When you’re a young adult, you’ll be met with a lot of confusion on what you want out of life. Part of this confusion is the beautiful opportunity to explore many different interests and develop new skills. The Gentleman’s Playbook has worked up a list of 7 Empowering & Rewarding Hobbies for Men in their 20s!
Approaching this list wasn’t an easy task – we wanted to include a variety of hobbies that cover a wide range of criteria:
- Affordability
- Mentally Enriching
- Physically Beneficial
- Creative
- Timeless
If there are any great hobbies that didn’t make it on the list that you know of, feel free to let us know and we will gladly get it added!
Music Production
Kicking off the list is one that a few of the guys here at The Gentleman’s Playbook have been involved with in some capacity over the years – Music Production.
Music Production is a great hobby to take up, especially in your 20s. It gives you a chance to express your feelings, learn how to play your favorite songs, and collaborate with other musicians.
Even if you don’t know any music theory, there are plenty of free or cheap resources or courses online for just about any instrument imaginable.
Here’s a few of the different genres or instruments you can learn by taking a stab at music production:
- Electric or Acoustic Guitar
- Piano
- EDM Production
- Hip Hop
- Violin
- Singing/Vocals
There may be some up-front cost, but you can find quality, used starter instruments on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist fairly easily! If budget isn’t a concern, consult with a local music instructor to find out what instruments may be right for you and get started with lessons! If budget is tight, then you can join the millions of other self-taught and capable musicians out there!
Lifting Weights
While we kicked this list off with something that is enriching for the soul, we want to follow it up with a hobby that is great for the body – lifting weights.
Just about every men’s hobby list we find talks about lifting weights, but there’s good reason for it. Routinely hitting the gym and going to the Iron Temple is a great way to build discipline, improve physical strength, and get the mind right.
It doesn’t take more than an hour per day, 5 days a week maximum. It’s also insanely affordable. With affordable options such as Planet Fitness, you can really get great bang for your buck out of a gym. While a gym such as Planet Fitness isn’t great for those who get serious about their lifts, it’s a great start for the man who’s new to weightlifting.
Eventually, you’ll graduate up into more expensive gyms with better freeweights; even then, you’ll be getting a lot out of the membership. What price are you willing to put on access to a great looking and strong body?
Routinely lifting weights helps you improve focus, mental clarity, and boosts testosterone. It also tremendously increases your confidence and we find it to be a great start to building discipline in areas of life outside of the gym.
Plus, while you are in the gym, this is one of the few times where you get to focus solely on the raw act of self-improvement. You’re there for you, to improve yourself. It doesn’t get cooler or more rewarding than that.
For those of you who haven’t ever picked up a weight in your life, our best recommendation is to pick up the book Bigger Leaner Stronger by Mike Matthews. It breaks down how to plan your meals easily and effectively and it also outlines a done-for-you weightlifting routine that’s basic but powerful. It’s the blueprint for men’s fitness.
Microbrewing
Remember Hank from Breaking Bad? Better yet…remember Schraderbräu, Hank Schrader’s homemade beer?
Well, you can also partake in the rewarding craft of homebrew! Many men across the world take this up later in life, but we think it has its place on our list of hobbies for men in their 20s.
The art of brewing can be complex, so we think it’s a good idea to get started when you’re younger, that way you get a couple of years under your belt and can enjoy your own well-crafted beer throughout your life, rather than just from the midpoint onward.
You don’t even need much money to get started! This beginner’s homebrew kit from Northern Brewer is highly rated and affordable – you’ll have everything you need to get started brewing your first batch of beer without a huge investment, plus it spells everything out for you.
If you end up not enjoying it, you didn’t break the bank…but, if you DO enjoy it, you got yourself a new and rewarding hobby that may save you some money in the long run!
Photography
Time to increase the budget – photography is a great creative hobby to get into for men in their 20s! There are tons of great online blogs and resources to learn about how to use photography cameras on the technical side, as well as how to compose a great image.
Plus, you can go beyond just taking the photo and get into photography editing, which includes color grading, correction, stylization, and more! You can create interesting images just by walking around town for an evening (make sure to take photos during the “Golden Hour”)!
Of course, you can use your cell phone to take pictures, but we wanted to highlight traditional photography using a DSLR to capture high quality, professional compositions.
If you end up learning a lot and making interesting photographs, you can post them on Instagram as a supplemental hobby or even sell your skill as a local service for things such as weddings, local events, or product photography!
Your creativity is truly the limit and there’s plenty to learn on the technical side. This is a hobby that will keep you constantly exploring and challenging your current skill level.
Reading
Want to expand your mind, expose yourself to new ideas, and get behind some of the world’s greatest creative, scientific, or spiritual minds? Reading may just be for you! At The Gentleman’s Playbook, we challenge ourselves to read daily.
Reading is a great way to expose yourself to new ideas, make new connections between concepts in real life, and it can be either entertaining or educational. There’s absolutely zero downside to reading a book…unless it’s a bad book, so make sure to read reviews first!
You can grow your professional skillsets and improve your value at work or in your business. You can take on philosophy and dive deep within your mind, learning about the “self.” You can get lost in a world completely different from ours.
Even better – reading can be highly affordable. With used bookstores, you’ll find lots of books for sale at a reasonable price. There’s also eBooks which go on sale constantly on devices like the Amazon Kindle.
Hiking
Another physical activity, hiking is a great hobby to start in your 20s. It can be free, or extremely low cost, and it’s great for your body. Hiking is a fantastic cardio and endurance hobby – you’ll strengthen your legs and core, plus if you get really into it you can scale up the challenge by getting into backpacking.
Some people end up falling into a spending trap with hiking, buying lots of unnecessary gear. While extra gear can make hiking fun or even easier in some cases, it isn’t necessary. You can get by just fine with a moderately priced pair of hiking boots. Treat them well, and they’ll last you years.
Many municipalities have free hiking trails available; if you’re in a mountain state you’ll find plenty of state and national parks to explore and hike – we love getting up early in the morning to catch a mountaintop sunrise! Some state/national parks may require a day pass, but usually you can buy a year pass for a great rate (for example, the Discover Pass in Washington state is only $30 per year and gets you access to all state parks).
So grab your water bottles and hiking shoes and hit the trails! Great for weekend exercise.
Art (Painting, Drawing, or Adult Coloring)
Another hobby that can be affordable if you have a great amount of self-control is art! Just like with music production, there are plenty of resources online you can use to learn how to draw or paint.
One that we’ve followed at The Gentleman’s Playbook is a free online drawing course called DrawABox. It teaches you technical fundamentals on drawing and is designed to be helpful for someone who’s never drawn a single line in their life to those who are experienced artists looking to brush up on the fundamentals to take their art to the next level.
If drawing or painting seems daunting, then you can take a leap into adult coloring books! There are lots of great adult coloring books on Amazon for just about any theme imaginable. Pick your favorite and get some high-quality coloring pencils and start getting to coloring.
Enjoy these 7 Hobbies for Men in Their 20s!
We hope you enjoyed our list of Hobbies for Men in their 20s! While we know this list isn’t exhaustive, we wanted to list only hobbies that we’ve actively partaken in at The Gentleman’s Playbook.
As we continue to explore and expand our horizons, we will add more to this list and have it become a living document of great hobbies for young men to get involved in. If there are any hobbies you’ve enjoyed or loved in your 20s, feel free to reach out and we would love to start a conversation and get it added to this list!