Ask Lemmy

Cooking, 3d printing, hiking, gaming

Knitting and cross stitch. Both are very calming and if you start with small projects you quickly have something you can wear or display, so very rewarding.

I’ve been trying many things over time but the ones that really became hobbies are the ones that just happened to me. And those are hiking, cooking and photography.

I think one problem these days is that we try too hard from the start. We hear about this interesting thing and then watch videos about it by some influencer and then we feel we need to learn this or buy that first but in the end none of that is necessary. If hiking is for you then you will enjoy it even in sandals and jeans. If not then it might not be a hobby for you. Eventually you will learn what you personally need to enjoy it even more and go to the next level. And then invest into it knowing exactly what you want.

Same with photography. You can take some serious photos with modern phones already and develop your skills with that. I took some back then with an iPhone 4 that I still love (although they look bad when zoomed in). The limitation is what makes you creative and you always have it with you.

Of course some things do have a steep learning curve and do need some initial investment. I just personally never got into any of those and I’m pretty satisfied.

After playing a few musical instruments (bass, guitar, keys) for a few decades but never having satisfying experiences playing with friends, I joined an adult band program at a nearby music school. It's been great! Three performances so far this year, and it got me in a separate cover band cuz one of the guitarists was in the same program, and we did an open mic night a month or two ago that was short but awesome, and we have a real gig coming up in a week.

Before 2025 I never performed music for anyone other than maybe a few friends who were already visiting me and thus had no polite choice to not listen!

The music school I do this with is a local "School of Rock" franchise but some other music schools have similar programs. Highly recommend!

Trade is something I might look at while at work, but I'm mostly long term investing in dividend based companies with 10-30 % yearly dividend, so I will normally just review it after trade hours. But I have recently gotten into climbing with a friend that used it to get through his divorce, and I'm falling in love with it. Fascinatingly hard to master in any way, good training, social and fun. An absolute 10/10 recommend on climbing. Also played the hell out of Cat Quest 3 during my holiday before my apartment rose above 30° in the mornings before walking to the beach, and it is a lot of fun with great replayability and a lot of post finishing challenges that just keeps you going. Think I'm at 5 or 6 credits so far, and I'm still giving it as few more runs to get that Platinum.

Baking. It can be as simple and inexpensive, or as elaborate and costly as you want. It's very beginner friendly. And even most of your failures end up delicious.

Self teaching myself piano - been going a little over a year now and I've made a ton of progress! It's a lot of fun to hear myself play some of my favorite video game songs and songs I grew up around.

Homebrewing meads and wines (haven't tried beer yet) - super simple to get started but lots of variables you can tweak to get something tasty. Takes a LOT of patience though.

Making homemade bread - it's like 10 minutes of actual work but it tastes so much better than store bought.

Music production, drumming, learning guitar, Sim racing, going for a motorcycle ride, homelab/self hosting stuff, capture the flag (cybersecurity challenges), woodworking, rock carving, listening to a record, 3D printing (I'm building an R2-D2), building something with electronics (I recently built a shifter knob for euro truck sim).

In the depths of my depression I had no hobbies and my psychologist said I should try everything, so I did, and continue to do so. You'll be surprised what sticks.

My three long term hobbies: reading, crochet, partner dancing.

I also have a number of hobbies that I either cycle through or that were a part of my life for a while but I don’t do anymore for whatever reason: other partner dances, knitting, tropical fish tank, paint by numbers, dog sport agility (would love to get back into it but really don’t have the space or time), camping, hiking(in a meandering sort of way), embroidery, letter writing.

ETA: I have a "fermentation" hobby too. I brew beer with my in laws about 3-4 times a year and have a constant kombucha SCOBY in my pantry.

Mine includes breeding birds, making software and self hosting.

Self hosting, lock picking, sleeping

Repairing distressed audio equipment. I'm particular to early 80's to mid 90's gear.

Role Playing Games: I have three groups, two virtual and one in person that I play a variety of RPG's with.

Hiking: Mainly for health reasons, but I've always loved going out on a new trail and exploring. My days of backpacking are behind me, as I have a back injury now, but I'm still able to do day hikes.

Here is my latest electronics repair. It's a Carver TFM-15CB stereo amplifier. The power supply filter caps (two black with silver top cylinders in the middle of the photo) went bad. Which is just something electrolytic capacitors do when they get old. So I replaced all the electrolytics (13 in all) and replaced the meter's lights with LED units. The amp is 40 years old and is probably good for another 40 years. I'm actually listening to it as I write this post. As far as how I learned to do this, I'm self taught. Just read a lot of books and then started working on things that I didn't care if I blew up, or fixed. Then moved onto things I wanted to keep as my confidence and skills grew.

