Cool Hobbies that Aren't Basic AF
I'm starting to get random friend requests on Call of Duty, which means I'm playing way too much. I'm in need of some cool hobbies. What cool hobbies do you guys have? Ideally hobbies that are more social.
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Golfing and skiiing are great fun, but are also great for networking and being social. Haven’t got to ski much the past few years, but I’ve been golfing tons, both by myself and with friends depending on if schedules line up.
I would second this. For me, these are some of the few things you can do at any age and at any time. You cannot play soccer or football whenever, but you can make a tee time or buy a lift ticket and go with who you want.
Agree 100%. Great way to connect with people regardless of the age of either party
My friends that live near me don’t really golf, but I book tee times by myself all the time and get paired up with randoms pretty often.
Done it dozens of times and only had one kinda bad experience.
Luckily my local course isn’t very active during weekdays so I’m always able to just go and play solo without a tee time during my spares in the school day
Snowboarding, Surfing, Muay Thai, BJJ
420
Yessss
I do Muay Thai, BJJ and some MMA + skiing
I highly recommend some form of combat sports as a hobby
Surfing quickly becomes the only hobby lol
Bartending/knowing your booze. Cool for entertaining friends when they come over too. Just don’t be a snob
Golf, reading books, yoga is great. Especially hot yoga. Also i’ve been getting more into board games like Catan and other strategy ones that you have to think. I make music sometimes but been bad at setting aside time for that. Going to the gym but that’s more of a necessity. I like trying new craft beers and watching 90s foreign movies too. Trying to understand different philosophical concepts and going through rabbit holes on niche intellectual topics on the internet. Get creative with it!
+1 on researching niche intellectual topics and philosophical concepts. So much fascinating information available at our fingertips
What are some of your favorites?
Yeah trying to do the same here. Any suggestions on cool topics that caught your attention?
Yea, I love learning about history and my favorite eras are ancient Greek and Roman. It's basically the building blocks for western civilization and culture so the philosophers that came from there are some of my favorites. Pre-socratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aurelius, Plutarch, etc. Also, went through rabbit holes on the French Revolution and read a book on the history of the silk road which was interesting. I've recently been into the German philosophers but those are harder to understand. Nietzsche is lit but philosophy tends to build on itself so I would honestly go sequentially. The Carthaginian empire is cool too and the Punic wars. Other than that, the existentialists like Camus and Sartre and sick imo but kinda edgy. Definitely would recommend reading The Stranger and The Plague. I like some psychology too like Carl Jung and Freud (even though he's a weirdo). Don't know too much more than that. Bronze Age Collapse is cool to learn about. Same with Caliphates and Mongols. Idk there's a lot but just start digging.
Would not suggest seriously reading any philosophy if you're not interested in changing careers
The title was literally “cool hobbies that aren’t basic AF.”
Keep going it gets better
Skeet shooting
Expensive, frequently looked down upon because you end up getting lumped into "gun culture" even though you're not, and tough to find in NY/NJ because it takes up as much space as golf without the cachet.
I prefer an over & under to a side-by-side, but as long as you don't have a semi-auto you can be my friend.
Long distance rifle shooting is more interesting and less basic.
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Pick up an instrument and try to find friends to jam out with. That’s what I did during university and I miss it.
+1 for skiing and golf though
Hunting (not with a fucking bow, rifles), shooting guns, sailing. Sailing is a bit more expensive though if you want to own your own boat...
Hunting with a spear >
Playing an instrument (guitar gets you the chicks) and skydiving.
What do you like to do? Someone else's idea of a "cool hobby" probably won't appeal to you.
Great question. Maybe I will know once I cycle through a lot of the hobbies on this thread.
Skiing (alpine, BC, Nordic classic, and Nordic skate), mountain biking, hiking, and fly fishing.
+ Fly Tying
Whatever you choose to do, make sure you're there for the client first
Hiking and biking
Snowboarding
Gaming
Being a connoisseur of chocolates
Shooting
worth adding "something other than yourself"
Road bikes if you're in NYC, can do a couple loops in central park and stay fit while getting into it.
Second this. Can also get into the crit scene which is fun.
While this can be a rabbit hole of expenses, racing cars. Don't need to buy something expensive like a Ferrari. Find an older Miata, S2000, or similarly cheap sports car and take them out to a local track and take it for a couple laps.
Racing is a much more niche sport, but if you eventually fall in love with it and end up at events with higher end cars, the networking opportunities are endless.
I'm biased because I love cars, but the people you meet in that hobby are incredibly diverse and occasionally uber successful. I've been everywhere from underground street racing meetups with 1,000 whp corvettes all the way up to getting toured around a multi-billionaire's garage with a one-off prototype of one of the most insane cars you'll ever see along with the rest of his rare/custom collection.
How much $$$ do you think you'd need to set aside a year to buy something raceworthy (e.g. older Miata), maintain it, and do, say, one track day a month?
$10,000? Multiples more?
Sounds super interesting, never thought about buying a beater and hitting a track for a weekend.
I definitely can't give a solid number. It's not the cheapest hobby to have, so you really have to love it. But it also attracts a lot of wealth and isn't quite as niche as polo or sailing.
My best advice is to research the types of cars you'd be interested in. My personal recommendations are the typical early - mid 2000s japanese sports cars. They were mass produced, are reliable, and relatively inexpensive for what you get. You'll still need to fit them with a roll cage and some safety equipment if you're getting really serious.
But you can also just dive into car culture without the racing and still experience all the hobby has to offer. Like I said, I've been to a plethora of events and you just naturally run into people that will lead to more doors opening.
