Hobbits are fond of an unadventurous bucolic life of farming, eating, and socializing. According to Jackson's trilogy, they enjoy seven meals a day, when they can get them: breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, and, later in the evening, supper. In the book, however, supper is simply an alternative name for dinner; Bilbo only served three official meals at his Birthday Party: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper). They like simple food such as bread, meat, potatoes, and cheese, and also like to drink ale, often in inns — such as the English country folk, who were Tolkien's inspiration. They have also been known to have a particular fondness for cake. The name Tolkien chose for one part of Middle-earth where the Hobbits live, "The Shire", is clearly reminiscent of the English Shires. Hobbits also enjoy smoking herbs, which they refer to as "pipe-weed", out of long wooden pipes. This can be attributed to their love of gardening and herb-lore (as exemplified by Sam Gamgee). Another interesting fact is that hobbits have an inordinate liking of mushrooms, prizing them above many other foods. A common pursuit for younger hobbits is mushroom-hunting, and Frodo Baggins said he had stolen Farmer Maggot's mushrooms on at least one occasion. Some Hobbits live in hobbit-holes, known as "smials" which resembled the characteristics of the original places where they dwelt underground. They were found in hillsides, downs, and banks. By the late Third Age, only rich and poor hobbits continued to live in smials; the middle-class hobbits usually lived in large, low buildings, like Brandy Hall. Almost every building in the Shire has round doors and windows, a feature more practical to tunnel-dwelling that the Hobbits retained in their later structures.

Although Hobbits are a peaceful people, who usually shun fighting, they are also, as a race, uncanny marksmen adept with missile weapons of all kinds, from throwing stones to slings and bows - hence the company of archers purportedly sent to aid the Arnorians at the Battle of Fornost. Shire lore says that squirrels, rabbits, and other garden pests have learned to run away quickly if a hobbit "so much as reaches for a pebble"