Free and low-cost summer hobbies

For hermits, explorers, and everyone in between.

You’re reading Soft Hobbies, a weekly newsletter for creatives in all mediums, with a special focus on writers. I’m Auzin, a Seattle-based writer in the fiction, poetry, and tech spheres. Feel free to visit my author website or check out my socials.

Greetings to the 705 softies who subscribe to this newsletter! Thank you for being here.

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Kat Lewis

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I didn’t always like being warm. My journey towards loving summer is directly linked to the development of my interest in fashion, which started getting more serious in middle school. Prior to that, I didn’t care about what I wore and I didn’t care if it rained, as long as I was playing with my friends.

When I discovered that clothes were fun and I could make cool outfits with them, I also realized that dressing cute and being warm were pretty much mutually exclusive. This is an issue I still struggle with for 8 months out of the year in Seattle, when I need to wear a heavy jacket over all my outfits to go anywhere. My best solution is to use a knee-length parka with a fur-lined hood, which looks like an arctic explorer’s jacket and feels like an insulated garbage bag. It’s slightly cuter than it sounds; the (fake!) fur-lined hood does a lot of heavy lifting for my fall/winter outfits.

But summer? The chance to wear just one layer on my body? Maybe even free my feet from their cotton-and-polyester prison for a few months? No jacket needed AT ALL? That’s magical. I’ll trade some sweat and stickiness for that anytime. I love summer outfits, the smell of SPF, beach time, and picnics so much that I dream about them all year.

I know a lot of folks hate the heat, and I understand — the love of my life is, in fact, a summer-hater. And maybe the place you live is so ghastly hot during this time that you can’t do outdoor activities. To that end, I’ve included both indoor and outdoor hobbies in this list. I hope you find something you love!

Free summer hobbies

• Search for your city and the words “free seed library.” Pick up a packet of seeds from your local library or gardener’s organization. See the “low-cost” hobbies section for more about gardening.

• Free summer events are amazing. Do a search online, check out your library or coffee shop’s bulletin board, ask your friends what they’re getting up to. Catch some Shakespeare in the Park (I plan on doing that soon!). Even the smallest town has free events during the summer.

• Find your local nature and get immersed. Rose gardens, u-pick berry farms, beaches, forest trails. Wear SPF and bug spray please!

• Alternatively, trundle around your neighborhood and look for little free libraries, cool rocks, and cute dogs. If your neighborhood isn’t great for walking but you don’t want a full nature hike, head to a friend’s part of town or a quiet suburb and do a sidewalk jaunt.

• Stay entertained with the library. Yall, I swear Kanopy is the best-kept secret around. Real readers know about Libby, plus there’s Hoopla, plus you can just go to the library in-person for a quiet, air-conditioned place to hang out. Or do one of my favorite activities: reading in the sun.

• Volunteer at a beach clean-up, your local animal shelter, or any non-profit you support. Get involved with things you care about. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming — take baby steps by committing slowly in small ways.

• If you get summertime sadness and love animals, offering to help with your friend’s or neighbor’s pets by walking or babysitting them is typically an easy happiness boost.

• Search for “free printable coloring pages” and print them out at the library, or download them to your device and color them in digitally.

• You can use videos on YouTube to learn crafts, do yoga, body doubling, and way way way more.

• Play free videogames on PC or mobile. You’ll have to do some research to find what intrigues you, isn’t overrun with ads, and doesn’t try to microtransact you into oblivion. I recommend looking at gaming YouTubers for some ideas. I’ve enjoyed Everskies and Wholesome Cats. You can also dive into nostalgia by logging back into Neopets!

• Press flowers! Collect wildflowers, use wilting blooms from a bouquet you received, or pick them from your garden. Place them between layers of parchment paper under some heavy books, and check back in 2-4 weeks. You can frame them, scrapbook with them, or use them as fragile bookmarks.

• As always, writing is free! And you don’t have to be good at it to get joy from it.

Low-cost summer hobbies

• Gardening, of course. It’s okay if you kill all your indoor plants. I’ve famously struggled with indoor plants and for some reason, the strawberries and green onions in my yard are thriving. The website of your local plant nursery is probably full of advice and guides on how to grow things in your particular climate. In Seattle, check out Swanson’s or Sky Nursery. You can also reach out to your local association of “master gardeners,” who might be posted up at the farmer’s market, ready to answer questions. Or go here to find their contact info in your state. People who garden love to help new gardeners, I promise.

• Draw, sketch, paint. If those activities are too fraught, play exquisite corpse with someone you love and laugh at the monstrosities you create.

• Make a zine or a collage! Make a digital zine here or here, and learn more about making physical ones with this resource list. Cut up old printed matter and collage with it.

• Prep cute picnics with your loved ones. Make it a potluck so the workload is shared, or prepare all the food as a group before setting out. I’m sure that looking up “cute picnic food” or “aesthetic picnic” on Pinterest or IG will bring up tons of ideas.

• Start that creative project you’ve been wanting to start. Take it slow and simple. Ask for help if you need it.

So, that’s some of what I’ll be up to this summer! I hope yours has moments of softness, whether indoors or outdoors, and despite anything else happening in your life and in the world. What are your plans? What would you add to this list?

Softly yours,

Auzin