When someone asked me recently what I’m into I didn’t have answers. Existential crisis aside, what are some good hobbies/interests for someone in their mid thirties to pick up?
Cooking, Painting, Woodworking, learn an instrument, read more, write more.
Play a lifetime sport like golf or disc golf or softball.
Hike and learn more about nature.Fish, Forage, Hunt or just take up shooting in general.
Craft stuff. Knit, Crochet, Sew.
Build a computer or a virtual pinball machine and play all the amazing games made over the last 30 something years.
Run, Bike, Skate, Row, Swim, move!
Do you like beer? Is is legal to home brew in your country? If both are yes, brew beer.
It’s easy, it’s delicious, it gets cheap quickly especially compared to most microbreweries, you’ll always have a brew to share with friends without having to run to the store.
Always brew with friends. You can drink beer and have fun on brew days. It’s much easier when there are 2-3 people around to lift stuff. You can delegate responsibilities. Share the cost of ingredients and the resulting beer. You can even “associate” and buy the hardware together. Trust me, you will never run out of volunteers.
Go all grain from the start instead of going extract. Start with something simple with as few ingredients as possible like a stout or a pale ale to get the feel for it. Then brew more complicated but tried and true recipes. Then you can start and go crazy with your own recipes.
And if anything goes off plan, RDWHAHB. Relax, don’t worry, have a home brew. It’s hard to make a truly exceptional beer, but if you follow most basic principles it’s even harder to fuck up so badly that you brew something truly undrinkable.
Pick up an instrument. Start writing. Gardening. I’m just naming what I like to do. My s.o. does leather work and gardening.
Music is my most fulfilling thing. Bit I love writing so much. Gardening just keeps me busy and I work out while I do it usually. The gardening I just started in my 30s.
I’m sort of still figuring out how to be a real person, yknow.
Probably some of these mentioned already:
- Cooking more instead of buying pre-made
- Learning some basic home maintenance like plumbing, keeping appliances cleaned, simple electrical stuff, etc
- Growing some small veggies
- Prepping for disaster - different time frames and scenarios like: fire, no power, poor air quality, floods, data loss, having to leave in a hurry
- Simple exercise and stretching routine
Give golf a try. I am personally addicted. It’s a nice activity that gets you outside.
Disc golf. Most cities of moderate size have a course somewhere around and most are free to use. Can get started with 1 disc, about 10 to 12 dollars for a putter, all you’d need to start, or get a starter set of 3 discs for about 30 to 40 bucks at most sporting goods stores.
I’ve been addicted to disc golf for a decade, and while I’m still not very good, I still enjoy every single round so much.
There’s so much benefit to squeeze out of the sport:
- hiking
- humility
- healthy competitive spirit
- self control
- decision making
- sight seeing
Disc golf changed my life, and I hope others find their way to it too
I recommend trying some new sports. Check out community centre drop ins or beginner leagues. It is a great way to get some exercise and meet people.
I just started playing volleyball in my late 30s. I never played a lot of sports as a kid, and being short, this was a weird choice. I was really intimidated at first because it has a fairly high skill point of entry, so I just started passing to myself and serving a wall in a park during covid to get some exercise. Eventually I found a drop in at a local community centre and despite being the worst one there by far, the community was really welcoming and I kept at it. I’ve made a bunch of new friends in the community and l absolutely love sports now.
I really like this idea both for it’s practically (I live next to a large climbing gym) and for it’s physical benefits. However, I’m pretty afraid of heights. So it’ll depend on how willing I am to confront that fear.
If they have a bouldering section, that can be good way to get used to the movements without really getting high off the ground!
Really anything can be a hobby, but I’ll be a shill for my own hobbies real fast: playing guitar, hiking, writing, reptiles/snakes, tea, and tabletop games.
Weight lifting. As your body ages retaining muscle mass gets harder, and more important. Develop the habit now so you’re not trying to pick up weight lifting in your 60s when the doctors tell you to start.
This one so much. I started lifting 3-4 years ago. It made the single largest improvement to my overall life quality of anything else I’ve ever done. The benefits are massive, impossible to overstate them.
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Great list. I do have to pop in and say though, amateur mushroom foraging is a ludicrously deadly hobby. I’d advise against that for most people. A mushroom that’s tasty and a mushroom that kills you dead in minutes sometimes look extremely very much the same.
Now granted most people aren’t likely to stumble across a ring of Death Caps in their local innawoods, but still, fungi are to be respected and generally not fucked with. Some of those Gi’s are not as Fun as they’d like you to think, and trained and true mycologists have been killed by misidentification.
Photography is a good one. There’s so many directions to take with it. It’s easy to share with other people digitally these days, and has never been more accessible since practically everyone has a pretty good camera on their phone. You can do landscapes, animals, macro nature, miniature scenes, food, old signs, buildings, all sorts of specialties within those and more.
