As another Valentine’s Day rolls around, those without Valentines need not worry. If you are flying solo on February 14th, there is no reason to panic or even give it a second thought. While everyone else scrambles to order flowers, secure reservations for the local dark bistro, and set the mood lighting at their hotel room, you will have something even better planned: A Valentine’s Day pub crawl.
Last Valentine’s Day, I attended a Valentine’s Day Pub Crawl throughout the streets of downtown Boston. Singletons and non-singletons alike packed these bars to the brim. Most places even had lines of people waiting to enter. This record-breaking turnout made me stop and wonder, are there really that many single people around? How refreshing! My friend found this organized pub crawl through some social group, but if you’re too lazy to find a pre-organized crawl, you can make your own!
The homemade pub crawl never disappoints. All you need is to pick a neighborhood of local bars, decide an order and a drink minimum per bar. If you live on a line of public transportation, try to visit a bar at each stop. For instance, my pal and I used to do what we called The Red Line Challenge in Boston/Cambridge, MA. Starting at the Park Street stop off of Boston Common, we headed North towards the end of the line at Alewife, picking one bar per stop. Usually by the Davis Square stop (just before the end of the line), we had to call it quits due to exhaustion.
If your route permits, I suggest stopping by a hotel bar. The third stop on our Red Line Challenge was always the Kendall Square’s Marriott bar, Characters, a clean dive bar. With complimentary popcorn, pool tables, a permeating smell of the hotel pool, foreign bartenders, and intriguing hotel guests, our experience at Characters always provided a good story to tell the next day.
Finally, making t-shirts for your pub crawl is key in building camaraderie amongst pub crawlers and helping you keep track of your route and friends, should you forget. Even if you’re not single, you should have been expressing your undying devotion all along, not solely on Valentine’s Day. You have 364 other days to express your love and affection, but the Valentine’s Day Pub Crawl comes but once a year!
Ramblings 
Nothing more “Characteristic” than a post-beer illegal swim!
Haha, you make an excellent point!
Maybe I should skip the candlelight dinner I had planned for my girlfriend?
If you time it right, Roger, you can do both.
Pub crawls are a fantastic solution to just about any celebration… particularly if you take the time to get the matching shirts (no fun to lose people along the way!)
So, is this your plan for the upcoming V-day?
I would have to agree that making t-shirts is half the fun. I will probably do some sort of a pub crawl type thing on Saturday. Valentine’s Day will be my day of recovery!