Hobbies you can keep doing into old age

Why it is worth thinking about

Many hobbies people take up in their twenties have a shelf life: contact sports, hard running, anything that depends on fast reflexes or a strong back. The ones that last tend to be low-impact, adjustable in intensity, and social enough that you have a reason to keep turning up. Starting one in midlife means you are already good at it when you have more free time.

Active hobbies that last

• Swimming, which is gentle on the joints and can be as easy or hard as you like.
• Walking and hiking. You can shorten the routes and slow the pace for decades.
• Tai chi and qigong, slow movement practices that train balance, which matters more with age.
• Golf, which many people play well into their eighties, especially with a cart.
• Cycling, at a gentler pace or on an electric bike later on.
• Table tennis and pickleball, both played competitively by people in their seventies and older.
• Ballroom dancing, which is exercise, music and company at once.

Quieter hobbies that last

• Gardening, from a vegetable plot to a balcony of pots as you need it to get smaller.
• Birding, which only gets richer the longer you do it.
• Chess, go and bridge, played at clubs where many members are retired.
• Singing in a choir, open to any age and often the most social night of the week.
• Piano, guitar or ukulele. It is never too late to start an instrument, and progress is steady with regular practice.
• Painting, watercolour, calligraphy and knitting, which need little space and suit the hands for a long time.
• Writing and journaling, which need nothing at all.

Choosing one now

Look for three things: you can make it easier as your body changes, it brings you into contact with other people, and it has more to learn after years of doing it. Hobbies with all three, such as dancing, choir, bridge, golf and gardening, are the ones people tend to keep.

If you already have a demanding hobby you love, look for its gentler relative: from running to hiking, from hard road cycling to easy rides, from squash to pickleball. Keeping the people and the habit matters more than keeping the exact sport.