Need a New Job? Here are 30 Fun Things to Try This Summer

Summer used to feel endless. No school, no place to be, a pool, a bike, a certain quality of light at 7pm when no one has called you home yet. Somewhere, it fell short—not really, lately, the way the seasons do when your calendar is the thing that rules your life instead of the sun. That’s why summer hobbies are more important than they sound: not as self-improvement projects or personal reboots, but as something that makes the next few months feel completely your own.

So here are 31 summer hobbies you really should try: some you’ve probably thought about and never gotten around to, a few you haven’t, and none that require you to be a special kind of person to enjoy them. Choose the one that feels good right now, not the one that feels like a better version of you in theory.

1. Press flowers into art

Summer flowers are at their peak for about three days before they fall on your counter. Pressing them is a movement: put them between parchment paper under a heavy book, wait two to four weeks, and you will have something that dissolves. The commitment is low, the profits are genuinely good, and they cost about the price of a single farm market flower.

2. Try painting with watercolor outdoors

The bar for this is lower than you think – all you need is a small paint set, a brush, a cup of water, and a place to sit outside. The point isn’t to make something good, it’s to spend an hour actually looking at something instead of going through it. Parks, patios, backyards: wherever a view works.

3. Draw outside

Same base as watercolor, different muscles. Take a sketchbook and a pencil and go sit in front of something worth looking at – a building, a tree, a fountain, a friend’s face. The act of drawing forces you to notice things you would otherwise pass by. That’s the whole point.

4. Learn calligraphy

Meditate the way puzzles meditate – they draw without demanding. There are inexpensive starter kits and workbooks that make it really accessible, and the learning curve is satisfying rather than frustrating. Also: really useful for anyone who still sends cards.

5. Try natural dyes

Tie-dye has a PR problem, but shibori – the Japanese indigo dyeing technique behind it – does not. The results are graphic and beautiful, well done on the outside, and you can put it on clothes, bags, linen napkins, basically anything you’re willing to commit to. The starter kit is inexpensive and the process is more forgiving than it looks.

6. Make your own jewelry

The combination of something you can make with your hands, a finished item you’ll actually wear, and the option to do it while watching something is hard to beat. Start with a basic kit, then let choosing the beads be its problem. Fair warning: you will develop opinions about the findings.

7. Take up crocheting

Having a cultural moment for a good reason – it’s tangible, it’s meditative, and there’s a satisfying direction in making something three-dimensional in one thread. YouTube courses are really good for beginners. Start with a market bag or simple fabric before committing to a sweater.

8. Start a junk journal

Every summer produces receipts, ticket stubs, coffee sleeves, postcards, and polaroids that end up in a drawer or recycling bin. A junk journal is just a blank book where everything sits – folded, scribbled, scratched. It’s less precious than a scrapbook, more interesting than a photo album. The only rule is that nothing has to be beautiful.

9. Get into filming

Using a film camera changes the way you shoot — you get 24 or 36 frames and wait. That commitment makes you more objective than any photography course. Waste is an obvious entry point; point-and-shoot second development. The wait-and-prints part is its little joy.

10. Try flower arranging

There’s more to unpacking and getting a bouquet of flowers. Flower arranging is a real skill – how to cut stems, what to pair together, what container to choose – and grocery store flowers are a perfectly legitimate place to learn. Go to the farmers market, pick up a few different varieties, and spend the afternoon figuring out what works. Your kitchen table will thank you all week.

11. Cook a cookbook

Pick one cookbook, commit to making a few recipes a week, and let it transform your dinner. One book commitment is the point – it forces you to do things you wouldn’t choose otherwise. Throw in The Bear for inspiration and get started.

12. Bake with seasonal produce

Summer baking has a completely different concept than comfortable seasonal baking – it’s light, fluffy, and built around whatever is right now. Stone fruits, berries, oranges: the farmers’ market is your first stop. A peach galette or a blueberry buckle isn’t quite the same activity as a December cookie exchange, and that’s a plus.

13. Try to eat food

This one sounds more ambitious than it is. Start with something humble and identifiable – blackberries, dandelion greens, wood sorrel – and go from there. A local foraging tour or one of the guidebooks specific to your region is a good entry point. The combination of being outside, paying close attention, and coming home with something you’ve found is really satisfying.