3 examples I've had:
A friend of mine and I were getting a late night snack and a guy pulled up to us and invited us to a random meetup at like 1am (ended up at an underground car meet/street race gathering place. Met some cool people, retired cop with the loudest Camaro I've ever heard, and a guy who was more than happy to talk cars with two 17 year olds about his corvette putting 1500 out at the wheels.
I had seen an ultra rare car driving around my city occasionally and driving home one day, I saw it pulling into a mansion. Took a leap of faith and just went up to his door and rang the doorbell. When he answered, I immediately just asked "Was that you driving the (car brand)?" (It's an extremely rare car and tbh, not sure if anyone could find out his name just by saying it). He was so impressed I knew what it was that he asks "yeah, you wanna come see it?" This man takes me through his 2 garages, each with 2 story bays for storage. He has at least 12 cars, many of which ranged from very rare to one-offs. The collection alone was probably $15 million. Found out through talking that we had a couple of mutual friends and just talked cars for an hour. I was 18, he could have easily just closed the door in my face.
Lastly, I was at a car meet. A guy pulls up in a brand new Ferrari that was only the 2nd in the United States at the time. Just pulls out a lawn chair, lights a cigarette, and chills next to it. I start talking to him after the crowd dies down. The guy struck oil in the 70s and was raking in so much cash that he hasn't worked in decades. He says he just buys and sells brand new exotics every 6 months, or if he gets bored with them.
While exercise is very basic, powerlifting is a cool angle to it imo.
Not sure how you think exercising is basic. There is correct form for each exercise in the gym, and technique for running, swimming, and cycling is very important. Also proper technique in Muay Thai and BJJ is essential. None of these are basic. Nice try though. I think powerlifting (especially deadlifts) can be hazardous.
I’ve been doing triathlons for 5 years now and it’s great. You’re basically focusing on 3 different sports so you have to be super engaged. People think it’s too difficult to accomplish but there are distances that are short and you can complete them in just over an hour.
Great for networking and meeting new people as well.
Now we talking, this is an actual hobby. Can’t hold my laugh when I saw the college dude said he’s into philosophies but haven’t touched Camus.
Nice - what is your 70.3 PR?
I've never signed up for an Ironman, but my Olympic distance PR is 2:33. This year I'm running the NYC Marathon, hopefully after that I can start training for a 2025 70.3. I'll be shooting for a high 4 hours time.
Can second this. Definitely not why I do them, but saying you race Triathlons somehow impresses average blokes far more than competing in other types of events. As you said, they have different distances too. So the training needed for something like a Sprint Tri is actually pretty accessible.
Triathlons will also get you into cycling, which is another good one on this list. When you get older running and swimming become pretty isolating hobbies (do NOT say join run clubs, that is reserved for 30 min 5kers who run every day and are somehow still overweight), but cycling is awesome/ Great networking, great way to enjoy the outdoors, great exercise, etc. Biggest drawback is cost - decent road bike, gear, etc. isn't cheap unless you build your own bike using used parts and you can spend about as much as you want.
IMO Tri training is a bunch of nice complimentary sports, but you still need a good strength training routine both just for general muscle development and physique. So it can get very time consuming if you are wanting to lift and do Tris, especially at Olympic or Iron Man distances.
Backpacking is hard in IB lol, +1 on snowboarding / skiing
Haha, very true. A few years ago I went snowboarding at a spot that has zero cell service (and spotty Wi-Fi in the gear shop), and when I informed my staffer of my upcoming trip, they didn't know how to process the few days of me being "off the grid", so just told me not to die. Was a good trip and didn't catch any flak afterwards, which was nice.
+2 skiing. I also read a ton of Sci-Fi. Typically involves very good writing and punches above its weight philosophically.
Big fan of EDM too. Shows are terribly fun.
But why be so judge-y with calling hobbies “basic”? Let people like what they like.
I generally think of myself as pretty vanilla but thought I'd comment. Age 24; Analyst 2 at LMM PE firm in Midwest/Southern metroplex that has 7-10m people (medium-large city but by no means an NYC, SF, LA)
Tournament Poker (live and online).
Have a pool table in my living room so been playing more
Also gaming
Jogging outside in the winter is next level. Every morning I wake up at 6am to go jogging for an hour before heading to work
Coin collecting - you can get some nice looking ancient coins from Constantine the Great for $30 or Alexander the Great silver sub-$100... or Byzantine/Greek/India/Central Asia/other Roman emperors in the $10-$15 range.
I like to go hiking and camping
Fly fishing, aviation, astronomy
Who cares about what’s “basic” or not.. just do what makes you happy and ideally keeps you energized for the other parts of your life (career, family, etc).
bump
Skiing is awesome but for the love of god don’t do that telemark shit. Golf sucks if you’re not already good, but can be really fun with some practice and patience. Been trying to take back some personal time as of late and getting some cardio and fitness in which has really helped me with mood and general life enjoyment. Never been a big hiker but I hear nice things. I know some people like making stuff, could try getting on a lathe. Shooting shit is always fun too?
Be careful of stuff that will get you hurt, the downside gets a lot worse with age. Buddy of mine just broke his ankle playing soccer and it seems absolutely terrible.
Picking hobbies based on what "isn't basic" is the lamest thing I can imagine.
Spend your free time doing what you genuinely enjoy, not what you think other people will think is cool or unique.
Golf (for all reasons mentioned above). Pool is fun and a good reason to go hang out and drink beer. I think astronomy is really cool and has levels to it. You can go full Niel deGrasse Tyson or just enjoy stargazing/learning constellations.
Not basic and half the responses are gold hahah
Try some raves, if you love music, get a set of Decks to mix some wub wubs
be a pimp
I think that counts as a job, not a hobby.
Besides, pimpin ain't easy.
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