15 Best Hobbies You Can Do Alone
What are the best hobbies for introverts?
If you prefer solitude, like I do, you engage with the world in fundamentally different ways than more extroverted and social personalities. Introvert personalities tend to focus on our own ideas, and feel recharged with energy by spending time on our own.
The best hobbies for introverts:
challenge our internal motivation
stimulate our creativity
provide an outlet for our often higher levels of intelligence and curiosity
…and don’t require too much interaction with other people.
The key aspect of being an introvert is that we are “Internally referenced”. We crave time alone, or in small groups. In fact we usually feel we NEED that solo time to recharge and think. However, time on your own shouldn’t mean sitting in a dark room with the curtains drawn.
Invest your time in hobbies that provide the satisfaction of mastering an interesting new skill. Learning new skills keeps you sharp, engaged, and utilizes brain power to satisfy needs that externally referenced people typically meet through social interaction.
Cooking
Cost to start: a little as free- hundreds or thousands in high quality knives, spices, and cookware
Commitment: Small. You buy food anyway
Interaction with others: Zero
You have to eat every day. Rather than turning eating into just another chore, you can enjoy the time by becoming passionate about preparing meals. Cooking is an excellent hobby for a loner: it’s creative, provides an observable result, that you can enjoy alone or share with one or two others, if you want.
Blogs, Youtube videos, Pinterest, and print cookbooks are excellent ways to learn about any cuisine you want. Once you master Indian, you can venture into Thai, Chinese, vegan, paleo, the list is endless.
There are hacks to discover and new techniques to master. This is exciting enough to hold any introvert’s interest.
Best of all, after putting in the work, you have the pleasure of savoring your creations. You can invite someone over to enjoy your efforts and enhance a friendship, or deepen relationships at work by bringing a dish into the office.
Cooking at home instead of eating out is the number one way to save money, and eat healthier meals, as restaurant food is often 3- 5 times more expensive per serving, and most times laden with copious amounts of butter and salt. (That’s secret to why restaurant food seems to taste so much better than the same food at home.)
What you will need: cookware, knives, cooking utensils, dishes, basic spices, ingredients, plastic containers for leftovers, internet access for Youtube, Pinterest, cooking blogs, cookbooks (can be borrowed from library)
Writing
Cost to start: Free. Start with a notebook or Google Docs
Commitment: None
Interaction with others: None necessary. If you get really interested in it, you can join writing groups. If you write poetry and want to perform, start going to open mic events to share your work and meet like minded people.
Loners tend to have a small group friends, if any, and shy away from large social groups. As such, you may not have someone to share your emotions with when life gets challenging. Even the highlights of life, like a new job or some other exciting development is better when shared. If you don’t have anyone to share your thoughts with, writing is the perfect outlet for those feelings.
Your writing can be in the form of a personal journal, poetry, or fictional stories about knights, superheroes, and dragons. It’s a fulfilling, enriching way to get your emotions out of your head and into the world.
If your writing can help people, like I’m trying to do with this blog, you also get the satisfaction of knowing you are helping others with your words.
What you will need: notebook, pens, laptop, writing app installed on phone
Chess
Cost to get started: Free, with a chess app on your phone. A nice chess set can start at $25
Commitment: None
Interaction with others: None necessary. You can learn chess online for free. You can join a chess club or play others online via phone apps
You can enjoy this challenging game in person, or use apps on your phone to play against the computer, or other people from around the world.
Chess is endlessly challenging. Once you have one level mastered, you ascend to another level and find yourself just as flummoxed as you felt the first time you ever sat in front of a chessboard. There are so many different strategies to learn and try. Chess also stimulates the problem solving areas of your brain, and can improve your performance at work, and in other areas of your life that require strategy and deep thinking.
What you will need: physical chess game, app for smartphone or computer
Playing an instrument
Cost to get started: $50- 100 for a second hand, entry level instrument- thousands
Commitment: None
Interaction with others: None necessary. Small if you choose to take group or private lessons
I took up guitar about ten years ago. I’d been banging on a plastic guitar in Rock Band for PS3, and wanted to try my hand at the real thing. Learning an instrument can be frustrating, when you practice a lick dozens of times to get it right. It can also feel peaceful, exciting, and a fun way to be creative, when you finally nail a complicated riff you’ve been trying to master.
There are an endless amount of free tutorials online, but I had the most success by paying for a course on Udemy.com. Unless you are a savant, I recommend taking some sort of lesson, either online or in person.
I keep a guitar in my living room, and it’s an easy way to impress guests by doing a little strumming. An impromptu sing-along is always fun as well.
Music is perfect for introverts/ loners for being a conduit for the emotions we tend to keep bottled inside.
