Ask Lemmy

Geocaching

Motorcycle pole-vaulting. On ice!

It's not expensive. But there's a cost.

Perler beads. Spent like $20 for a bunch of colors.

Then made various video game sprites like Mario and Sonic.

What hobbies have you liked in the past or have sounded fun? That helps everyone pick a direction.

Geocaching has been fun for me. Gardening but, I've gone full !nolawns@slrpnk.net lol, lately I've gotten into retro website building in NeoCities.org relearning HTML, CSS and Java script has been fun.

If you have a PC checking the steam sales for cheap games is nice. I just finished my 3rd round of stardew valley.

You can volunteer. If there's a habitat for humanity near you you can even learn new skills.

I was thinking of taking up birdwatching, maybe that?

You could always make extruded incense sticks. You can get started with the spices in your kitchen.

If you live in a city with a parks and recreation department, check out their website for classes and activities.

If it's a sport that requires equipment, such as racquets or bats, loaners are usually available from the department or other participants.

You really won't know what your mind and your body enjoys until you actually try it, so just YOLO random activities, but keep it safe of course. Avoid stuff like highrise roof edge parkour, and you'll be okay.

retro handhelds.

u can start with getting an R36S for like 40 bucks + a 20 dollar sd card from a reputable brand, just make sure to consult the handhelds wiki for trusted sellers so you won't get a clone (almost all of the R36S devices sold are clones that have dogshit hardware and often don't work with a custom OS) and know how to install the OS on new card

it can run nes, snes, all the gameboys, sega genesis, even some ps1, psp and pc ported games. you'll have to get roms to play the games though but it's up to you how you're going to go about that

Astronomy is as cheap as your local observatory's entry fee (and the gas to drive there) (assuming you have a local observatory)

Reading or chess are pretty cheap.

I just want to point out that any hobby you engage in for entertainment without it feeling like a chore is by definition not boring (to you). Personally I couldn't see myself in a situation where I'd be collecting stamps, because I would probably find it very boring. But others enjoy it, so it's a valid un-boring hobby, just not for me.

Zero cost:

• Running
• Yoga
• Bodyweight exercise

Zero cost if you have a library card:

• Reading (fiction)
• Reading (non-fiction)
• Online discussion

Price of pencil and paper:

• Writing (creative)
• Writing (journaling)
• Drawing

Fairly cheap:

• Music (playing)
• Music (listening)
• Painting

Explore your neighborhood

• geocaching
• contributing to open street maps (Street complete)
• photography with your cell phone

May I suggest simple crafting, like whittling, ancient/native pottery, wood carving, paper basket weaving, origami, crochet (or the slightly more addictive and expensive knitting), braiding, weaving, macrame, yarn spinning, decorative knotworking, flower pressing, dyemaking, hand dying, flower arrangement, make walking canes, etc?

Or maybe an instrument? Someone mentioned guitar, but why not harmonica, ukulele, bongos, simple percussives, or why not take up singing, there's typically a choir almost everywhere, or you could try solo, or whistling, or yodeling.

Or maybe take up gardening/growing? In pots, hydroponically, maybe on a growing lot, or someone's yard?

Or take up community projects, like either sanctioned or guerilla gardening, greening, forestry, litter picking, maintaining communal spaces, volunteer, start a community project (pollination diversity, bee keeping, growing lots, food drive, food forestry)

Or take up a cause? Build community, take affirmative action, demonstrate, protest, coordinate, communicate, with an established org, or on your own?

Maybe the outdoors could entice? Take up walking, ornithology, watch bats, discover new insects, take up chabana/ikebana, learn to forage, learn survival skills, go hiking, stack rocks, track animals, learn trapping, get into scouting, make bark boats, learn to skip rocks, climb trees, jump in puddles, pretend (or practice) animistic rituals, feel rain on naked skin, sleep under a bare sky, pick skulls, horns and bones to craft with.

Perhaps create stories, tell stories, write poetry, learn magic, juggle, poi, take up clowning, go swing/country/folk/traditional/ballroom/social dancing, try Butoh, write sketches, join a theatre, start a business, take up decorating, or just embrace whimsy?

I can also warmly recommend trying a new thing every week/month/period and see what sticks and not.

That's very little to go on, so my suggestively is reading.
Very cheap to get into as well as something that's is easy to pickup and let rest. Plenty of free options around too.