You wanna get poor? Cause photography will inevitably lead you to a point where you start justifying spending thousands of dollars for a piece of glass to make a difference in your photos nobody but yourself will notice. I heard.
Sure, if you’re into analog photography or developing prints with chemicals or something. Digital photos with your phone isn’t going to cost anything.
Edit: I guess I read this wrong; you mean glass to set up a scene? Or a special lens?
Film photography can still be pretty cheap compared to digital. Any prime 50mm-ish from the last 70 years will be at least decent to great, any manual camera from the last 50 years is will be good if working. A lot of East-Asian and Eastern European bodies and lenses from the 70’-90’don’t hold much value but a lot are very competent workhorses. A lot of (especially Japanese) “basic” lenses like the SMC Taks, most Canons and Nikons have gotten very expensive tho because nowadays people can easily adapt them to any MILC for that “vintage” look.
Go black and white, buy a bottle of Rodinal (or any clone) and a film tank. They will both last forever.
Good b&w film like Ilford FP4+ is getting expensive tho, but you can still burn through 50 rolls before reaching the price of a decent, entry level cropped frame DSLR or MILC. Double or triple that if you want a full frame digital camera.
Plus, a full manual setup is an amazing learning tool, and having only 36 shots per roll force you to stop and think before shooting anything.
Only potential problem is that scanning negatives can be tricky without buying a film scanner.
Sounds like fun! Overall though it has to cost more than using your phone and not having to buy film, paper or chemicals, I’d think. Not that there’s anything wrong with spending a bit of money on an interest.
I learned a bit of woodworking recently. You can go totally stupid on it like I did and drop a thousand dollars on tools you’ll only sometimes use, or you can grab a hammer and a saw and start making stuff the long way around. It’s kind of a trade-off of convenience versus expense in that way, but I enjoy making stuff.
Came in handy this spring when my front stairs collapsed. I probably saved ten grand at least for being able to DIY that.
I second woodworking. You can absolutely spend a shitton of money on tools, but you really don’t have to. Start with a cordless drill and a circular saw. Then a plunge router. Then a table saw. If you’re looking to build furniture, get a planer, then a jointer eventually. Bandsaws are nice, but a jigsaw is a better beginner purchase for curves.
Get stuff used off FB marketplace, craigslist, OfferUp, or auctions. Estate sales are fantastic for used tools, I got a shaper with about $2k worth of tooling for $40. Most of my tools are from marketplace or auctions. New, they’d easily be over 10 grand, but I’ve spent maybe $2.5k total over five years of slowly accumulating stuff.
Resist the pressure to build stuff to sell. Everyone around you will push you to monetize your hobby, but you don’t have to. It’s ok to spend money to help you do something you enjoy. (If you want to sell things, great, but don’t do it just because people say you should. It really sucks the fun out of it)
For the shaper, did you get that at auction? Are these like eBay auctions you’re taking about?
Yes, got it at an auction. Not ebay auctions (although I guess you can, but then you’re on the hook for shipping), search for auctions or estate sales in your area. Typically, my area has a couple a month across a few sites.
Go rock climbing! It’s a great workout and the people around are the most chill people ever!
I second this, it even got a little addictive for me at one point.
Motorcycling. You’re old enough to not do the stupid shit that gets young riders killed.
Take the MSF’s beginner course (or your country’s equivalent), spend more on your helmet, jacket and gloves than you do your first bike, and have fun. Spend as much on your helmet as you think your brain is worth.
Remember, you’ll drop your bike, so start with a cheap used one. After a year (or less) with it you’ll have a better idea of what kind of riding you like, and that will inform your choice of second bike.
You’ll drop that one too, by the way. Don’t sweat it. Maybe buy spare brake and clutch levers.
Find a local moto community. Maybe get an intro to the Denizens of Doom. Heck, even a Facebook group can do the trick. You’ll meet new people and make new friends, while learning from people who’ve been riding for decades.
If you survive your first year (you will), you’ll also have become a far better car driver. Riding without a safety cage around you does wonders for situational awareness and risk awareness.
Last note: the car drivers are trying to kill you. They may not realize this, but you should. You’re invisible to them. Ride with a healthy dose of paranoia. But smile. You’re having fun.
I’m absolutely interested in getting a motorcycle and have been for a while. I want one pretty much only to cruise around town or other small trips. My wife has absolutely shut that down lol.
Well, that sucks. But I’m not going to tell you to pick a hobby over the woman you love. There are plenty of other things you can do that won’t scare the pants off her. :)
I have kids so her worries aren’t illogical. Whatcha gonna do
Different people have different risk tolerances. I have two kids. My spouse cares that I wear proper protective gear (and so do I!) but otherwise doesn’t try to restrict me. That said I have rather less time with kids than I did before we had 'em. :)