What you will need: instrument (can be expensive new, or cheaper secondhand), Youtube, blogs, private lessons, online lessons, tuner
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Gaming
Cost to get started: a few hundred bucks for a used console and a few games, to thousands for a custom gaming PC
Commitment: none
Interaction with others: None, or a lot, via multiplayer online games
You probably already know the allure of online gaming on the introvert personality. Online gaming presents challenge, triumph, adventure, engaging stories, the opportunity to create and build friendships with other players online.
Can potentially be an expensive hobby to get into. A gaming console can start at a couple hundred, up to a gaming PC in the thousands. New games can start at $60, but used are a lot cheaper.
Working on cars
Cost to get started: $50 for a few basic tools
Commitment: Moderate, for the investment of time and space
Interaction with others: None necessary
I needed to work on my own car, also out of necessity of avoiding expense repairs, and realized I enjoyed it. I started with repairing a flat tire. I had to teach myself with a Youtube search and just figuring it out. I moved on to changing my own oil, replacing an alternator in an old pickup truck, and even more extensive engine repairs.
It’s satisfying to get under a car, diagnose the problem, and use elbow grease and tenacity to replace faulty parts. A lot of people, even men, are intimidated by auto mechanics, and won’t attempt to fix even small problems on their cars. It’s well worth the effort to get acquainted with the workings of your car, both for the sense of accomplishment and self-sufficiency, and the money you can save. Before I knew better, I’d paid upwards of $60 for a simple oil and filter change, a job that can done in 15 minutes with a few simple tools.
What you will need: A Haynes manual for the make and model of your car (about $40), and basic socket set (about $50), simple hand tools
Weight training
Cost to get started: fitness club membership $25- $50+/ month
Commitment: length of contract at a local gym
Interaction with others: Moderate, other lifters in the gym, health club staff, personal trainers if you choose to use one
Along with running, which appears further down in this list, weight training, or any kind of physical pursuit is the Number One activity I recommend as a hobby for someone who likes to be alone. Double if you are experiencing loneliness or depression.
The benefits of weight training on your physical body are plentiful: it stimulates the production of feel good chemicals in your body, strengthens your bones, can boost your immune system, improve your posture, and stave off the degenerative effects of the aging process.
Mentally, weight training has improved my confidence, enhanced my self-image, and provided me the satisfaction of setting and accomplishing goals.
“Building muscle builds you up in every part of your life. What you learn here will affect everything else that you do in your life. As you witness the fruits of your labor, your self-worth and self-confidence improve, and these traits color your work and interpersonal relationships.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
My local gym has become a “third place”, where I’ve established friendships with guys from all walks of life. I wouldn’t even have met some of my gym buddies anywhere else: college students, high school wrestlers, married fathers, etc. Inside the gym, we’re brothers in arms. We joke, tease, offer each other training tips, and commiserate about work, school, and relationships.
It’s been satisfying to watch my stature transform from skinny fat to toned and muscular. People respond to you differently when you are fit and strong. 10/ 10 recommend for anyone physically able.
Things You Will Need: gym membership, or home gym equipment. Gloves, water bottle, comfortable clothes
Muay Thai
Cost to get started: $30- 50 for basic gear. Gym membership varies by area.
Commitment: Length of gym membership, or class
Interaction with others: A lot, other trainees, instructor, club staff
I’ve written a lot about muay Thai already on this blog. I was introduced to this ancient, and beautiful martial art by my friend and co-worker who was an instructor at a local dojo. He invited me to a class at the perfect time in my life. I was going through an emotionally taxing break up. Muay Thai provided a focus for all the energy and time I had on my hands after leaving my relationship.
I fell in love with the sport, and it provided a foundation for building a new single life.
Muay Thai is, first of all, extremely fun. If you enjoy learning new things, it’s a vast wonderland of techniques: punches, kicks, foot movement, balance, power, and more. The art is steeped in thousands of years of tradition. I made friendships, toned my body, sharpened my mind, and crafted my hands into weapons. See my post “Why Every Man Needs Muay Thai”.
What you will need: boxing gloves, mouth guard, shorts, water bottle.
Start a blog or youtube channel
Cost to get started:
Commitment:
Interaction with others:
Running
Cost to get started: Zero, you can run bare feet
Commitment: 2- 3 times per week
Interaction with others: None necessary. You can meet other runners through local track clubs and races
Any kind of physical activity, is highly recommended as a great hobby for loners, especially if you experience bouts of depression. (This isn’t medical advice. See your doctor.)
Everyone has heard of “runner’s high”, which Roadrunnersports.com defined as “the feeling of pure elation, reduced stress, and a decreased ability to feel pain due to a flood of endorphins released by exercise”. Endorphins being a “naturally occuring opioid that acts a lot like morphine when released in your brain”. Sounds good, right?