There are exactly zero boring hobbies, through the right eyes or right lens.

boring as you use it, is a term which works best when describing a person. Take from that what you will.

Origami. Very cheap to begin with, still cheap when you're deep into it. Unless you got so deep that you're travelling the world to go to conventions but that's another story, the biggest expense is buying books once you decide to have them physically.

Don't use printer paper, kraft paper is cheap and works perfectly. Only down side is having to cut it.

Electric drum kit is fun, cathartic, and quiet outside your headphones. Chilis are easy to grow, and they certainly entertain the mouth. Running saved my life. Tennis balls from the machine launcher. Rock wall. Skateboard. People love pickleball, but you need friends. Darts. 3D printer. Electric piano. Cooking class you can meet a girl, cook for her, get back rubs. Singing lessons. Fetish exploration. You got this.

Cycling: Get a bicycle and start exploring your area. It doesn't need to be a nice bike; check garage sales and Craigslist and get whatever fits comfortably. Wander off your usual routes and you will encounter new corners of your town that you never knew existed.

Music: Pick up a used acoustic guitar, electric keyboard, banjo, or whatever you can find. The world is full of inexpensive books and free YouTube videos to teach new students.

Drawing: Make doodles, little comics, or sketches of whatever is around you. A pencil and paper are all you need. Look up YouTube videos for daily sketching practice exercises.

Amateur radio: An entry-level license involves a basic quiz and a nominal fee. Cheap radios can be had for less than US$100. If you meet an old timer with a garage full of gear they might hand you a pile of old equipment for free.

Of course, any of these can become expensive and time-consuming hobbies if you go down the rabbit hole. But that just means you have found something you love.

While you’re against boring, have you considered whittling?

Reading. You got a library near you? Great, you're set. You don't have a library near you? E-books.

Bird-watching or star-gazing or both. A pair of binoculars is all you really need for either. You can print some stuff off online if you wanna get fancier with it.

If you have a mediocre PC there are a ton of non-graphically intensive cheap indie games on steam. Rimworld is $30. Stuff like VR Chat is free.

So here's the problem: you can't adopt someone else's hobby, and find it interesting by proxy. Any activity (not just hobbies) can only be "not boring" if you yourself are actively interested in it for its own sake, not just as a time sink. Your attention and investment in the activity is what makes it interesting and engaging. You get out of it what you put into it. Low-energy, low-investment time sinks are entertainments, not hobbies. Play some video games, no shame in that, it's relaxing, inexpensive, easy to start and you can pick it up and put it down whenever.

To really give you an answer on a hobby, we need to know about what you're interested in. Hobbies are about developing some kind of skill, for your own benefit and growth as a person (probably not financial benefit). Hobbies are about exercising your personal passions on your own terms, with no obligations except those which you set for yourself. What kinds of skills do you have as a starting point, and what do you wish you had? What kinds of activities do you enjoy doing? What kinds of activities do you actually make time in your life to do, on your own, regardless of whether other people are involved?

thanks guys )

If it doesn't have to be social, you could try programming. It's easy to start and the satisfaction of having built something is an welcome extra

Painting. Can be done for relatively cheap and scales up to a lot.

Birdwatching. If you have a smartphone you can get the merlin app and start from there. Collect 'em all like pokemon.

Photography. Really helps you see everything with a new perspective. Learn natural scapes, urban scapes. Interesting people. Flowers, Social activism documenting homeless, or cool or interesting people if you live in an urban freakshow. You can make the ordinary extraordinary.

Honestly, photography.

You probably already have a smartphone with a decent camera.

Start experimenting with framing, focusing, and other settings.

You can get some great photos with a smartphone

Learn a language. This basically morphs into other hobbies, like reading or listening to stuff. But it's gratifying.

Video games - but a little different from other suggestions, get really deep into a game. Learning to play some games is a hobby in itself. Speedrun your favorite, get into your local fighting game scene or play Fightcade, get Slippi and play Melee online, go for high scores in some shmups, competitive Tetris or Puyo Puyo. Etc etc (Though re-reading op, I guess a lot of these may have unreasonable learning curves)

Needle felting. Like ten bucks for some needles, some wool, and a sponge. It's a no-skill-required art form that consists entirely of stabbing.