I have a ton of abandoned or occasional hobbies but the main one I have atm is leatherwork.

Honestly I don't fully understand what lead me to it but I saw some videos and it was like, not only do I want to do this but I want to do it properly.

So I didn't do my normal thing of buying a ton of equipment, getting in way over my head and abandoning to the pile of failed hobbies. I booked a beginner course at a place near me and the rest is history. Been slowly building up my skills and techniques and getting really good feedback from people. Some of my recent items even have people saying that if I was to open a shop then they would be interested in buying or commissioning...

If you want to see my stuff then just have look at my post history, I should really just make a site or something at this point... Most of my stuff is small goods, accessories etc. but be warned I've just created a new community to have somewhere for the darker side of crafts (mildly NSFW) - but if anyone is interested in the spicier side of crafting then come join me there!

Climbing/bouldering. As a not overly sporty nerdy type, I found this to be amazing. All the climbs are called problems and require you to think about how you're using your body to solve them.

99% of the community is amazing because it's not really a vs sports in a traditional sense. It's you vs the wall and even if you do something that is 'easy' for someone else if they can see you tried hard they will be pysched for you.

There are lots of beginner groups and meet up days or if you go on regular days, you'll end up talking to the same people about the climb you're doing so you build friendship as an adult which is difficult otherwise.

Also it's not in front of a screen which I love.

I'd try looking for your local gym and doing the intro course and seeing if it vibes with you.

Aquariums and fish keeping. Its as complicated as you want it to be from a simple tank and a few fish to a multi tank breeding setup for fish that need very specific requirements. It is one of those hobbies that will make you want more tanks than you have room for, if you get really into it.

This year:

• Picking and processing psychedelic mushrooms -cheap

• Replacing phone & tablet screens -surprisingly cheap

• Mountain biking - not cheap

Textile work! Could be sewing, weaving, dying, etc. I love working with fabrics and making them into usable 3D objects. Recently, as in the last two weeks, I've started working with wool felt with the vague idea of making insect brooches but I ended up making a cat toy instead lol.

Pyrography. Starter kit costs about $20. My favourite tool is still my cheapest one!

Crochet, cross stitch, reading, video games

Rhythm games, both in general and in terms of my main game. Don't think I can recommend it to most people though

Got into it... partly because osu was popular when I grew up, partly because I listened to a lot of "rhythm game music" growing up. This video game genre also always resonated with me quite well, I love extremely challenging video games so there's that

Reason I couldn't recommend it... First of all it is not an easy hobby to get into outside of Asia, and because of this finding a community (even for really popular games like maimai/CHUNITHM) will be tough. Secondly because of the first reason, getting into rhythm games outside of Asia can get expensive, between arcade visits and homecabs and all. It's also somewhat of an extremely all-encompassing hobby that leaves little room for one to do anything else. Finally there's a pretty significant risk of injury especially at higher levels, I've had a bone fracture before and several ppl I know have had serious injuries, despite the fact that there's little to no "payoff" (such as for-profit tournaments) like most sports

On the plus side, stomping it out on DDR/ITG (the latter much more accessible) is a really fun way to do cardio!

Barebow archery, penspinning, homelab / home network, misc. coding projects I rarely finish.

Penspinning started as a kid as a selfstimming activity since I annoyed people with bouncing leg and table drumming. Looking back, I don't know why it took 30 years to get ADHD diagnosis.

Barebow archery started by doing a team activity intro archery and I noticed it immediately cured my chronic shoulder pain. It turned out to be inferred pain from Infraspinatus, not shoulder per se.

Homelab/network just stem from my desire to have a carefully controlled environment due to deep distrust in... well, everything.

Coding projects usually start by me having a specific need or problem, then I start fixing it, and generally end up over-engineering it.

Archery, penspinning and coding are relatively cheap hobbies. Homelab/network doesn't need to be expensive either. All of these CAN absolutely be money sinks, especially homelab/networks and archery, but starting out is affordable.

I speak ill of foreign countries' presidents (so many choices currently)

Racing cars. It ain't cheap but 10k gets you a racecar.

3 hours at the wheel going 10/10 running 6-8k rpms the entire time.

