Best Hobbies to Consider If You Love Travel

Traveling is a hobby on its own, but there are a lot more hobbies that you can develop if you love to travel. While most people think of hobbies as something you do at home, there are lots of hobbies that can be turned into travel hobbies, making your trips all the more fun.

Whether you’re a seasoned flyer or planning to take your very first travel trip, these are some awesome hobbies to take your adventure to the next level.

Creative Hobbies

Traveling is one of the best ways to unleash your inner creativity. Best of all, most creative hobbies are portable, making them the perfect outlet to document your adventures so you can have mementos for the years to come.

Photography

A person holding a camera taking a photo of a road

Photography is a hobby that every traveler needs to get into. After all, everyone loves some fun travel snaps to capture experiences and memories. But if you really want to get into it, photography can change your entire travel experience. And you don’t need to invest in a fancy camera unless you want to. Usually, recent smartphones will be enough for you to get started.

Anyone can take some snaps, but not everyone can take a great picture. You can learn some new photography skills – at least the basic ones – online. Then, you can take some photography courses if you want to learn more, so your next travel photos will be Instagram-worthy!

Sketching or drawing

If you’re more visually creative, sketching and drawing are entertaining hobbies to get into. It’s like photography, but with a little more detail and effort. Snapping a photo of a beautiful mountain or a beach landscape is one thing, but enjoying its majesty for extended periods by drawing it – that’s a landscape you’ll never forget.

As a beginner, you won’t expect masterpieces, as they would probably look like nothing you want to write about. But even if it’s not good, it will still be special. Practice will make you better. Start by bringing a simple pencil or two and a sketchbook in your luggage. Once you get hooked, you can upgrade to other art supplies. Alternatively, you can carry an iPad and make some digital sketches.

Journaling or blogging

A person journaling over coffee

Journaling or writing is a consuming hobby. Disciplining yourself to take some time to write every day isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. It’s great to jot down quickly the events of the day and your thoughts and feelings connected to those happenings.

Over the years, memories fade, but if you have a journal full of your musings about your adventures, you can relieve the experience whenever you want. Alternatively, you can start a blog if you prefer to share your writings online. If you start a blog, you can insert your photo snaps and videos to make your journey more memorable.

Videography or vlogging

A person using a Go Pro camera to capture a beach landscape

Videos capture the moments better than photos. If you try something cool and new while traveling – like jumping off a cliff and into the sea or taking the first bite of a local delicacy – it’s best to take videos of these moments so you can relive your adventures more vividly. Compiling these things in a vlog (video blog) gives you a fantastic way to hone your video editing skills since you already have cool videos, to begin with.

And if you start a YouTube channel where you share your travel moments, you may earn a nice passive income if you get enough viewers. But even if you never earn anything from it, you can use it as a blog like a virtual journal.

Playing music

A woman playing ukulele outdoors

This isn’t the most portable traveling hobby, but playing a musical instrument can be rewarding. You don’t know if you can be good at it until you try. And if you do enjoy it and get better, you can be the traveler who pulls out their instrument and entertains fellow travelers. It’s one of the best hobbies that can easily help you meet new people. Lugging a guitar can be a bit bulky, but it shouldn’t stop you from bringing one. If you want a smaller alternative, go for the ukulele. A flute will be an easier and cheaper instrument to travel with.

Alternatively, you can try taking lessons on the traditional instruments from the region you’re traveling to. This can be a fantastic way to immerse yourself in their culture, plus a chance to bring home a cool souvenir – a local musical instrument.

Adventure Hobbies

Are you an adrenaline junkie? Or do you love getting out in the fresh air to enjoy nature as God created it? If you’ve got a taste for adventure, these outdoor travel hobby ideas would be amazing to try:

Hiking or walking

Two backpackers hiking

Wherever you go, hiking is a travel activity that allows you to explore and enjoy nature on your own. It also enables you to explore places you can’t reach with a car. Even if your idea for a hike is a stroll around the neighborhood you’re staying in, you will be surprised at what you can discover with your own two feet. If you’re not so outdoorsy, you can simply take a leisurely stroll through the local market and sights of the town or city you’re visiting.

But if you’re more adventurous than that, you can take a hike up the mountains or a national park, or go on nature walks in the local gardens. You can take camping trips in the wild and sleep in the tent on the ground, wondering whether every small noise you hear is a hungry animal looking for its prey. It may not be the most comfortable thing in the world, but it makes a great experience and amusing story to tell back home.

Wildlife watching

A group of men watching wildlife using telescopes

If you’re not traveling to the wild enough, perhaps your only experience watching the wildlife was during school field trips to the zoo. And sometimes, you can feel bad about the animals on display. But if you go watching birds or spotting wild beasts in their natural habitat, it gives off a different experience. Mashing travel with observing animals is a great way to give purpose to your trip.

Try taking a trip to a nearby national park and spend the day trying to spot some animals in the wild. Watching wildlife is a great hobby to combine with photography.  

Diving

A man scuba diving while taking videos

While diving is not for everyone, it opens up a whole new world to explore for people who love it. The underwater world offers a great adventure. It’s a travel hobby that’s recommended for everyone, and many travel itineraries explore the underwater world.

