A few weeks ago, my buddies and I decided that, for one of our friend’s 21^st birthdays, we would take him on the town and go from bar to bar to celebrate his newfound independence of being able to finally order, legally, an adult beverage in a restaurant or a bar. Every person’s 21^st is meant to be one of the craziest, most wild nights in their young life, all the while doing it legally.

It’s a difficult call to make which bar you want to go to first, or which bars you want to visit at all. Luckily, you have 24-hours of your special day to do whatever you want, which can mean you want to do a brunch, go see a movie or …

pub crawl.

Yes! Such a novel idea long glorified in films like the "American Pie" series and the television series, "How I Met Your Mother."

The pub crawl is not an exact science; rather, it is an art. There is no one right way to do a pub-crawl, but there are ways to maximize on the level of fun you have!

Here are eight ways to plan and approach a pub crawl in the city of Providence.

1. Keep it downtown.

There are tens of different pubs and restaurants within walking distance of downtown, with names such as Trinity Pub and Brew House, G Pub, Blake’s Tavern and many more. Each comes with a diverse list of craft beers as well as local favorites. Whether it is a pitcher or a pint, there’s a lot to choose from!

2. Come with plenty of cash.

Drinking as a 21-year-old is no cheap hobby. Come prepared with cash to pay for a round or two with your friends.

3. Designate a food stop.

Depending on if you ate lunch or an early dinner before, it’s a smart move to grab some food mid way through the pub-crawl. Granted, putting food in your stomach may slow down your ability to drink, but is a brilliant pacing method to make sure you and your friends remember the night.

4. Keep it small.

Usually pub crawls are massive, but for the city of Providence, keep it to a controllable number of no more than 10.

5. Pace yourself.

Again, a pub crawl is not a sprint. Rather, it is a marathon. Each stop will probably consist of you talking to friends and sipping beers rather than slugging comic amounts of alcohol. All in all, each stop will take 20 to 30 minutes.

6. Time your pub crawl right.

Doing a pub crawl in the middle of the afternoon will give you the bar virtually all to yourselves. An empty bar or restaurant will mean shorter wait times for the bartenders to serve you.

7. Be careful where you designate a stop.

You don’t want to walk in yelling and hollering and singing into a French bistro, where families and people are already sitting down eating their meals. No one wants to hear you slam the table and sing “Sweet Caroline.”

8. Have an end game/ final stop.

The final stop is the most important besides the food stop. The last stop you want there to be tons of people you know around you with drinks also in their hands.