Find something to do,
then get good at it.
HobbyHQ covers hobbies, sports and crafts — 1,538 of them so far, from padel to bobbin lace. For each one we are working through we tell you what it actually costs, what to buy first, the mistakes everyone makes, and what to do when it goes wrong.
121 activities written up in depth · 1,538 in the catalogue · 150 guides · 50 tools · 91 comparisons
Get outside
What will actually get me outside regularly?
Annatsach / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Astronomy
Observing the night sky, from naked-eye constellations to telescopic deep-sky objects.
£100–£300 to start · outdoors · sedentary
Pacopac / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Bikepacking
Multi-day riding with everything you need strapped to the bike — camping, navigation and cycling combined into one problem.
£300–£1,000 to start · outdoors · very demanding
Birdwatching
Finding, identifying and recording wild birds — a hobby you can start from a kitchen window.
£25–£100 to start · outdoors · gentle
Make something
What can I take up that leaves me with something at the end?
Subhashish Panigrahi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
3D printing
Making physical objects layer by layer from a digital model — a manufacturing process that became a domestic hobby, with all the calibration that implies.
£100–£300 to start · indoors · sedentary
Christopher J. Fynn / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Amateur perfumery
Blending fragrance from essential oils and aroma chemicals — a craft of structure, patience and a great deal of smelling.
£300–£1,000 to start · indoors · sedentary
Fanny Schertzer / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Bicycle maintenance
Servicing and rebuilding bicycles, from a puncture to a full wheel build — the rare craft that pays for itself.
£100–£300 to start · indoors · gentle
Good from the very first session
What will I enjoy straight away, rather than after six months?
Archery
Shooting arrows at a target with a bow, under a club and governing-body structure that begins with a beginners’ course.
£300–£1,000 to start · indoors or out · moderate effort
Fanny Schertzer / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Bicycle maintenance
Servicing and rebuilding bicycles, from a puncture to a full wheel build — the rare craft that pays for itself.
£100–£300 to start · indoors · gentle
Birdwatching
Finding, identifying and recording wild birds — a hobby you can start from a kitchen window.
£25–£100 to start · outdoors · gentle
Start for under £25
What can I take up without spending much?
Rowan Adams / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Composting
Turning garden and kitchen waste into soil — the methods, what a heap is telling you, and why almost every problem is one of three things.
Under £25 to start · outdoors · moderate effort
Crochet
Making fabric from yarn with a single hook, one stitch at a time, from a £5 starter kit.
Under £25 to start · indoors · sedentary
Hey Paul Studios from Kansas City, MO, United States / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Embroidery
Decorating fabric with needle and thread, from six basic stitches to centuries-old traditions.
Under £25 to start · indoors · sedentary
Learn the thing everybody gets wrong
Longer answers to the questions that send people to a forum thread from 2016.
Equipment · Birdwatching
“what binoculars should I buy for birdwatching”
Choosing your first binoculars
What the two numbers mean, what actually matters, and why £100 is the threshold that decides whether you keep birdwatching.
3 min read
Equipment · Disc golf
“what do disc golf flight numbers mean”
Understanding disc golf flight numbers
Speed, glide, turn and fade — what each number does, why a high-speed disc goes shorter for a beginner, and how to choose from them.
4 min read
Technique · Crochet
“what is crochet gauge”
Crochet gauge and tension, properly explained
Why patterns come out the wrong size, how to swatch so the answer is reliable, and when gauge genuinely does not matter.
3 min read
Work it out before you buy it
Calculators that take your numbers and show their working, and comparisons that decline to pick a winner.
Calculator · Astronomy
“The box says 675× magnification. What will this telescope actually show me, and which eyepiece should I use for what?”
Telescope & eyepiece calculator
Works out magnification, true field of view, exit pupil and maximum useful magnification for any telescope and eyepiece combination — and says plainly when a combination is a waste of time.
Gives you Magnification, Exit pupil, True field of view and more
Calculator · Pottery
“I need a finished dish exactly 220mm across to fit a shelf. How big do I make it wet?”
Clay shrinkage calculator
Converts between wet, dry and fired dimensions for a known shrinkage rate, and works out your clay’s actual shrinkage from a test bar.
Gives you Required or resulting size, Measured shrinkage
Racket & bat sports
PadelorPickleball
Two short-court doubles sports that look similar and play completely differently. Cost, court availability and how quickly you can rally are the deciding factors.
8 points of difference
Textiles & fibre
CrochetorKnitting
Crochet is easier to start and cannot drop a stitch; knitting produces better fabric for clothes. The right answer depends almost entirely on what you want to make.
10 points of difference
Three strands, kept in balance
Hobbies, sports and crafts, deliberately together. Plenty of activities are more than one of them, and we do not make them choose.
Hobbies
Pursuits followed for their own sake — where the reward is the doing, the knowing or the collecting.
848 in the catalogue
Sports
Physical activities with rules and a measurable outcome — whether or not you ever enter a competition.
448 in the catalogue
Crafts
Skilled making practices — materials worked into objects, technique learned a stage at a time.
503 in the catalogue
How this works
Every activity carries a structured assessment — cost, space, effort, mess, noise, risk, what you get out of it — and those are the same fields the hobby finder matches on, so what a page says and what a recommendation believes cannot diverge. Rules, law and safety are cited to the body that owns them. Cost and difficulty figures are our estimates, and are labelled as estimates.
How we workEvidence standardsEvery source we citeAbout HobbyHQ