Qualitative research is an umbrella concept covering several forms of inquiry that assists researchers and practitioners in understanding and explaining social phenomena (Merriam, 2009). Although qualitative research has been employed since the early 1900s, qualitative approaches to study the leisure phenomenon and the delivery of leisure services are still lagging behind quantitative approaches. Qualitative research has seven paramount characteristics (1) takes place in the natural setting; (2) qualitative researchers are the primary instrument for data collection and analysis; (3) is emergent rather than tightly prefigured; (4) interpretive; (5) view social phenomena holistically; (6) reflexivity; and (7) inductive logic tends to play a larger role than deductive reason. This paper outlines eight qualitative approaches: (1) narrative research; (2) phenomenological research; (3) ethnography (and autoethnography); (4) grounded theory; (5) case studies; (6) content analysis, (7) poetic inquiry, and (8) arts-based inquiry (and ethnodrama).