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Maybe whittling/wood carving? Just need a decent knife, some scrap wood and patience. And if the hobby doesn't stick you have a nice knife to just use for whatever.

You could try polishing mud balls if you want something more messy
https://feltmagnet.com/crafts/hikaru-dorodango

I personally like TCGs/CCGs since you need to shuffle and manipulate cards constantly and its also mentally engaging but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea and can be cost prohibitive.

Brewing mead and small batch alcohols is (relatively) easy but does require long-term attention and some misc setup equipment

Crochet can be as simple as a skein of yarn and a hook or as fancy as you want.

Making chainmail is simple, repetitive, and a bit slow but can be done with simple tools and wire and can either be sold or kept as really cool curios!

A good soldering iron is cheap and let's you fix up old broken electronics, which can also be had for cheap on eBay or other places. It makes my brain go brr and it's very tactile and precise.

a fancy setup would be expensive and hard to find but id highly recommend getting a simple cassette player/recorder and some blank/writeable tapes and making your own bootlegs and mixtapes.
they sell new blank tapes for too much money but not insane too much money. another option is to go around local thrift stores looking for old tapes with the write tabs still in (you can take any tape and put something over the divot and record over it anyways but i don't like doing that). older tapes do tend to be somewhat degraded so quality may vary but getting into cassettes already means your sacrificing convenience and cost for the tactility and cool factor, and tbh i like the noise.
anyways with a 3.5mm cord you can record things to the cassettes right off your computer or even phone, just gotta find the right volume setting not to peak the recording.
anyways cassettes are super cool and were originally designed to be recorded and played back portably, decades before they were a popular way to sell music by labels, so go wild and make your own shitty bootlegs and listen wherever you want

I never got around to trying it while I lived there but in Baltimore the Station North Tool Library seems really cool. Also depending on where you are getting a community garden plot could be a thing

Gardening is one I started recently and I famously have no money. I’ve been using various sizes of cans and things I find around the house to grow plants in. It’s going great. Also, if everything goes well, I should have a bunch of food in a few months. Seeds are really cheap!

cooking?

resin casting perhaps its fun

you didn't seem that interested in them while visiting but speed cubing / collecting twisty puzzles is pretty affordable and basically the ultimate fidget thing

the place i used to live had a charity pottery/painting place that you could go and tool around in for a low hourly rate, i'm sure other cities have similar places

-- modular origami! costs as much as a pack of post it notes, you don't need special paper. fold a bunch of simple modules, build big cool stuff! it's sort of like model building.

• pottery - expensive, but about as tactile as it gets.

• linoleum carving - you can probably get started for like $50. watch 1 video and you will see why this is a tactile happy place

• crochet is a great option if you have a lot of patience - the initial learning curve can be a little steep!