Walk. Just like I would hike when I lived rurally, walk. There are trails along the River and through the woods, even in the middle of town. But there’s also sidewalks. A town common. Parks. Several playgrounds have pickup basketball if your knees are better than mine, or there’s a track within an easy walk for some more regimented exercise. Our favorite activity starting during Covid is to walk around our city, seeing the sights. It was a great chance to talk with my kids for hours, before they went off to college. And yes we played Pokémon go as something to do while walking (and a game like that is much better in cities), and met several groups of people that way. If that game is too nerdy or childish, there are apps that gamify walking in various ways. If you’re willing to spend a little, sometimes we would stop at a convenience store for a soda or something, but not always.

When I lived in the major city, it was the same only much more. Every weekend had a festival (free). Every weekend had a band playing somewhere outside free. Every weekend had some big free event at multiple parks. Every Wednesday was free museums. Walking the waterfront is really cool and entirely free. Tourist areas sometimes have street entertainers, free. My city is very walkable and has many colleges: every weekend had some event at some college. My city has a lot of history and tourism, organized as a free “trail” and with most historic things free. There are things like a sailing ship that is free to see: you would have to pay for the museum and gift shop but why would you? Read the historic plaques. If a building or something looks historic, look it up.

For a relatively small amount of money, one of my favorite activities was the farmers market: it was huge and cheap (although I haven’t been in many years). Sometimes I just wanted to walk around and see everything (that shopping is selling whole goats?), or I could buy a week’s worth of veggies fresh from the farm for pennies on the dollar. And connect that back to food prep: when I didn’t have much money or time, I’d take all Saturday, goto the farmers market, come back and put together a giant salad for the week, a pasta salad for the week, maybe marinate some meat in some ingredients I bought- basically get half my cooking and shopping out of the way, dirt cheap

For a relatively small amount of money, much cheaper than operating a car, I usually had a subway pass. The core of that major city is very walkable, but the pass opened the entire city by just hopping on a convenient train without having to think about spending in the moment.

As far as staying in the small apartment goes, being in an urban area means gigabit fiber, which I guess a lot of people still don’t have. Being a first class citizen online is priceless and opens a lot of free (after your internet bill) activities involving sitting at your desk

This has little if anything to do with being in a city, and more to do with how expensive a person’s tastes are.

Making fun for oneself is easy if need are simple. I enjoy a walk with another human because I’d rather do that than go to a shitty steakhouse. I’ll make art on a Saturday afternoon, or cook. There’s always free events of all kinds just check the local promotion groups. Lots of local socializing and board game groups. Bird watching. Bike rides are effectively free, so is going for a picnic in an area you haven’t been to.

Grab a ball and go to the park. Get some unsalted sunflower seeds at the dollar store and feed the chickadees. Hit the local Ultimate pick-up game. Go to a bar and *gasp* don’t drink and just enjoy the live music. Hell if $20 is in the inventory, go to the pinball arcade for 2 hours.

You can have fun for $10K and you can have fun for $0, it’s up to you.

High-paying jobs come to cities, so a sizable number of people really are spending money for everything. Think of it like video game microtransactions.

Of course, to a small extent, it’s also nice that you’re not making car payments, including wear and tear, insurance, and gas.

Where I live, there are also city calendars that help you find the free festivals that cost less. These are often more scheduled rather than “all the time”, so they’re not convenient for tourists.

The ducks in my local park are free

I know not everyone loves church, but my church has an open building day you can come and co-work or just read or sit and relax and chat or whatever, we put out good local coffee shop coffee and tea, and you can hang around as long as you want in an old building with beautiful stained glass windows and use the WiFi, etc. We were talking about how there’s not really anywhere much else you can do that without spending money, you can sit in the library but it’s not like you can heat up your leftover spaghetti and sit on a comfy couch. It’s really a nice way to spend a day.

I would argue that cities have more free activities than towns, by far. Cost of living is higher but so are wages.

Also, I don’t understand why living in a huge home is required to stay in. Certainly isn’t for me.

When I lived in the city I was dead broke but had a great time. I hung out at the library, which was its own cool thing but also served as a community hub to let me know when the local Gurudwara was doing a luncheon, or when crafting clubs met, and having a library card also came with some museum passes. I learned about all sorts of cool, free goings on through my library.

There were also local attractions that had free days or days for locals, and there were street festivals nearby that had live music and performances. One of my favorite things about living in the city was hearing the sound of live music and walking out the door to go follow it to some cool, hitherto unknown to me event that was happening.