In order to most effectively trigger the release of these self-induced happy drugs in your brain, follow these steps:
Push yourself to run at 70- 85% of your max intensity
Run regularly
Add intervals
Get enough sleep
It’s also nearly free to start, and besides making you feel amazing (when you’re done) has a long list of other health benefits. According to research cited in this article by Runner’s World, running “can help prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, some cancers”.
Download a smartphone app like Nike Run Club to track your run time, pace, and progress.
For best results, schedule yourself for a 5K or 10K a few weeks out, depending on your current fitness level. This puts a concrete goal in front of you, providing more motivation than just an empty intention to go running someday.
Reading
Cost to get started: Free with a library card.
Commitment: None
Interaction with others: None, unless you join a book club
For most self identified loners or introverts, I don’t have to suggest this as a hobby. Many of us grew up getting lost in our favorite books, transported to Medieval castles, Wild West expeditions, pirate ships, and more.
I LOVED to read as a kid, and still do. My mother read to her pregnant belly while I was still in utero, then consistently after I was born. I was reading on my own by the time I was three. My favorite books were of American Western frontiersmen: Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Sacajawea, Lewis and Clark. As a child growing up in the humid swampland outside New Orleans, Louisiana, I was captivated by images of the American West. I moved to Arizona as soon as I could, at age 20, and have lived in Nevada and Utah since then, fulfilling my childhood dreams.
That’s the power of reading. I learned about, and fell in love with wild places before ever seeing them, because I read about them in books.
Today, I’m obsessed with self-development, reading stacks of tomes about Neuro Linguistic Programming, motivation, relationship dynamics, and social skills. I could have spent a mortgage learning these things in an American college. With a library card and a Kindle app, I’m able to absorb these ideas at a fraction of the cost.
It’s possible to expand your vocabulary, challenge your viewpoints, educate yourself, and radically change your life through the things you can learn in books. If you’re not an avid reader already, this is a top hobby I recommend for loners.
Cycling
Cost to get started: a few hundred dollars for a used bike, and a helmet
Commitment: None
Interaction with others: Other cyclists, if you’re so inclined
I got into fixed gear cycling a few summers ago. It’s great exercise, low impact, and a fun way to explore a city. When I cycle down roads that I usually drive, I’m surprised at how many things I notice that I didn’t before.
Cycling allows you to cover much more ground than walking, at a more interesting pace. It brings the streets down to a human level.
A reliable bike can be had for a few hundred dollars from a garage sale or secondhand site online. If you’re not knowledgeable about bikes, take it into a bike shop to have a mechanic check it over. Make sure you get a helmet, reflectors, and lights.
Get a dog
Cost to get started: Adoption fees or free from someone looking to re-home a dog they can’t keep
Commitment: 10- 15 years +. A pet is a serious commitment, probably second only to having a child
Interaction with others: None necessary, however walking a dog will get you out of the house, and more people will talk to you if you have a cute pup
Adopting a dog is a huge commitment of time, energy, and money, second only to having a human child in it’s level of emotional dedication. You should thoroughly consider if you have the space and time in your life for a pet. If you do, it will increase your physical activity, emotional health, and amount of cute selfies you post to your social media.
A new dog requires hours of training, walks, and attention in the form of petting and treats around the house. As a bond develops between you are your pet, tasks that are regarded as daily chores will become the highlight of your day.
Most dog breeds require a daily walk, which will get you out of the house, and exploring the streets and parks of your neighborhood. People also love to pet friendly dogs, increasing the social interaction with other residents of your area.
Take an online course
Cost to get started: Free- thousands
Commitment: Length of the course, several weeks or months. Many courses are self directed
Interaction with others: Possibly some interaction in online forums
My favorite thing about the internet age is that we now have the ability to learn absolutely anything in the universe, in the comfort of our own homes, many times for free.
I’m old enough to remember the bookshelves of heavy leather bound encyclopedias. As a kid, when I felt curious about something, I had to pull out a dusty book, flip through the pages, and find the short article on the topic of my interest. If I was still intrigued, I had to beg my mother to drive me to the local library, hope they had a good book on the subject. If it was already checked out, sometimes waited weeks to be able to read it. The 90s were a dark time.
These days, I can learn an exhaustive amount on anyone and anything, with a device already in my pocket.
Of course, there are YouTube videos, blog posts, and articles online. If you’re really interested in a deep dive on a particular subject, I suggest taking an online course through sites like Coursera and Udemy.
A course that has already been designed will present each of the topics in a structured, orderly manner. Many course come with additional resources such as downloadable guides and PDFs that aren’t available other places. Also, research has proven that people are more invested in online courses when they pay for the information.
This year, I’ve taken courses in programming, blogging, and acoustic guitar. I love immersing myself in mastering a skill, and coming out the other end with new expertise.
The feeling is addictive, especially with sites like Udemy that offer so many high quality courses on any topic imaginable.