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Conversation Guides

100 Things to Talk About When You Don't Know What to Say

Callio TeamSeptember 1, 2026

In short

Start with what is closest to the moment: something that happened today, something around you or something the other person has already mentioned.
Good conversation topics have room to expand. Music can become concerts, memories, guilty pleasures or what you listened to growing up.
Match the topic to how well you know the person. Everyday life is easy with someone new; more personal subjects usually work better once the conversation already feels comfortable.
You do not need to keep changing subjects. When one topic gets interesting, stay with it and follow the conversation instead of searching for the next thing to say.

100 Things to Talk About

When your mind goes blank in the middle of a conversation, it can feel as if every possible topic has disappeared at once.

Usually, it has not.

Almost anything can become a conversation topic if both people have something to say about it. The problem is often that we search for a perfect subject instead of noticing all the ordinary ones already available.

Your week. Something you watched. The place you grew up. Food you cannot stand. A trip you want to take. Something ridiculous that happened yesterday.

None of these sounds groundbreaking on paper.

They do not need to.

A good topic is simply one that gives both people somewhere to go.

Here are 100.

Best things to talk about

If you just need reliable conversation topics that can work with almost anyone, start with these.

What you have been doing lately
Recent life is one of the easiest places to start because neither person has to search very far for an answer.
Music
What you listen to, artists you have discovered, concerts, old favorites and songs you are tired of hearing.
Movies and shows
Recent watches, terrible endings, comfort shows, classics you somehow still have not seen.
Hobbies
What someone does when nobody is telling them what they have to do often creates better conversation than asking what they do for work.
Food
Favorite meals, cooking disasters, local food, overrated foods and the one thing someone could eat every week.
Travel
Places you have been, places you want to go and places that surprised you.
Weekend plans
Simple, current and easy to expand into hobbies, friends, events or how someone likes spending free time.
Something you are learning
A language, instrument, sport, skill, subject or even something you fell into accidentally.
Things you are looking forward to
Trips, weekends, releases, events, seeing someone again or simply being finished with a busy week.
Games
Video games, board games, sports, childhood games or whatever somebody has recently spent too many hours playing.
Your hometown
What it is actually like to live there, what outsiders get wrong and whether you would ever move back.
Technology
Apps you actually use, technology you love, technology you wish would disappear and whatever new thing everyone is suddenly talking about.
Pets and animals
Current pets, pets you grew up with, animals you would never want in your house and the weird things pets do.
Recommendations
Ask what someone thinks is genuinely worth watching, listening to, visiting, buying or trying.
Something funny that happened recently
Recent stories are often better conversation material than general questions because they come with people, places and details built in.

You can easily spend an entire conversation on one of these.

You do not need to reach number sixteen just because it exists.

Easy small-talk topics

Small talk gets treated like a lesser form of conversation, but it has a useful job: it lets two people interact without immediately asking each other for their life story.

Current etiquette guidance still recommends low-pressure subjects such as the shared environment, food, entertainment, travel, plans and similar everyday experiences when you do not know someone well.

The place you are both in
The venue, room, event, neighborhood, café or whatever brought you into the same situation.
The weather
Yes, really.

The weather becomes boring only when the conversation ends at:

“Nice weather.”

It can easily become plans, seasons, travel or where someone would rather be.

What happened today
Something does not need to be important to be worth talking about.
Work in broad terms
Not someone's salary or corporate biography. More like what they enjoy, what annoys them and how they ended up doing it.
School or studying
Subjects, teachers, courses, exams, memories and what somebody actually likes learning.
The coming weekend
One of the easiest bridges from small talk into someone's actual interests.
Local places
Restaurants, parks, cafés, neighborhoods, places worth visiting and places that are absolutely not worth visiting.
Current entertainment
Anything people are currently watching, playing, reading or listening to.
The season
Summer people versus winter people somehow always have opinions about this.
Everyday routines
Morning routines, late nights, gym routines, commuting or whatever someone does every day without thinking much about it.
Coffee, tea and other tiny preferences
Small preferences are low-stakes but often surprisingly easy to argue about.
Something nearby
A song playing, something happening across the room, a strange sign or anything else both people can see.
Plans for later
What someone is doing after work, tomorrow or later that week.
Recent purchases
Something surprisingly useful, completely unnecessary or immediately regretted.
Something you need a recommendation for
A restaurant, movie, game, place, song or even something practical.

Small talk works because the subject is not asking much from either person yet.

If one of these leads somewhere better, let it.

Things to talk about with someone you just met

When you have only known someone for five minutes, choose topics that let them decide how much they want to share.

