What are /r/Hobbies' favorite Products & Services?

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I remember years ago they used to have these kits at hobby lobby where you could build structures, complete with little scale lumber and stone, stuff like that. Basically was the building version of a car model kit. There is also the LEGO Architecture series, which are a lot of fun. They released an Empire State Building one somewhat recently I think.

This is the closest thing I could find to the model structures I mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/Aedes-German-House-Model-Multi-Color/dp/B0088RUP20?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_8

Have you considered sketching/drawing? If you put in just 30-60 minutes a day it is very rewarding to see how quickly you can improve. I like the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain; it teaches an observational approach that can be applied to any subject. There are loads of online tutorials as well, I like the Human Anatomy Fundamentals series by Joumana Medlej.

Also, I wish I'd learned cooking skills sooner. It's something useful to use your life long! Aligned with this, you could start an indoor or outdoor herb/vegetable garden. There would be an upfront cost but it would be offset by your reduced grocery bill :p

You mention you are interested in psychology, criminology, philosophy, and politics. It might be fun to add some diversity to your learning schedule by taking a free online class on one of those subjects! There are a plethora of video resources online, I love to listen to them on my commute.

What about taking up an exercise routine? I'm not sure if it counts as an official hobby, but it's great for improved energy, deeper sleep, better metabolism, and increased endorphins. You are your own gym! You could take up running or body weight circuits. There are loads of fun online resources to use. While running, I like to use the app Zombies Run. It has hours of narrated plot that intermixes with your music.

Lastly, I'd suggest you keep an eye out for hobby opportunities opening up during your stay! You never know what doors will open up for you :) Enjoy your time in Germany, it sounds like a very exciting and rewarding opportunity!

I make Linux virtual machines. There's a couple hundred distros that are active, so there's plenty of stuff to learn and play with. I also read about different anti-malware products and see how they're doing.

There used to be a device that sucked the solder off. It had a plunger button that you clicked down and an end with a small tube. You hold the device like a pencil or another soldering iron. When the solder pools after heating you click the button on the device and it sucks the solder off. It was a pretty ingenious device if it still exists.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002KRAAG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_NVH2F8JQY6DFCNQ9D5ZD

Found one

As a Horticulturist, I enjoy going to a local arboretum or just nature and looking at plants and trying to identify them. You may want to pick up a copy of Western Garden Book (Amazon has used ones for like $5"

https://www.amazon.com/Western-Garden-Book-Climate-Experts/dp/0376039167

Is there a Meet-Up (meetup.com) for that area? I'd give that a go. You might find something very specific, and if you don't find it you can create it. You never know how many other people are looking for that exact thing.

Adult coloring book.

Think Inspirational quotes in cute font. If you do it right it can look like a work of art. Example

Secret Hitler works kind of like a one night werewolf game.

If you have 5-7 players the game is amazing, but fun at any #.

I had never played dnd before and on a whim bought stuff for it to play with friends.

It feels daunting I agree. But best advice I can give is buy a player handbook, and read.

You can even get starter sets for like 20 dollars. Pick a person to be the dm, and they read everything. Then once you’ve got rules figured out just play a game. You don’t need miniatures, or maps. Although they do boost the immersion.

Here’s a starter set if you’re interested!

Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit (D&D Boxed Set) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786966831/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_cpl3Fb1X50VQX

We built a big fire on the Fourth of July and I bought these. Pretty cool. I’m by myself right now working on getting this rotted wood and brush but I use it when the kids and grand kids are down

Magical Flames Vibrant & Colorful Flames for Wood Burning Fires (50 Pack) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DO62KEA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_T2XPFb4ACGWTY

I've seen kits sold on amazon like -

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Calligraphy-Starter-Beginners-Instruction/dp/B00A9I0AHG

That provide really cheap practice pens/inks along with really well written guides and practices. I used to do them, but never put in enough time to learn. It's an awesome hobby.

I was literally just on amazon looking for woodworking tools. Ive wanted to do it for a while to, but you can buy this cheap carving tool and start small with little blocks of wood or even practice on fruits. COMIART Precision Hobby Cutting Caving Knife Sculpture Tool https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D8T0OWS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_sI85zbR9203YH

Podcasts (if that counts), reading, smoking weed, meditating, and running are also good hobbies i think.

