Look for volunteer opportunities. In my town I found a litter-picking group that met once a week. Then through members of that group I joined another one that maintains flower beds and planters around the town. Then joined an effort to rehabilitate an environment project on a nearby farm, and ended up in the beekeeping team. Another group I was in for a few years organises gentle walks for elderly folks. I learned a huge amount from all these things, and none of it cost me anything but time.

Groups and clubs. They exist, you need to find them. The public library is a good place to start looking.

Search for

Boardgame club (insert your city name here)

Usually you’ll have a handful to choose from.

The ones in our city are:

$5 entry

Last for 10hrs

Go with friends or go alone and meet people on the day who want to play a boardgame

Mostly friendly/helpful people who want to teach and enjoy games with others

Choose your level of social interaction (no one will bat an eye if you only talk to play the game, and make no side chit-chat)

Fun everytime

chess or other board games are inexpensive and you can learn a lot and make friends along the way.

Fotography can be expensive, but if you do it just as a hobby, you could take your phone or get a cheap camera and try to get up early on weekends and take some photos of the city.

reading books, especially about animals (specifically birds) could be an option too.

Try to identify your local ethnic/cultural organizations, and follow their events schedules.

There are pretty large Indian and Vietnamese populations where I live, and they each have an association to share their cultural highlights with the larger pop. The Holi and Festival of Lights celebrations (Indian) and Lunar New Year (Vietnamese) were all an absolute blast and had amazing food.

Good way to get intel on your local organizations is to hit up the respective restaurants/grocery stores from whichever cultures are well represented in your area - look for pamphlets and ask the staff.

As a pasty white dude who’s only recently started tuning in to events like that, everything feels very new and unique - highly recommend!

CrossFit, running club, November project, hiking club, board game clubs, DND clubs, Meetup.com events. Coed sports leagues like: disc golf, infinite Frisbee, soccer.

There’s also things like live figure drawing, music jam clubs, acting in local plays.

Pick up sports, or adult leagues. It can be hit or miss, but I made some good friends playing in rec soccer.

We have a simply gorgeous greenhouse that is free to the public every day in the middle of a wonderful park.

Our city library cards also give you free access to all the city art galleries, which is a wonderful thing to do. You should check out your city library to see what they offer.

Library.

I suggest you read "The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society of Pickup Artists” by Neil Strauss. Not to become a ‘pickup artist’, which itself is a joke and a very shallow life even if one were “good at it”. No.

However, there is a chapter or two, I can’t remember how much but it could have been half the book, about self-actualization that I thought was very useful. About making your life full, so that you have a rich background of things you enjoy doing to bring people to.

It’s been forever since I read it, but it’s an interesting read, especially when Courtney Love is being den-mother to a houseful of pick-up artists in training. Neil Strauss can tell a story. He also wrote a biography about living with Mötley Crüe that is pretty depraved.

Frisbee golf, biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, gardening, cooking, painting, geocaching, hiking, fishing are all pretty cheap to get into.

• The city where I live in has several few Little libraries that people have in their garden or hanging at the wall of their home. And I know that other cities have them as well. Today I went biking and brought back two books and I was pretty sure that I did not want to take any because I have more than enough to read, but I noticed an interesting book and took it home. This is something you can do yourself. Build a small wooden box, and have other people put or take books. You don’t have to do this yourself, you could ask friends, family and co-workers to help you build it or ask them to provide such. Then you could take a little bit care of it and promote the idea.

• What I like about bigger cities are public parks. I like to go to parks and just sit, listen to birds, enjoy the green and in Springtime, Summer and Autumn enjoy the colors.

• Public libraries here have magazines and books to read for any visitors. I’ve learned about open source software thanks to the Internet but also a little bit thanks to public libraries. I find that reading paper books or magazine can also be a nice break from staring at a screen of a device.

skateboarding

a decent starter one will run you $100 at the most, pads can be found for cheap; all you need is a flat surface and a non-rainy day. you will fall a lot but enter into a worldwide community that has its own very real culture. keeps you fit, gets you outside, lets you meet people. best investment in my life

Top tips: consider cooperative living and take group classes for one of your hobbies

I like to go to art craft market sales. Not the school gym type, the weird stuff on the sidewalk type. There’s usually interesting stuff and people to see, and sometimes food.