We don’t judge here at This Is Boring. This is a site that explores things that people do for fun, and fun is subjective. For example, we write a blog about boring hobbies. Does that sound fun? To us it does. The discovery, the research, the absolute passion that goes into something that people do in their time off is fascinating. You know what is boring to us? Not having a hobby at all.
Sit back and pull up a random link. We can’t promise that you’ll find something here that sparks an interest but you will likely learn something about a hobby that you didn’t even know existed.
If you’ve ever looked up at a random flock of birds and thought, “Wow, this would be so much better with spreadsheets,” then congratulations. You are spiritually aligned with the world of competitive pigeon racing. On the surface, it looks painfully simple. You put pigeons in a basket, move them far away, let them go, and wait for them to come home. That’s it. That’s the hobby. Birds go up, birds come back. Somewhere in between, someone declares a winner and a very understated celebration occurs. But like most so‑called boring hobbies, everything interesting is happening in the details you can’t see from the outside.
The Setup: Birds, Baskets, And A Mild Logistics Problem
Pigeon racing usually starts in a backyard loft that looks like a cross between a garden shed and a very small, exclusive airport. The birds live there, train there, and occasionally side‑eye you from the perches while pretending not to care about your emotional investment. On race day, everyone brings their pigeons to a central club point. Each bird gets identified, logged, and loaded into a truck that drives them to the release site. Think school field trip, except no one packed snacks and everyone is wearing an ankle band. At the release point, they open the crates and the sky fills with birds that somehow know where “home” is, despite never having seen a map, a GPS, or the inside of a Google search.
Every great racing dynasty starts in a backyard that looks like this.
The Part With The Math (Because Of Course There’s Math)
The race isn’t just “first bird home wins.” That would be too easy, and pigeon people are not here for easy. Each loft is a different distance from the release point, so what actually matters is speed. Race organizers measure the distance from the release site to each loft, then calculate meters per minute for every bird. Your pigeon might arrive later than someone else’s but still win because it flew farther and faster. Yes, this is a hobby where people voluntarily do distance calculations for fun. You are absolutely on the right website.
Race day: thousands of miles of flight, zero personal carry‑on.
Training A Bird That Thinks It’s A Boomerang
The wild part is that these pigeons aren’t being guided, nudged, or gently bribed home. They’re released in a place they’ve never been and are expected to sort it out. Racers spend months training their birds with shorter tosses: a few miles away, then ten, then twenty, and so on. The pigeons learn that being put in a basket and driven away is just a weird prelude to the joy of going home very fast. There are theories about how they navigate: the sun, the Earth’s magnetic field, smells in the air, low‑frequency sounds, or some mysterious built‑in pigeon GPS. No one fully agrees, which means you can absolutely bore a dinner party with competing explanations if you’d like.
The Drama No One Sees
From the outside, pigeon racing looks like a bunch of people standing around, staring at the sky, trying to look calm. Inside, they are emotionally glued to a speck that may or may not be their bird. Racers wait by their lofts with specialized clocks or electronic timing systems. When the pigeon finally appears, it doesn’t just flap in and pose heroically. It might circle the loft. It might land on the roof and think about its life choices. It might take an unhurried moment to preen. Every second of that indecision is shaving points off a carefully planned race result. So you have these incredibly engineered birds, conditioned for speed and endurance, bottlenecked by the fact that sometimes they simply do not feel like going inside yet. There’s something very human about that.
The moment of truth is less photo finish, more ‘please land on the pad already.’
A Hobby Built On Quiet Obsession
If you talk to pigeon racers, you’ll get a mix of data and tenderness. They’ll tell you about bloodlines, wing structure, eye color, feed ratios, and training schedules. Then, without changing tone, they’ll refer to a particular pigeon like it’s an old friend. That’s the secret kernel at the center of a lot of “boring” hobbies: deep care expressed through repetition. The bird goes out, the bird comes back, and hidden inside that loop is years of attention, patience, and small adjustments. From a distance, it looks like nothing is happening. Up close, everything is.
Why This Belongs On A Site Called This Is Boring
Competitive pigeon racing is exactly the kind of pastime that gets dismissed with a shrug. It’s slow. It’s methodical. It requires waiting, record‑keeping, and a tolerance for disappointment when your champion decides to take the scenic route. Which is also why it’s perfect. It asks you to care about something that absolutely does not need you. The pigeons will fly regardless. The sky will be there. The clock will tick either way. The “boring” part is that no one else is watching. The interesting part is that someone is. If you’ve ever found yourself obsessing over split times, small variables, or the satisfying click of well‑kept data, pigeon racing is like looking into a slightly feathery mirror. You might not be ready to buy a loft, but you can at least respect the elegance of a hobby where the main event is simply waiting for a dot on the horizon to choose you back.
Under all the numbers and bloodlines, it’s really about this relationship right here.
Have you ever been so bored that you wrote yourself a letter, mailed it, and tried to be surprised when it showed up in your mailbox? James Perrott of Chagford, England was a guide who led adventurous visitors across the Dartmoor wilds in the 1800’s. Dartmoor was (and still is) a boggy expanse dotted with hills topped with outcrops of bedrock that attracted (and still does) nature-lovers looking to commune. Most of it was pretty dangerous for the average hiker back then so James offered his knowledge of the local routes and points of interest.
This ad looks like it belongs at the beginning of a horror story.