“Murder mystery” kits sold on Amazon. You’ll have to google around for them but they are basically interactive puzzles with clues and you try to solve the case by examining fake evidence. You can do it alone or with a friend.

Here’s an example detective mystery kit

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01N5NKSQ3/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_iIswFb50AMC92

If you have a Michaels or Joanne's around you, they usually have decent kits in the $25 range. I like the speedball pens too. I prefer the pens with cartridges over markers or jars of ink, but you can usually get markers pretty cheap to try out. I think the most important piece is a good book with different styles of writing.

I use a Sony a6500 and a Canon 100mm 2.8L Macro lens for most of my shots. That focal length makes me not have to make such a huge background or diorama. Occasionally, i’ll use a 50mm, but my 50mm lens just isn’t that great.

The explosions are puffs of air in dirt or sand, sometimes accompanied by smoke. I use one of these things that is designed to unclog drains to stir up the dirt. Or a can of compressed air.

BAAM! BAAMHP Drain Cleaner, 1... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HPMPPWY?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

A lot of local places near me have social game nights with games that are a lot less daunting than stuff like DnD and Warhammer. Board game/card shops put these on frequently, there are a lot of board game cafe's popping up around most cities, and meetup.com also is a good outlet to find these. You can find a huge variety of different games. I used to play Settlers of Catan with a group every week and its a super simple game which I could play every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. Just in case you needed a suggestion to start ;)

Thank you so much for your kind words 😊. I actually did make a website about them and I do sell them on Amazon. I plan on making more. I didn’t want to add that in the post and it get deleted right away if it’s against the rules. My Amazon link is My First Coloring Cookbook if you’d like to check it out 😊

Thanks for all the info! Found out after asking that they dont ship to Canada. Looks like I either have to order a Brute from the US or one of These off brands.

Paint by Numbers, Night Venice Paint by Numbers Kits for Adults Kids Beginners 40 x 50 cm Romantic City Light Adults Paint by Numbers with Paintbrushes DIY Painting for Home Decoration Without Frame https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08QD2PK7G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_SM3S7AX17DTMB6ZF6BB4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

i just started my path into radio controlled quadcopters, you know, drones. it is amazing what technology is packed into something like this for under twenty bucks.....

http://www.gearbest.com/rc-quadcopters/pp_230472.html

when i ordered it from china, with free shipping, i added some spare props, multi battery charger and five spare batteries all for under thirty five bucks.

this tiny thing will fly indoors and outside without a lot of wind although flying indoors, in confined space takes some doing.

it's an easy thing to just turn it on and fly but the learning curve isn't terrible and in not too much time you will in fact be flying one of these.

from there the possibilities are almost limitless....actually, the sky's the limit.

I would also recommend looking at [Roll20](https://roll20.net/) web based GMing service to coordinate games. It's a neat looking service.

I have a lot of downtime at work and would love to get into something like this but I can't afford to buy all the books to learn the game right now.

I described my approach to planning and implementing personal DIY projects in the article. I also briefly described my projects in this article. Hope this will be helpful...

The official geocaching website is the central hub for the hobby - forums, creation of a profile, and even finding caches through there. I'd highly recommend either the official app or one of the third-party ones (there are plenty with differing styles and features), you basically pull it up and it's like Google Maps but with caches instead of restaurants, etc. The location markers for each cache are typically within 30 ft. of the cache's location and you go from there finding it. If you have any doubts about how it all works I looked at YouTube videos from the geocaching community when I first started.

> Question- How regularly do you have to commit to an activity for it to be considered a hobby?

However much time you feel like giving it. It's your free time, and how much of it you spend is entirely up to you. Hobbies are usually fun things that don't consume your life.

It seems like geocaching might be up your alley. Think of it like treasure hunting of sorts. It can be mentally stimulating, involves some physical activity and shouldn't require much start-up costs. In fact, if you already have a smartphone you can get free apps that can get you going.

Somewhat along the lines of knitting, you could look at braiding in various mediums - leather, paracord, horse hair. Add leatherworking in general as another idea.