It'll change your life. You'll live for the few events you get to do each year.

Fish tank, houseplants, vacuuming the floors, doing the dishes.

Two are passive hobbies that require more work but only once in a while

Two are things that need done that i treat like hobbies so something fucking gets done around here

I might have ADHD

Gardening and hiking - both get you out into nature and are good for your mental health.

photography, video games, film review, writing, cooking + making preserves, reading, book reviews, walking, running, genealogy, listening to music, transcribing on musescore and playing music.

if that sounds like a lot bare in mind i tap into each one on an ad hoc basis rather than scheduling it out. the only ones i technically do regularly is walking, music and video games, like most people.

also going to art galleries + theatre 👍

https://lemmy.world/post/49598989

I woodwork, set up servers, build guns, garden,play guitar, design furniture, and teach others to do each of those things.

I try to do anything that regular people have figured out on their own. If someone can do something without training, I can probably figure it out in a few weeks.

I don't watch things, and I don't use social media outside of Lemmy on occasion. Because of that, I seem to have far more time than the average person.

I like exploring abandoned buildings, it's called Urbex (portmanteau of Urban Exploration) but not all the sites are in urban environments.

Photography also goes hand in hand with that.

Here's a website to see the sorts of places people do

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/

Resistance training is probably the biggest one currently. At first it was just for health reasons as i was getting overweight, but over time(almost a year) i started to like it more and more until now it could be qualified as a hobby.

I really like that it's something that heavily depends on me and has very little luck in it.

Drawing, model kit building, crochet, knitting, sewing, 3d printing, fishkeeping, plants/ terrarium keeping, games, homelab....

Lots of these have overlap. Drawing and model kit building started as a kid, and 3D printing (resin) is a natural progression from that, because I can build custom parts or scenes or whatever.

Fishkeeping / terrarium keeping came about a few years ago when I was living in a pretty shit place. I saw a video online of shrimp being chill and just eating algea and I went huh I wonder how hard it is to get shrimp. Went to the pet store and got some shrimp, failed to keep them, and researched how to properly care for shrimp and snails. That evolved into fish keeping, with multiple large tanks. Then I found serpa designs on YouTube and became hooked. From there I tried making moss terrariums and I want to branch into vivariums when I'm in a place to do so. I want to implement some of my modeling skills to make living scenes with things like moss and other plants.

Homelab came naturally to me after wanting to figure out how people did piracy nowadays and learning about the arrs stack. Taught myself docker and started tinkering with other containers and programs, which got me into learning programming.

Crochet and knitting are my weakest hobby - I was moving between countries and wanted to learn something I could do in my downtime that was travel friendly. Hooks / needles and some yarn can fit in a small carry case. I want to make stuffed animals but I need to learn more to get to that point.

I've dabbled in wood carving. Stuff like whittling, relief carving, and my favorite kind was chip carving.

I also enjoyed doing some wildlife photography.

Maybe the weirdest hobby I ever tried was when I made a home-made furnace for melting aluminum.

But the thing I spend most of my spare time on by far is video game development (everything from the coding to the 3D modelling and animation and a little bit of sound design).

Drugs and video games, always have been.

Martial Arts, weight training,long distance rifle shooting, riding motorcycles (I have seven currently), gardening and growing my own food, fermenting. I used to hunt, but no longer have access to land to do so.

Been playing video games pretty much all my life. Like with all forms of popular entertainment, there are so many genres that I'm sure there's something out there for you. If you want, I can offer some suggestions based on what devices you own and what you're interested in.

Other than that, learning to cook new recipes is always fun and pretty much essential to live haha. I've tried a few Ina Garten recipes and they've been relatively easy and tasty.

I paint minis, focusing mostly on Warhammer right now and I'm telling myself I'm going to start playing.

I started with the Reaper minis learn to paint sets, they do a pretty good job of teaching you the basics, give you a couple minis to start with and a workable if somewhat limited set of paints and brushes.

It sounds a lot harder than it actually is. If you dilute your paints down right it kind of tends to flow exactly where you want it to.

Sourcing minis to paint can get pricey depending on what you like and where you get them from. To support that hobby I've also taken up 4d printing, if you hunt around a bit you should be able to get a used resin printer for pretty cheap (but don't skimp on proper PPE and ventilation, liquid resin is pretty nasty stuff)

I dabble in a little bit of woodworking. Nothing too fancy, I'm not doing intricate carving or anything, but once in a while I find a problem in need of a solution and think of a way I could build that solution myself from some boards and hardware and while I may not be saving any money over buying some off-the-shelf solution to that problem, I do think a lot of those thing I've made have ended up being better than anything I could have bought and they are certainly more satisfying to use knowing I made them myself.