Where they grew up
Not just where, but what growing up there was actually like.
What they do outside work or school
Often much more revealing than their job title.
How they know the people around you
Especially useful at parties, events or group settings.
Something they have been enjoying lately
Broad enough to become music, food, hobbies, games, travel or almost anything else.
Places they have lived
Moving somewhere usually comes with a story.
Something they would like to learn
This often reveals interests you would never have guessed.
Their ideal way to spend a free day
Useful because everyone interprets “a good day” differently.
What keeps them busy
Let them decide whether that means work, family, school, hobbies or something else.
Their favorite thing about where they live
Especially useful when you are from different places.
Something they recommend
People usually enjoy talking about things they genuinely like.
How they ended up where they are now
Jobs, cities, studies and hobbies often involve accidents and unexpected decisions.
What they do when they are bored
A surprisingly direct route into interests.
Something they are looking forward to
Positive without demanding anything particularly personal.
A recent good experience
A meal, trip, event, night out or completely ordinary afternoon.
Something you already seem to have in common
Once you discover that, you probably do not need this list anymore.

If your main problem is actually getting those first few words out, link here to: How to Start a Conversation.

Fun things to talk about

Not every conversation needs to reveal someone's inner world.

Sometimes you just want a topic that is fun.

Terrible movies you secretly enjoy
Nobody needs another ranking of objectively great films.
Useless talents
The less useful the talent, the better the story usually is.
Food opinions
Pineapple on pizza is exhausted. Everyone still has some other food opinion worth arguing about.
Childhood beliefs
The bizarre explanations children invent for things they do not understand.
Pet peeves
Especially the ones that are far too minor to justify the amount of annoyance they create.
Bad fashion phases
Everyone has photographic evidence they hope never resurfaces.
Weird habits
Harmless things someone does that make complete sense only to them.
Embarrassing misunderstandings
Better when you are willing to share your own.
Overrated things
Cities, foods, trends, apps, shows or anything else everybody insists you have to love.
Underrated things
The reverse is often more interesting.
Things you were terrible at
Sports, jobs, instruments, cooking or whatever briefly humbled you.
Internet rabbit holes
The subject you searched once and somehow learned everything about three hours later.
Irrational fears
Keep this playful unless the other person takes it somewhere more serious.
Completely pointless debates
Window seat versus aisle. Shower morning versus night. Sweet popcorn versus salty.
Your most questionable purchase
Almost everybody owns something they cannot fully defend.

Funny topics work best when both people are willing to contribute.

Do not turn the other person into the entertainment.

Interesting conversation topics

If you want to move past ordinary updates without immediately becoming deeply personal, try subjects where people can have different opinions or experiences.

Skills everyone should learn
Cooking, communication, first aid, finances, fixing things—or something completely different.
Something that changed your opinion
The story behind the change is usually more interesting than the opinion itself.
Things people make too complicated
There is no shortage.
Things that are harder than they look
Jobs, sports, hobbies and ordinary life tasks all qualify.
Things that are easier than people think
The opposite can be equally interesting.
What makes someone interesting
You may get very different definitions.
How technology changed everyday life
Especially differences people remember personally.
A place that surprised you
Good or bad.
Something everyone should experience once
Expect disagreement.
What people worry about too much
Keep it general before making it personal.
What makes a good friendship
Almost everybody has an answer based on experience.
Something society has gotten better at
A nice alternative to constantly talking about everything getting worse.
Something society has gotten worse at
Balance restored.
A subject you wish you understood better
Curiosity creates a lot of good conversation.
Something you think will look ridiculous in twenty years
Fashion, technology, habits, trends—plenty to choose from.

Deep things to talk about

Deep conversation works better when it grows out of an existing interaction rather than appearing as an unexpected interview question.

Use these when you already have some comfort.

What success means
People's answer often changes drastically over time.
What makes somewhere feel like home
A place, people, routines, language, food or something else entirely.
What makes someone feel understood
A useful window into how they connect with people.
Lessons you learned late
Most people have at least one.
Things you value more as you get older
Time is a common answer, but rarely the entire answer.
How friendships change
Distance, adulthood, work and life all change how friendships function.
What makes a good life
Broad enough for very different answers.
Things worth taking risks for
The answer depends heavily on the person.
What people regret not doing
You do not need to ask the other person for their greatest regret. Talk about the idea first.
The kind of person you want to become
More interesting than simply asking where someone wants to be in five years.

Personal does not automatically mean better.

If someone does not seem interested in going deeper, go somewhere else.

Things to talk about online or with strangers

Online conversations often begin with almost no shared context.