If you have a decent laptop you could look at some type of 3d modelling or sculpting. There are free open source programs [Blender], so all you would need is an ok laptop and a mouse. Tons and tons of tutorials on Youtube that you could use any of the zillion Youtube video downloaders to create a cache of tutorials to watch and work through without needing internet.

Listening to podcasts is always an option though doesn't fit your criteria of crafty. If you have an android phone though you can use an app like Podcast Addict to find and listen to podcasts. You can have it download podcasts to your phone so again - no need for internet to listen.

Many years ago I enjoyed messing around with photoshop and creating random things. It's a super deep program with entirely too many menus. GIMP is a free version that will do similar things - maybe someone else has a better recommendation on alternatives. https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Yeah, there are tons of them. Honestly, way too many to list. Sites like https://www.50gameslike.com/ help to locate similar games to anything in particular that you search for in their system. If you can't find something to love in this list, then I don't know what to tell you.

Here are a few to start:

Life Is Strange (Multiple Entry Francise), Gone Home, Outer Wilds, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, What Remains Of Edith Finch, Journey, Limbo, Death Stranding, Hue, Celeste, Oxenfree, Psychonauts (Mild Cartoonish Combat), The Witness (Awesome Challenging Puzzle Experience)

Ah man I had a feeling noise might be an issue too. This might not be appealing to you, may take a long time and I bet it is difficult, but if you’ll be bed bound for a few months it might be interesting to learn Braille. It would be fulfilling in terms of accomplishing tasks and would give you the opportunity to read some things that might be in your local library.

Not exactly a hobby but sounds like you would have plenty of time to get into meditation.

Edit to add: https://www.superbetter.com/ This is a app created by Jane McGonigal to help her heal and progress after a concussion. It’s not specific to concussions but allows you to turn your healing process into an rpg with tasks you set and work to achieve. It may not be useful at this stage but possibly as you start to regain more of your ability to handle sensory input. it might help with staying motivated and tracking progress you are making as you continue to recover. I’ve never used the game - just remembered hearing about it from a podcast or ted talk or something like that.

maybe check out
r/slavelabour
for ideas, many ads are not regular jobs but rather fun little activities (e.g. "for 5$ i'll draw you as an amoeba")
you can also pick up chess (or checkers, or go) and study the books either online or offline or both , and then use the pc to find similarly skiled opponents, the amount of theory and educational chess matches to analyze is basically infinite, as long as the game interests you.
trading card games are fun too. magic the gathering in particular (magic arena is the most recent f2p one) offers a lot of complexity and variety of cards and expansions for all kinds of players, so even if you aren't the competitive type but rather the creative type you can go very deep and come up wiith unique decks that work on a unique combo or strategy.
If you are up for something incredibly interesting but also hard, I'd start reading about cryptocurrencies.
You can either become a developer or an investor. The even more interesting part is that as a programmer you don't necessarily have to code a new blockchain-cryptocurrency, you can become an ethereum programmer and create a new token and write smart contracts without having to reinvent the wheel every time.
You can create economical games, or proper videogames with a blockchain component such as "ownable" assets, or mix the two.
You can take a 'student-researcher' approach and study just-released coins and see if there's any with actual potential by reviewing the team and the whitepaper, and if you find anything valuable, you can mine a ton of them before they are even on the market, while difficulty is very low, for big gains if the project does have success.

You can collect games for free on pc, thanks to having so many platforms that fight for a userbase that they periodically give out big free games.
r/freegamefindings
r/freegamesonsteam

Solve puzzles - Fold proteins to help cancer cure research! https://fold.it/portal/

You mention being at the top of your class, so you may be interested in advancing farther in mathematics. Dipping your toes into hobby mathematics, learning the ways to think about math as its own little niche rather than just a tool for everything else may be interesting to you. Youtube channels like 3Blue1Brown may help pique your interest, the mini courses on brilliant.org(which are all exploration focused) and trying a book like "How to Prove It" by Daniel Velleman or exploring basic electronics and boolean logic may reveal the endlessly vast and deep world of mathematics most people never find.