14. Start a garden or grow your own herbs

You don’t need a backyard. A bowl of basil, mint, and chives will change the way you cook for the cost of a few small pots. If you have an outdoor space, one raised bed or a few containers is enough to start. The learning curve is real but forgiving, and the staff at your garden center is probably always very poor and underutilized.

15. Go hammocking

Perhaps the most reliable hobby on this list – the whole point is to lie down on a fixed piece of cloth and do nothing, or read, or sleep. Setup takes ten minutes if you know what you’re doing. Find two trees, follow the instructions, and spend an afternoon in the park horizontally. It counts.

16. Go for a walk during the golden hour

You are probably already awake. This is about timing differently. The light between 6 and 8pm in the summer is a completely different experience than the daytime route, the temperatures are better, and the pictures are absurdly beautiful. Look for a route near you, add two hours to your usual commute, and off you go.

17. Go for a bike ride

The unique feeling of cycling with the wind in your hair in summer is not available in any other way. If you don’t have a bike, most cities have affordable rental options. No place needed – ride point.

18. Try swimming as a form of exercise

If you have access to a pool, lake, or beach, this summer is a great time to treat swimming as something you actually do rather than something that happens accidentally on vacation. A truly enjoyable full-body workout, which is a rarer combination than it sounds.

19. Play tennis

You need a court (most public parks have one, usually free), a racket, a friend, and a willingness to chase balls the first few times. It’s social, it works, and the learning curve is steep enough to keep it interesting.

20. Try rock climbing

Start at an indoor gym—most offer introductory classes, gear rentals, and friendly staff for beginners. It’s as much a problem-solving game as it is physical, making it more mentally engaging than most exercises. Once you are comfortable indoors, the outdoor version is a completely different and better experience.

21. Go on a creative journey

This is not a specific task and more of a practice: walking around your city with the intention of noticing what other people do, choose, and care about. A gallery, a market, a storefront—anywhere someone makes a creative decision about what to put where. Don’t really buy anything. You just learn to pay attention. (I write more about why this is important here.)

22. Going on dates with friends

The best conversations happen when you’re walking and not looking at each other. Plan a regular date to go with a friend—same time, same route, or a new one every week. It’s public, it works, and it doesn’t require a reservation or reason.

23. Take a class with a friend

Pottery, natural dyeing, a cooking class, a flower arranging workshop—some activity is more important than the combination of learning something new and doing it with someone you really love. Most cities have more of this than you’d expect, and social pressure to commit to a friend means you’ll definitely go.

24. Start a craft night

Pick something specific (crocheting, embroidery, collage, candle making), invite a few people, and make it a recurring activity. Work gives everyone something to do with their hands, which de-stresses the conversation in the best possible way. Rotating whose house it is in keeps the light of commitment.

25. Make an ongoing dinner

One friend makes drinks and appetizers, one makes the main, one makes dessert—everyone moves between houses in the middle of the night. The logistics are easier than having one host in charge of everything, the going around is really fun, and it’s the kind of evening that feels like an event without needing one person to do all the work.

26. Have a themed dinner

Choose a cuisine, a color palette, a season, a decade. A Provençal dinner in July, a backyard clambake, a Negroni-and-small-plates situation: whatever the theme, it gives the evening an atmosphere that makes it feel more intentional than a typical dinner party. Get inspired with these summer party ideas.

27. Find the best outdoor patios in your city

Make it a goal rather than an afterthought. Pick one new patio a week, bring someone in, and measure it at the end of the summer. The standard is optional. There is no excuse to be outside with a drink on a warm night.

28. Explore your city like a tourist

Most of us have a list of places in our city that we have been meaning to go to for years. Summer is really the time to travel. Pick one or two new places a week—a place you don’t usually visit, a small business you’ve passed a hundred times, a market or festival you’ve always meant to check out. You already live in a place worth checking out.

29. Study outside

Not a revolution, but it is always underestimated. Take whatever you learn and do it outside – a park blanket, a porch, a hammock (see #15). The combination of a good book and real sunshine is one of the most reliable sources of summer satisfaction available.

30. Go camping

Full immersion option. You don’t need much—a tent, a sleeping bag, a campsite with a view. Borrow gear from a friend if you don’t have one, or car camp somewhere with facilities while you see if you like it. The forced simplicity of spending a night out, away from your phone and your to-do list, resets something that’s hard to reset in any other way.