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?
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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.
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I’m also a mid-30s dude and I can honestly say cooking and baking has probably been the best skill I have. I bake stuff for my coworkers every now and then and it’s always a good time. And cooking a nice meal from scratch for a girl always impresses.
Gardening is always a safe “goto”
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.
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
Never too old to learn a musical instrument. You can pick up an acoustic guitar for cheap at a pawn shop.
Learning how to code is a good one that can be done either free or very cheaply and doesn’t require a lot of computing power when starting out. All you need is a text editor and Google.
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.
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
Running. You can do it everywhere, and almost every time.
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.
I agree with many here about finding some sort of exercise, it’s especially beneficial as we age. Cooking is another great one that was mentioned, and it goes hand in hand with staying healthy along with exercising.
One I didn’t see mentioned was Lego. Fair warning, it can get very expensive, but I found it very relaxing to build something with my hands. Plus, you can just turn off your brain for a bit and it feels great to admire a build after you’ve completed it.
I started building sets for things I was interested in, like Star Wars, and would watch the movies while building or put on an audiobook.
There are great lego alternatives which have much more reasonable pricing like bluebrixx and CaDa.
Indeed, I own several of these sets, and it still gets expensive haha.
Depends on whether you’d prefer outdoorsy or indoorsy, and also what things you already are into to balance things out a little, maybe? But have not seen gardening mentioned yet, whether you attack an allotment, or plant some discarded salads/spring onions on a window sill. Always rewarding to munch on something home-grown!
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 love volleyball. And hackey sack. I’m in my 30s. I started shooting hoops a little bit too. I’ve always been athletic, but got out of the groove, and while my knees don’t like it, it’s super worthwhile, especially if it’s team oriented.
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.
