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Keeping a close eye on emerging trends in outdoor recreation (from a safe distance) since 2005.
What we're about Ten years ago no one had heard of geocaching. Twenty years ago inline skating was just starting to take off. What recreational activities in their infancy today will be a common activity a few years from now? Outdoor recreation planners need to keep abreast of new activities so they can begin thinking about how to accommodate them and, in a few cases, protect resources and other recreationists from negative impacts. This link site is primarily for those planners. We hope it also provides some entertainment for those who consider Web surfing a recreation in itself.
This site was originally developed by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation. To make it more widely accessible and to give it more prominence it has been moved to its own web address and is maintained privately by Rick Just, who is a researcher and outdoor recreation planner with the agency. If you know of an emerging recreational activity that isn't listed, please
Links are examples only, not necessarily the definitive site created on an activity. Inclusion of these links in no way implies endorsement for a particular activity, product or website.
A word about "the fastest growing sport" Claiming that your particular recreational activity is "the fastest growing sport" is pathological among those promoting new activities. They are passionate about their niche and have likely just discovered a hundred other people with the same passion, ergo, it must be the fastest growing. Be skeptical. |
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Human-powered sports |
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| Adventure Racing, according to isportsdigest.com, is a term given to competitions comprised of several rugged outdoor events occurring almost non-stop over a period of several days. Participants are usually organized in co-ed teams, though there are a growing number of races for individuals. | Adventure Racing |
| Canyoneering is simply the act of traveling through a canyon. Participants may be hiking, biking, boating or climbing, often requiring specialized gear. | |
| Bouldering is climbing big rocks, often without equipment other than a crash pad beneath you on the ground. Haven't got a handy boulder? Several companies will build one for your park | |
| Free Climbing is not quite climbing without equipment, but it is climbing with only the equipment you need to keep from falling. Free climbers disdain the use of equipment that helps them in their upward mobility. | Climbing.com |
| Free Running, or Le Parkour, is "the art of movement," a way of using obstacles found in one's path to perform jumps and acrobatics. It is all about finding new, sometimes dangerous ways, through a city landscape--scaling walls, roof-running, leaping building to building. It's basically Spiderman without the net. | Le Parkour |
| Speed Climbing How fast can you ascend? | Speed Climbing Records |
| Tree Climbing Isn't this what I did as a kid? Yup, but these folks are serious about it. They have equipment! | treeclimbing.com |
| Noodling Sounds like something your kids do with foam toys in the pool, doesn't it? This is fishing at its most basic, no hook, no line, no sinker--not even a pole! Just shove your fist into the mouth of a catfish and hope for the best. | Noodling |
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Bicycle sports |
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| Free Riding The International Mountain Biking Association defines free riding as as "a style of mountain biking that celebrates the challenges and spirit of technical riding and downhilling." | Free riding |
| Heli-Biking Mountain biking, but using a helicopter to get you to an otherwise inaccessible site. | Heli-biking |
| Power Assisted Biking New electric assist bikes give people a boost. | electricvehiclesnw.com |
| Ski Biking Remove wheels, add skis, scoot downhill. | ski-bike.org |
| Off-road Unicycling A sport designed with those for whom careening down a mountain side on two wheels is not challenge enough. | unicycle.com |
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Board sports |
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| Mountain Boarding This is just what you'd expect, all terrain skateboarding. | mountainborder.com |
| Landluge, Roadluge, or Streetluge High speed stuff on what looks like a large, modified skateboard. No standing. Just as in the winter sport from which the name is derived, participants lay on their backs and rip down the road. |
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| Sand Boarding Much like snowboarding. Remove snow, add sand. | sandboard.com |
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Wind-powered sports |
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| Ice Boarding is the name given to a couple of different sports. Participants skid across the ice on a windsurfer-like board, or a common skateboard, depending on locale, pocketbook and inclination. See also kiteskateing. | How it's done in Poland |
| Kiteskating is, according to kiteskating.com, an extreme sport using powerful, controllable kites to propel riders of in-line skates, off-road skates or mountain boards at speeds up to 60 mph across parking lots, desert dry lakes, grassy fields, and sandy beaches. Lots of wheel variations on this one. | Kiteskating.com