We also went ice skating on the pond in the park (free if you had your own skates), or went biking on bike paths. We built snow sculptures in public parks and gardens and just walked around exploring. There were lots of beautiful and interesting buildings and side streets where we could get pleasantly lost.

The key part of where I was is that it was walkable, and there were plenty of “third spaces”. I understand not all cities have that. However, if you’re in the US I highly recommend starting with your local library.

I’m in a mid-sized city. Beaches are public, parks are free or $5ish per carload if you drive in, the library system is amazing, there is a Riverwalk.

I don’t quite understand how you think being away from the stuff a city offers = having more stuff you can do at home. What exactly can you do in your house that you couldn’t do at a home in the city? We have parties, a TV, a computer, a bed, and personally we have also a yard, food garden, pets, kids, but even in an apartment you can grow plants on the patio and have a cat, you just don’t have to drive a long way to do anything.

I’m an Uber nerd andI learn to pirate content. Yes you still need an internet connection and a computer or phone but I can spend days trying to figure out how to install Graphene on my old phone or do something fun or crazy for my home assistant.

Btw, I’m not poor. I just enjoy doing these things.

In my small country town where I live. I am miles from anything there is lovely parks that are free but I have to drive there. Anything I want to do at home I have to buy. In the city where I work my job gives me puppy days, baseball events, free massages etc etc. In walking distance from work and if I were to live in the luxury apartments near by I had a beer garden(free to hang out or relatively cheap to enter like 5$ a wrist band) in the beer garden we had corn hole and lots of bar games free to use. I have a riverwalk, an art museum, a real cheap dinosaur museum, and tons of public parks with movie events and local stargazing clubs etc also more pickup sports games since more people. In the city there is tons of 3rd places that let you hang out for an hour or more for less than $20 with tons of people.

At home it costs me 5$ in gas to drive anywhere and 15 mins to get to the closest thing and will cost me the same $20 in my rural town to hang out in my 3rd place with 0 young people or just the same 5 locals. If I have a hangout at home with stuff I purchased all my friends live 30 + mins away if I made plans to fit their schedule. My local parks are neat if I wanted to walk or do things solo or had a local friend group but that is lots of planning and no one is using the facilities normally. I think 1 local park has a movie night for Halloween once a year

Essentially the city has everything rural does in amenities but just more of them closer together so there is more free things and with more people there is more possible random fun if you are outgoing. Vs rural you have to plan your fun, travel further and have less access to more of everything. But if you have everything at your house and are more of introvert it is a bit better. One of the reasons Why people like to retire to the suburbs is they have access to alot of the city things they like but have just enough room to have all the things they want at home

Our parks, Zoo, and Science Center are all free. And the Botanical Garden is free on specific days, and the symphony and other similar orgs do at least 1 free event per year on average.

I spend a lot of time in my workshop. It’s not free but upcycling materials into something new is infinitely satisfying and often saves money.

The issues is that you are GOING to the city. One you live there, you have all your stuff and do your normal thing. You cook at home and play videos games, then read books before walking your dog to the park by your friend’s house. Basically: don’t extrapolate from the perspective of a tourist.

Other people already gave most of the answers, but

Parks. Go for a walk. Play a game with folks (Frisbee, soccer, whatever). Ride a bike. Read.

Meetups. I go to a tabletop RPG one. That’s not unique to cities, but I can walk to this one and there are probably more people attending than you’d find in a less populous area. I also used to go to a basic neighborhood hangout one. There are many others.

The library is free. Many books and other media to enjoy.

This city has beaches. It’s $3 for the subway ride there , or if I was really broke I could ride a bike.

There are free museums. I don’t go that often but they’re interesting.

But also

And to make it worse many of them probably have a 1 bedroom apartment so its not like you can sit in there all day long (at least i cant).

I realize im still spending money by being in my house out of town, but still, at least things I buy are owned by me, and im not paying someone else every time I want to do anything. If I want to stay at home all day I have tons of stuff to occupy my mind without going nuts.

I don’t think I accept this premise. I stay home in my one bedroom without any more trouble than when I lived in the suburbs. A computer full of games doesn’t need a lot of rooms. I have plenty of entertainment here. I don’t see what’s stifling about a one bedroom. Maybe a tiny studio I could see. But even so, when I lived in a whole house it’s not like I went skipping from room to room.

Exercise are good ways to learn your city on your own or with friends.

Libraries.

Parks.