In 1854, he piled up a bunch of rocks out in the moor and stuck a bottle on it. The intent was to have travelers place their calling cards inside…a much cooler version of putting your business card in a bowl in hopes of a free burrito. Eventually somebody added a visitor’s book and eventually a stone box was constructed in order to protect the contents from the muggy climate. This began the world-wide hobby of Letterboxing…searching for treasure via clues left by previous visitors.
Survivors will be shot again. Haw haw haw.
Today, Letterboxing has a large community of enthusiasts who both like to hide and seek. Several websites host clues, discussions, and a community for those folks and are generally very welcoming to new fans of the hobby. Do note that there is a Code of Conduct to this pastime. Safety is always a concern so be aware of your surroundings; you shouldn’t cross into private property to reach your particular goal because that’s quite illegal. Explorers also tend to be mindful of the environment because like hiking, it is expected that no trace is left…other than a colorful stamp which you’ll read about later. Nobody wants to find rudely discarded bottles and granola wrappers on their adventures. Finally, keep an eye on the local flora and fauna. Poisonous plants and venomous animals love to letterbox also, not to mention the huge Bear Letterboxer Community.
If you can’t figure out how to make a stamp, grab a GPS unit and go Geocaching instead, loser.
A huge part of the Letterbox hobby adds some personal flair. Inside the secret cache is usually a logbook which visitors mark their passing. This is often in the form of a pressed-image stamp. This ranges from a store-bought Hello Kitty to family crests and personal logos. The most popular method is to carve your own stamp from rubber that takes a bit of crafting , a bit of creativity, and a bit of flair. These intrepid explorers bring the stamp, ink, spare notebooks, and some ratty old clothes suitable for entering the Moors.
Back when letterboxing began, hikers would leave letters and postcards in hidden areas in the hopes somebody would find it and mail it off. Sometimes they were self-addressed and it would be delivered months or years later as a sort of message from the past. Modern enthusiasts have a more speedy gratification; finding that logbook, looking over the inked images of previous explorers, and adding their own. It’s a nifty low-tech hobby that gets you out into the world with an eye for the hidden treasures out there.
Visiting historical monuments while on vacation isn’t an unusual thing. Plenty of parents drag their kids along while trying to convey the historical significance of the Battle of the Hague or hike around the beautiful El Morro National Momument. You probably even brought a nice camera to record the experience for posterity. But what really kicks things down a notch is bringing along butcher’s paper and graphite to furiously scrub at a significant carving a like a homemade mimeograph machine.
Rubbing is arguably a British thing. Commemorative ceramic discs dot the country, called Blue Plaques , that honor notable persons and serve as historical markers by linking them to notable buildings. There are over 900 in London and subjects span the spectrum of Theorists to Karl Marx. Finding them can be quite a scavenger hunt which is a hobby in its own right.
Remember that scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he and the hot Nazi historian (spoiler) found that tomb and had to hide inside while the gasoline-filled catacombs were set set on fire? The rubbing from Sir Richard’s shield eventually led to the Holy Grail somehow. Brass Rubbing is like that but way less exciting.
For our purposes, this side-quest gets specific. Brass Rubbing refers to engraved metal memorials usually crafted beginning in the 13th century that can be found in churches. These are usually smaller and cheaper than a stone statue but can be pretty fragile so check with your local vicar before you get to rubbing. We recommend the crypt of St. Martin-In-The-Field.
This pastime is very sensory. There is the engraving’s relief to see, of course, as well as the feel of the material’s cool and embossed texture. Also, the echoed scrubbing of a wax stick in the silence of an old English church is an experience nobody should miss out on.
You can actually try it out now with a pad of paper and a pencil. Write a note on the top sheet, tear it off, and eat it. Take the pencil and gently color the next page with the flat side of the graphite. Put the paper in your scrapbook. Congratulations, you solved the case!
One of first notable use of questionnaires goes back to France, 1835. Adolphe Quetelet was a man that was born with an unusual amount of curiosity. His interests spanned everything from astronomy to sociology, including something called Anthropometry…meaning he was really into the physical proportions of his fellow Frenchmen. Or Frenchwomen.
He also gathered data about people’s psychology. Social Physics was about trying to figure people out like we would try to figure out anything with hard science. Why does an apple fall when you drop it? Scientific Method says it’s gravity. What’s a good way to spray Diet Coke dozens of feet into the air? Scientific Method says it’s Mentos. What does the average Frenchman of the 1830’s eat for breakfast? Scientific Method says Revolution.
This study took answers from many people across the country, what we’d call Big Data today, and tried to explain societal norms. Fast forward to today, and marketers now know that subtle media manipulation makes kids think smoking is fun.
OK, that’s an extreme case. But I’m sure you’re not surprised to know that you’ve been categorized by geography, income, education, and spending habits into something called Segmentation. Survey data is a two-edged sword because it’s also benefiting public health and childcare.
So who takes surveys for fun? Extremely bored people, for one. You literally clicked on a link to an article about the boring hobby of filling out surveys. One theory suggests it’s about cost vs reward. Plenty of websites offer gift cards if you tell them about the last movie you watched. You can get free fish by telling Long John Silver’s about your latest customer experience.
Another theory called Cognitive Dissonance suggests that some people feel a compulsion to click those links and answer calls because they want to help or feel anxious about the decision to participate.
Then there are the people who want their opinions to be heard. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, as long as it’s out there floating in space for someone to react to. You know those places. Reddit. Quora. 4chan. Our personal favorite, Fark.
We consider habitually participating in surveys a hobby. Either via the cold, impersonal interface of a computer or the fleeting interpersonal conversation over the phone…it passes the time and keeps you off the streets.
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