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| Land Sailing Not necessarily new (it's been around since the 50s in one form or another), but worth another look given the growing popularity of the above. | North American Land Sailing Association |
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Water-powered and water based sports |
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| River Boarding Also called sledging in New Zealand and hydrofoil or hydrospeed in Europe, this is basically riding a something like a boogie board--normally towed by a boat--down whitewater. | |
| Hydro Bronc This is a brand name item that looks like a human-sized gerbil ball tumbling down the rapids when in use. Also used on the ocean, on lakes, in swimming pools or anywhere one might have the yen to walk on water. | Hydro Bronc |
| Motorized Kayaks Not a personal watercraft in the sense of Jet Skis, but not exactly a kayak, either. | motorized kayaks |
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Dog-powered sports |
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| Skijoring Man's best buddy gets to, uh, participate. Strap on the cross country skis, tie yourself to a dog and head down the trail. Who needs a sled? | skijornow.com |
| Dog Sledding You know about this one. As your family poodle pack begins to expand, perhaps you should consider it. | dogsled.com |
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Power-powered sports |
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| Rock Crawling If you have a hankering to traverse your neighborhood glacial moraine, this is the motorized sport for you. Drivers maneuver their four-wheelers across the rocks in timed and skill competitions. | |
| Rough Terrain Vehicles As a class, RTVs are suited for rock crawling and activities that challenge regular four-wheelers and ATVs. These are super heavy duty units surrounded by roll cages. | |
| Tracked ATVs Jealous because your ATV can't go where a tank can go? Here's a solution to that little problem that also purports to make the purchase of a snowmobile unnecessary. | litefootatv.com |
| Off Highway Segway Okay, this is just a prototype. You won't see these anytime soon on your local ATV trail. Still... | segway.com |
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Flying and jumping sports |
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| Bungee Jumping Fairly common. Included because anyone who willingly throws themselves off a perfectly good bridge should be. | bungee jump directory |
| Cliff Jumping Also known as cliff diving, this one requires knowing exactly what you're jumping into (assuming you want to live). | cliffjumping.com |
| Hovercraft These have been around for years as noisy, impractical vehicles. Guess what? They're getting better. Look out ATVs. | hovercraft.com |
| Ultralights Experimental aircraft often painstakingly put together in someone's garage. These, too, are becoming more sophisticated and are likely to show up where you least expect them. | ultralightnews.com |
| Paragliding and Hang Gliding Remember when you used to strap those frogs to a kite when you were a kid? Now you can feel the same thrill the frogs did! | |
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Technical recreation |
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| Geocaching In a sense, this activity is what started the Recreation Next website. Its sudden popularity caught many recreation managers and planners by surprise. Although mostly benign, it has caused some problems in the areas of resource damage and safety. | geocaching.com |
| GPS Games Did you think geocaching was all you could do with your trusty unit? Ah, contraire! Globe trot with the best of them as a "Geodasher." Or, use that other digital device in kit back in a game of Shutter Spot. This site highlights these and other games. | gpsgames.org |
| Letterboxing Much like geocaching, except that participants find hidden rubber stamps with which to stamp their logs. | letterboxing.org |
| Degree Confluence In the tradition of geocaching, this activity encourages people to locate global latitude and longitude intersections. | confluence.org |
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Weird, offbeat and radical recreation |
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| Zorbing If we had to pick one activity to represent Recreation Next, it would be Zorbing. Also called gerbiling, this sport appeals only to insiders... inside the Zorb, that is. It gets bonus points for originating in New Zealand, the home to an inordinate number of offbeat recreational activities. | zorb.com |
| Extreme Ironing Yes, you read it right. These dedicated sportsters like the challenge of pressing a pair of pants on a mountain top or beside a coral reef. Really. | extremeironing.com |
| Elephant Polo Not likely to be a major issue for the Forest Service or you local city park (unless you happen to live in Nepal). | Elephant Polo |
| Irish Road Bowling This one has been around since the 17th century. As an emerging recreational trend it is taking its own sweet time to emerge. Stranger things have happened, though (see above). | Irish Road Bowling |
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Other link sites on related subjects |
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http://www.allextremesports.com/ http://dmoz.org/Sports/Extreme_Sports/ |
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