If diving is not on the cards for you, snorkeling is an easier and often more accessible alternative. Whether it’s something you do while traveling or trying out at a local beach, river, or lake, diving and snorkeling can allow you to explore another world. This hobby can potentially turn into a full-fledged travel career if you love it so much.

Of course, don’t forget to take lots of videos! Diving shots make some of the best footage in travel vlogs.

Stargazing

A man stargazing

When traveling, don’t forget to relish the opportunity to see the sky in other parts of the world. Try to visit dark sky reserves and observatories and look at the stars and the moon through their giant telescopes.

Just gazing at the stars may sound boring to some, but if you take time to understand what you’re actually looking at, it can be pretty fascinating, especially for space nerds and science geeks. You can also travel to destinations that are known for little light pollution, and you will be amazed. It may even inspire you to try night photography.

Cultural Hobbies

Cultural hobbies can help you immerse yourself in the local culture. After all, traveling is about getting a taste of the local culture.

Learning a language

When you travel to another country, it’s wise to learn their language (at least the basics) to communicate more effectively with the locals. Sure, you can probably survive with English, especially in countries where English is a second language, but it will be a superficial cultural experience. Even the most broken attempt at speaking the local tongue will make you endearing to the locals.

Make it a goal to learn the basic greetings, numbers, directions, foods, transportation, and how to ask for the bathroom.

Food tasting

South Korean street foods

This is probably the most fun – tasting local foods and expanding your palate. Don’t be the traveler who flies across the globe just to eat the same pizza, burgers, and chicken wings you can get at home. If you’re not too adventurous with foods, start by trying the familiar local restaurants and establishments back home, like McDonald’s and 7-Eleven, and try out their unique offerings.

But to make the most gastronomical experience out of your visit, choose to eat at local and street diners and restaurants. Eating at small, local joints can feel intimidating if you’re a foreigner, but they often serve some of their region’s best, most authentic food. See where many locals eat – that’s a sign that it serves good food. Alternatively, you can sign up for food tours and food tasting available for tourists.

This hobby can be combined with vlogging. You can find many successful YouTubers traveling to new places just to taste their yummy foods.

Collecting souvenirs

A fridge with travel magnets

Collecting souvenirs is an easy hobby to do when you’re traveling. Trawl through the local markets and shops in the destination you visit – you’ll never know what you will find. Souvenir hunting can allow you to dip into their local culture, and it also gives you something to take home that can remind you of your trip.

Depending on your preferences and interests, you can visit markets and buy local items that are unique to that area. Or you can always hunt for a specific type of item, like fridge magnets, souvenir shirts, keychains, alcoholic drinks, coins, stamps, license plates, and more.

Wine tasting

A person holding a wine glass with the view of the winery

Visiting vineyards when you travel allows you to have a relaxing and indulgent day outdoors. Wine tasting is an entertaining hobby – it does not only make you happy, but you also get to learn something new.

No two vineyards are the same, so it makes a great travel activity every time you go to another country. You can mix this hobby up with collecting local wines from the places you go to. It will make for an impressive home bar that your guests will be asking about.

Travel-related Hobbies to do at Home

When travel is done and you’re at home facing your realities, it can be nostalgic to daydream about the good times you had when you were out of town. Even when you’re back home, you can still pursue hobbies that can satisfy your wanderlust before you plan a trip again.

Cooking

A couple cooking at a kitchen

You can take cooking classes when you travel, but most of the applications will be made at home. Cooking is a stimulating hobby to get into, and it’s also beneficial since everyone’s got to eat.

Once you try some food you like, you can go to the local markets and buy some more to take home. Spices and non-perishable ingredients would be great to start with. And if you’re craving that dish again, you can replicate it at home so you can have an international-themed dinner that will make you feel like you’re traveling.

Dining out

A hotpot at an Asian restaurant

If your cooking skill is not good, then dining out is the next best thing to satisfy your international food cravings. Check out a new restaurant to try different international cuisines so you can feel like you’re revisiting another country.

Look for authentic restaurants, but if you prefer those with a touch of your local flavor, go for it.

Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking materials

It can be hard to throw away travel mementos like receipts, ticket stubs, airport luggage stickers, foreign candy wrappers, and foreign money you didn’t exchange. If you want to be extra sentimental about your adventures, you can try scrapbooking. It’s an awesome hobby that can unleash your creativity to design your unique memory book. Mix this random stuff with photos you have from the trip (preferably Instax photos), and you’ve got the perfect travel scrapbook.

Most people simply store pictures of their travels on their hard drives or cloud but never have the time to look back at them unless they want to post a #ThrowbackThursday photo on their social. But if you make a scrapbook for your coffee table, it’s a surefire way to keep those experiences fresh in your mind. And if your houseguests take a look at it, you may even inspire them to take adventures of their own.

Reading

If you can’t go there yet, reading about a destination is the next best thing. Whether you read history books or fictional novels based on a certain destination, it will surely inspire your next adventure. It can even enhance your experience once you get to travel there.

Reading allows you to escape, even if you’re bound by the four walls of your home. It can make you feel like you’re traveling if you also read blogs, guidebooks, and adventure stories.