Chinese is a fascinating language with a variety of dialects(essentially disparate languages just like the arabic dialects), a rich cultural history, enrapturing morphology and syntax, and a rich artistic and literary tradition, and its mother country has had fascinating relationships with east asia and the rest of the world for an extensive period of time, making its history quite intriguing. I've also found on language exchange apps they tend to be some of the most eager to assist others in learning their language, effective teachers, and have exceptional interest in improving their english.

So I've been thinking about getting into that but I'm not very dexterous and airfix was hard for me. How hard are they are on a scale of one to ten, ten being the hardest.

To answer your question after doing some personal to find an easy kit I found these: metal earth made their own plier set

got a set of wires from amazon & recycled an old bracelet beads!

EuTengHao Jewelry Copper Craft Wire Jewelry Beading Wire for Bracelet Necklaces Jewelry Making Supplies 10 Pack EUTH-102 https://www.amazon.ae/dp/B07V2YBN9C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_i_40XYXM9336XHS84G5W9C?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Since you are spiritually perhaps you’d enjoy rock painting, making dream catchers, doing yoga, or fairy garden.

For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486808939/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_Eg-8FbP2NXH3R

Have you thought of casting metal?

Lead free pewter has a relatively low melting point, so you can melt it using a cheap gas burner.

You can make molds relatively easily using Mold Max 60 which is a high-temperature silicone which can handle the heat of pewter.

Then the hard part is just figuring what you want to make casts of. You can use almost anything, though there are some considerations about the shape since some complex stuff can't be cast in a two part mold.

If you're interested, there are loads of how-to videos on Youtube which may inspire you to try different things.

Amazon has a bunch. If you’re patient, AliExpress has a larger selection for less. Shipping takes a while, though.

I would try to keep it under 12x12” (or so) until you know you how you like it. The adhesive on the canvas will eventually dry out. You can revive it with a tiny bit of water.

KOTWDQ 4 Pack Diamond Painting Kits for Adults Kids Set Cups Full Drill for Home Wall Decor https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KSNC2SH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_a8A8Db65R92JD

If by your question you're asking for a hobby revolving around all those things, you could definitely start a podcast, a youtube channel or even a blog about the research you do around true crime and psychology.

There are plenty or podcasting apps that could get you started even on your phone, so its a cheap hobby to get into. You could start a twitch as well and live stream your research about a criminal and then post said research on a dedicated day.

podcasting app for android

Probably a better question better suited for /r/android

I've used YouCut before but it does have ads and stuff but you get what you pay for (Free)

Probably can't be considered a hobby but you could try something like a mandala (it's like an upgraded fidget spinner essentially), I have one for when I'm anxious.

You can transform them into several different shapes and it just helps to focus your attention on it. I find it really calming and never really get bored of it when I'm feeling anxious.

Amazon has “detective kits for adults.” That’s all you have to search to find games like this where you solve a fake crime with the evidence envelopes they supply.

You could buy a multi-tip screwdriver set either from amazon or from a hobby store, then find things that people have thrown away and take them apart, trying to understand how they work, trying to put them back together correctly, or just for the technical fun of dismantling stuff! At my university I often see printers, monitors, and other discarded things that are fun to take apart. Be very careful with any monitors though. Learn what a capacitor looks like, and make sure you never short the terminals of one!

For a kit with pots and fermentor, or just the ingredient kid for a 1gallon batch like this, Brooklyn Brew Shop Afternoon Wheat Beer Making Kit: All-Grain Starter Set With Reusable Glass Fermenter, Brew Equipment, Ingredients (Malted Barley, Hops, Yeast) Perfect For Brewing Craft Beer At Home https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RR9SOGY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_F-wuDbGBRDJ4Q

I came across this yesterday during one of my random amazon searches. Lol. it isn’t very cheap but it might make a nice gift? Perhaps I sparked some ideas?

My experience with children’s craft kits is that adults almost always enjoy them more. Lol. Our skills are where they need to be and we have resources and intelligence to troubleshoot problems.

flip-book animation kit

It gives you anywhere from 3-12 hours of entertainment, starting at 8$ each. A whole lot cheaper than a movie.

As for tools go - you can do almost anything with flush cutters and smooth nosed-pliers. Bigger kits come with tweezers too.

Very rarely would you use anything like glue, usually if you bend a piece too much and it breaks.