simple: taste as many kinds of ice cream as possible to test them and proclaim a winner. I thought I would put together some tips for how to do one.

1. Plan out the Itinerary by Geography. Even though it’s tempting to add ice cream shops across town we just did shops that were close to each other. This saved us a lot of time driving around.

2. Timing. This takes me about 3 hours to do so it’s important to keep a fast pace or else you’ll only make it to a couple locations. I ask people to eat an early dinner and meet at 6pm. This has worked out well for us because we can wrap up before everyone has to go home and watch their Netflix and go to bed. To save on time we usually have one person jump out of the car as we arrive and get in line so they can order the ice cream. Then as soon as everyone tries it we quickly get back in the car to head to the next place.

3. Just a Few Bites. We usually order 1-2 flavors at each place. I just ask the server what are their two most popular flavors. People only need a few bites, trust me, by the end you’ll be sick of it. I usually just get one cone and give everyone spoons to try it out. (Depending on how many are in your party it would be more.)

4. Avoid the Lines. A lot of the San Francisco Ice Cream shops have long lines so this activity is best done on a random weeknight (not on a Hot Sunny Saturday!) We usually try to go to the ones with the longer lines first since lines are usually shorter earlier in the night.

5. Proclaiming the Winner. We use this little sheet and decide if each ice cream is rated 1-4. (4 is the highest!) Then at the last stop we tally all the votes and decide who the winner is. It’s a very scientific process. Ha! This is the kind of research I can get behind.

And THAT is how to plan an ice cream crawl. I’ve always wanted to try a donut crawl or even a Pizza Crawl sometime with a big group.

All photos from my Instagram because I eat too much ice cream.