Hobbies on the road

[Vanbrat]

We are getting ready for a long road trip. About 3-4 weeks. I'm sure not as long as most of you have had, but we are newish to this type of travel.

I have never had trouble with being alone and working on hobbies. Hubby on the other hand, unless he is driving says he is bored... So my question is what hobbies does everyone do when out and about?

I carry my watercolor kit, my sewing kit, crochet work, writing stuff, and several books. If on a beach trip my sandcastle kit. He plays chess and ONLY chess. We have an old little TV for movies if inside. And he always brings his computer. But he doesn't like to play around with that for fun.
What do you folks do in those quiet times?

 

[SeilerBird]

Get a nice digital camera for him.

 

[Mark_K5LXP]

What's quiet time? It's all I can do to steal time from work and domestic chores to get to do any of my fun stuff. Ham radio, fishing, hiking, zymurgy. I've never made it any further down the list because life usually intervenes. The RV adds to the overall workload but on trips I actually get a chance to do something besides work, and working on the house/cars. If one isn't into 'sitting around' then maybe the trip should be somewhere that's more involved/interesting.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

 

[Rene T]

I enjoyed my metal detector when at a campground. Look for a volleyball court. Change falls out of pockets when jumping or falling. A beach is another good place. You won’t make a lot of money but you never know what you’ll find.

 

[Vanbrat]

What's quiet time? It's all I can do to steal time from work and domestic chores to get to do any of my fun stuff. Ham radio, fishing, hiking, zymurgy. I've never made it any further down the list because life usually intervenes. The RV adds to the overall workload but on trips I actually get a chance to do something besides work, and working on the house/cars. If one isn't into 'sitting around' then maybe the trip should be somewhere that's more involved/interesting.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

We are retired and the whole point in road tripping is to get a break from pulling the same #$%* weeds I have been pulling for 30+ yrs here at home. He just doesn't do things for fun...I am trying to find something that maybe we haven't thought of yet. We will be bringing our bikes this next trip and he is supposed to walk the dog while I'm cooking. He is a type 'A' person and should ALWAYS be WORKING or driving. And it doesn't help him that I am an introvert and have no problem being alone with my hobbies. Once we get somewhere he is almost ok with fun stuff. We just never stay in one place more than a day or two.

 

[UTTransplant]

My husband reads a lot. He also tried a number of hobbies - ham radio, fly tying, some others. Then he discovered 3 D printing. As a retired engineer, he really loves the design aspects. He has made all kinds of wonderful gadgets that I didn’t even know I needed until he made them, and then they were indispensable.

 

[Rob&Deryl]

So far, it seems my hobby is fixing things or making improvements.

 

[cully]

tying Coho twitching jigs works for me. I'm sure your husband will find a way to gobble up his downtime.

 

[Vanbrat]

My husband reads a lot. He also tried a number of hobbies - ham radio, fly tying, some others. Then he discovered 3 D printing. As a retired engineer, he really loves the design aspects. He has made all kinds of wonderful gadgets that I didn’t even know I needed until he made them, and then they were indispensable.

My hubby is a retired manager. He tried 'managing' my time and such with no success. He is now fully aware I am NOT an employee...LOL new retirement can be a big adjustment time or so my mom keeps saying

 

[DonTom]

So far, it seems my hobby is fixing things or making improvements.

I find that never ends. Regardless of if a new or old RV. I can always find something to improve a little. For an example, just yesterday, I added a 2nd SmartShunt to my new RV, for the stock AGM house batteries. I already had one in for the 2nd house DC system I added several months ago.

-Don- Auburn, CA

 

[Oldgator73]

We read a lot. So we take our tablets with books downloaded. When not reading we enjoy exploring the local area. Just enjoying the camp site and relaxing is nice.

 

[uchu]

Online chess. Or Sudoku.

 

[DutchmenSport]

Ha! I play the harmonica and a diatonic accordion (not a keyboard accordion, a push button one, it's more interesting and the keys, breathe in, breathe out is identical on the harmonica and the accordion - push, pull).

OK, I am selective on the times I play them so as to not annoy other campers, but somehow, it seems to always draw a crowd.

Try it! Making music yourself is very uplifting and very relaxing. Of course, you have to love music from the heart. If you are a mechanical note player, have to follow the music sheet, from the head only musician, it's no fun that way. From the "heart" is really relaxing.

A lot of places frown on using metal detectors. But years and years ago I discovered I had an ability to divine. Not with a Willow Tree fork, but with 2 number 9 galvanized wires. It really was a lot of fun, but also got some really, really strange looks from folks, think I was nuts. I found some pretty cool things in the ground too. I know it's weird. But I quit doing it in public places. Too many people just don't understand and think I'm crazy. Still .... maybe pick up metal detecting?

 

[Krazeehorse33]

Making music yourself is very uplifting and very relaxing.

Unless you play bagpipes, then do that at home……in the basement…..with the windows closed.

 

[Rene T]

Unless you play bagpipes, then do that at home……in the basement…..with the windows closed.

A lot of places frown on using metal detectors.

I’ve been to many different campgrounds up and down the east cost and up into Nova Scotia and have never had a issue with using my metal detector

 

[Vanbrat]

I’ve been to many different campgrounds up and down the east cost and up into Nova Scotia and have never had a issue with using my metal detector

I guess if someone got too picky I could just put it away. But hubby likes to argue so maybe he would enjoy that too..

 

[JayArr]

I smoke cigars and drink beer by the fire.

Very relaxing and good for contemplating.

 

[Rene T]

I smoke cigars and drink beer by the fire.

Very relaxing and good for contemplating.

But not real good for your health

 

[FastEagle]

We had two homes built for us during our 23 years at Jacksonville, FL. The first one was hard to part with, the second not so much.

When we decided to go full time RVing we sold our home and almost everything in it, even most of the collectables. Our two sons got a lot of the stuff. I joined eBay and sold almost all of the collectables in their auctions or buy now stores. Everything we just didn’t want to part with was placed in an environmentally controlled storage unit and managed by our sons.

Linda and I like to golf together and that’s easy to do when traveling. We both read a lot but you have to be careful with accumulating books because of their weight.

Linda has always liked to go to yard sales. You can meet a lot of the local community people at them and find some collectables that can be resold for a nice little profit. Because I already had the eBay account and was a member of PayPal, selling things on the road was easy. But, again, you have to be careful of the items weight. I became fond of finding old fishing equipment and old Zippo lighters. Anything old military will sell very fast and usually at a nice profit. 1st edition books sell well but if they don’t, we have to ship them to our storage unit. We scaled our trailer at least 4 times a year to balance the cargo and ensure we were not overweight.

 

[Oldgator73]

We both read a lot but you have to be careful with accumulating books because of their weight.

We read a lot also. We download books from our local library to our iPads. They give us 14 days to read to read a book and if you finished after 14 days you can extend. There are a couple of advantages here; you are not collecting books so your reading material is always the weight of your iPad; it’s free, no books to buy; you don’t need to turn on the light to read so you will not disturb your significant other if you read late into the night.