That is actually useful: two people from completely different places already have things they can compare.

Where you are both from
Move beyond naming the country and talk about what living there is actually like.
Local food
Possibly the most reliable international conversation topic.
Differences between your countries or cities
Ordinary differences are often more interesting than famous landmarks.
Languages
What somebody speaks, what they want to learn and what sounds impossible to pronounce.
Music from different places
Ask what people actually listen to rather than what tourists think represents the country.
Everyday culture
School, weekends, nightlife, food times, transport or things considered completely normal locally.
Travel recommendations
If somebody lives somewhere you have never visited, you have a free local guide.
What people your age do for fun there
Often reveals more than a generic culture question.
Something outsiders misunderstand about where they live
Almost every place has something.
Why you both felt like talking to someone new
Particularly natural in a random conversation.

And because you already have the English-practice landing page, naturally link when discussing languages: Practice English Speaking Online.

Do not imply Callio guarantees language-specific matches.

Things to talk about when the conversation goes quiet

You do not need an entirely new subject every time a conversation pauses.

Sometimes the easiest topic is something you already passed.

Something they mentioned earlier
Probably the most natural option available.

“You said you were travelling next week…”

There. Conversation restarted.

Something happening right now
Use the environment instead of searching your memory for an impressive question.
Something you just remembered
“That actually reminds me…”

Those five words have rescued an absurd number of conversations.

A completely random topic
There is nothing wrong with saying:

“Completely unrelated, but…”

People change subjects constantly.

The silence itself
Sometimes:

“We completely ran out of conversation there.”

is funnier and more natural than desperately pretending the pause did not happen.

Silence is not proof that the conversation failed.

Sometimes both people are simply thinking.

And sometimes the conversation genuinely has reached its end.

That is okay too.

How to turn one topic into a full conversation

This is the section I think gives us an advantage over a lot of generic list pages.

A topic is not one question.

Take travel.

You could begin with:

“Have you travelled anywhere good recently?”

They say:

“I went to Japan last year.”

You now have several completely different directions:

The experience

“What did you like most?”

The surprise

“Was anything completely different from what you expected?”

Food

“What was the best thing you ate?”

Culture

“What everyday thing felt most different?”

Future

“Would you go back?”

Your own connection

“I've wanted to go for years. Tokyo looks completely overwhelming.”

One topic just became ten minutes of conversation.

The same thing works with almost anything.

Music can become concerts, childhood favorites, instruments, guilty pleasures and songs tied to memories.

Food can become cooking, travel, family recipes, terrible restaurants and the meal somebody would choose if they had to eat one thing forever.

A good conversation topic is not useful because it gives you one sentence.

It is useful because it has branches.

Choose topics, not a checklist

Trying to move through topics as quickly as possible creates the same problem as asking question after question.

You get:

work → music → travel → hobbies → movies → food

without actually discussing any of them.

Instead, stay with whatever starts producing stories, opinions or enthusiasm.

If somebody suddenly becomes animated when they talk about travelling, you do not need to change the subject because your mental list says “hobbies” comes next.

The list did its job.

You found something worth talking about.

What topics should you avoid with someone you barely know?

There are very few subjects that are universally forbidden.

The same conversation about religion, politics, money or family that feels intrusive with one stranger might be completely normal between two friends.

Context matters.

But when you barely know someone, be careful with topics that require them to reveal sensitive information: money, health, intimate relationships, private family situations and strongly divisive personal beliefs.

Traditional etiquette guidance similarly recommends keeping initial small talk relatively low-pressure and avoiding sensitive subjects until the context supports them.

Also pay attention to the answer.

If someone gives a short response and moves away from the subject, let them.

You do not need:

“Why don't you want to talk about it?”

Changing the topic is much easier.

Conversation topics vs. conversation starters

A conversation topic is the general thing you are talking about:

travel

music

childhood

hobbies

food

A conversation starter is something you actually say to get into that subject:

“What's somewhere you'd go back to tomorrow?”

“What have you been listening to lately?”

“What did you think you were going to be when you were a kid?”

One topic can generate dozens of conversation starters.

If what you actually need is a specific sentence to get things moving, link to: 120 Conversation Starters That Actually Give You Something to Talk About.

Need questions instead of topics?

Sometimes knowing the subject is not the problem. You specifically want questions that help you learn more about the person.

For that, use: 250 Questions to Get to Know Someone.

That article is organized around actual questions rather than broad subjects.

If keeping the conversation going is the hard part

Finding a topic is only one part of keeping a conversation moving. If you regularly start well and then run out of things to say five minutes later, read How to Keep a Conversation Going.