I camp, hike, and fish a lot. These can get pricey if you let them, but you can probably get enough fishing gear to go catch some fish for like $50. Depending on where you live, you can hit a lot of trails with just a sturdy pair of sneakers, a water bottle, and maybe a pocket full of snacks. And you can probably outfit yourself for some decent weekend at a state park campground for about $100 worth of Walmart gear (tento sleeping bag sleeping pad,) and some stuff you probably already have at home (flashlight, matches/lighter, first aid kit, some pots and pans)

Reading of course is always a worthy hobby, and you can pair it with some of the others. (I sometimes joke that the reason I fish is because it sounds better than saying ”I'm going to go off into the woods alone to sit on a bucket by a stream and read a book”)

I also enjoy cooking, trying out new recipes and such.

I've dabbled in a little ham radio. It didn't particularly hold my interest, I liked tinkering with radios and it's cool being able to talk to people far away with your equipment, but that equipment can get really pricey (there are often good deals on used stuff but you need to know where to look for them and be patient) and at the end of the day you can really only talk to other hams, and they mostly fall into 3 main categories.

1. Radio nerds- all they want to talk about is ham radio.
2. Old guys who want to talk about their medical issues.
3. Weird paranoid prepper types.

And since the whole point of radios is to talk to other people, and I don't particularly enjoy the kinds of conversations those people want to have, I never really got too into it.

Hunting.

Got into it via family that hunts, but I live in a part of the country where I'd eventually have slipped into it no matter what.

You never learn as much about nature as when you're out there. And then you never know if you'll be lucky or your prey will be.

Drawing, painting, oil painting, and painting outside is my new "try out" hobby.

My hobby is collecting items for new hobbies, lol. Mostly board games and various arts and crafts (miniature painting, clay sculpting, felting, watercolor, knitting, etc.).

Knitting: I knew a lot of people who did it and I wanted to fit in, plus it was something to do blindly and with my hands.

Mini painting: started from unpainted minis in a board game I bought. I fell out of the habit due to constant blurry vision for a couple years, but now my partner and I have friends who love mini painting so they came over once a month or so and we paint together.

Watercolors: I loved the fun and messy chaos I saw some artists make and wanted to do that. Instead I learned I’m way too much of a “color in the lines” person. But before learning that, I painted a pet portrait for my niece for Christmas and she loved it so much she asked for a new one every year. So a hobby I probably would have totally stopped has continued with at least one painting a year for five years now, and I have to admit I’m pretty good at pet portraits.

Felting: washing my cat’s favorite blanket once produced little felt balls of her fur and one looked like a little creature. I just had to put eyeballs and a tongue on it so I learned the basics of felting.

Clay sculpting: I wanted to make a figure of my then-boyfriend’s favorite LoL character for him. I’ve picked it up again whenever I’ve had a vision but it’s rare.

I had been sort of curious about weightlifting for most of my life. But was kind of intimidated by the prospect. Eventually I set my mind to it and it turns out that learning how to lift a barbell was easier than I imagined. Now I have home powerlifting gym and I've never felt better in my entire life. It's challenging and oh so rewarding, I recommended it to everyone

Reading (it takes the right book), stargazing, fixing things, breaking things when I thought I was fixing them, hiking, sitting on logs, weed/music, biking, dancing. It's mostly stuff I did or was exposed to when I was young. It's all most average skill levels at best. At some point, I realized my time is limited and it could end any moment. I stopped worrying about being maximally productive and stopped worrying about not maximizing skill/avoiding things I'm not good at. Do whatever brings you joy. I've tried to spend less time bumming on my phone since it's so easy and so empty.

I liquidated my investments years ago for a cash need. It's cool to be part of some money-making scheme, but I'd say in total, I don't miss addiction of checking performance of the rollercoaster through the casino. I felt bad when it was red, felt like I didn't bet enough when it's green. It never actually moves fast. Things improved when I limited myself to checking weekly. On average, the line will go up and to the right. I'll feed index funds eventually again, but for now, I'm just holding in a high yield savings.

Playing guitar, cooking and recently started to learn chinese as a challenge to an aging mind.

You could check out this thread for inspiration