I’m dreaming of warm sandy beaches, or high mountain meadows, and realized it’s been awhile since I’ve gone on a good, solid, outdoors-focused vacation. Apparently I’m not the only one. From the magazine Landlopers, introduced to me by the non-profit environment-and-culture group Izilwane…
For more than a decade, visitation numbers at America’s National Parks have been dropping steadily. At first glance, the numbers are encouraging, around 280 million visitations in 2010. Impressive until you peel back the numbers and realize that this includes everything from people driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway to the annual Cherry Blossom Festival attendees. The actual number of people who hike, boat, fish or paddle is much lower, and that number is not increasing.I’m not sure for the drop in numbers, but it’s disheartening. I’m just as guilty as anyone about not visiting our common inheritance nearly as often as I should.
more via Last Tourist in the Woods – Health and Financial Benefits of Outdoor Tourism | LandLopers.
More and more people are discovering the importance of interacting with the outdoors, even in small doses like walking down a tree-line street. And now, the one plus-side of our current Federal and State funding in a crisis is that a lot of national and state parks are offering deals to entice visitors; so aside from supporting your parks and the economy, it’s a good time to think about vacationing in the great outdoors.
Mental Flowers 