The COVID-19 pandemic presents not only a global health crisis but has also disrupted the daily lives of people around the world. From a leisure perspective, urban outdoor enthusiasts are one group particularly impacted by the pandemic and the subsequent institutional response. Stay-at-home orders and physical distancing recommendations serve as potential inhibitors to outdoor recreation activities central to the lifestyles and wellbeing of outdoor enthusiasts. In urban areas, where these orders and recommendations are most restrictive, the potential impacts on recreation behavior are most consequential. This study provides an empirical analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the recreational behaviors of outdoor enthusiasts across urban and rural communities. Results suggest that the frequency of outdoor recreation participation, distance travelled to participate in outdoor recreation and distance travelled beyond roads during outdoor recreation have declined significantly more among outdoor enthusiasts residing in urban areas than urban clusters or rural areas.

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the daily lives of people around the world. In an effort to quantify these changes, Google released an open-source dataset pertaining to regional mobility trends—including park visitation trends. Changes in park visitation are calculated from an earlier baseline period for measurement. Park visitation is robustly linked to positive wellbeing indicators across the lifespan, and has been shown to support wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this dataset offers vast application potential, containing aggregated information from location data collected via smartphones worldwide. However, empirical analysis of these data is limited. Namely, the factors influencing reported changes in mobility and the degree to which these changes can be directly attributable to COVID-19 remain unknown. This study aims to address these gaps in our understanding of the changes in park visitation, the causes of these changes (e.g., safer-at-home orders, amount of COVID-19 cases per county, climate, etc.) and possible impacts to wellbeing by constructing and testing a spatial regression model. Results suggest that elevation and latitude serve as primary influences of reported changes in park visitation from the baseline period. Therefore, it is surmised that Google's reported changes in park-related mobility are only partially the function of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been proposed as a catalyst for many U.S. residents to re-engage in outdoor recreation or engage in outdoor recreation for the first time. This manuscript describes the results of a representative U.S. national panel study aimed at better understanding the socio-demographic profile (gender, ethnicity, community type, income, and age) of those participants new to outdoor recreation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, we address how these new outdoor recreationists differ from (1) those who frequently participated in outdoor recreation prior to the pandemic and continue to participate in outdoor recreation, (2) those who did not frequently participate in outdoor recreation prior to the pandemic and remain un-engaged, and (3) those who frequently participated in outdoor recreation prior to the pandemic but stopped their frequent participation following the onset of the pandemic. Results from this U.S. national study suggest that 35.8% of respondents indicated that they did not participate regularly in outdoor recreation prior to the pandemic or during the pandemic, 30.4% indicated that they did participate regularly in outdoor recreation prior to the pandemic and continued to do so regularly during the pandemic, and 13.5% indicated that they did participate regularly in outdoor recreation prior to the pandemic, but did not continue to do so during the pandemic. More than 20% of the sample indicated that they were new outdoor recreationists. The majority of respondents in all categories, including those that were new to outdoor recreation amidst the pandemic, identified as being white, however these new outdoor recreationists were also the least ethnically diverse. The previously but no longer outdoor recreationist respondents were significantly more ethnically diverse than the other three groups, and they tended to live in more urbanized settings. Discussion of these results includes implications for outdoor recreation managers, and researchers who seek to better understand who the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced with regard to outdoor recreation participation. Implications regarding social justice, access and equity to public places that facilitate outdoor recreation, and health-related policies are discussed.

On March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The pandemic is rapidly altering daily life and leading to changes in the way we spend time outside. In an effort to gather timely and relevant data on national recreation patterns, before, during, and after the pandemic, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics worked quickly with its academic partner, Pennsylvania State University, to offer guidance to land managers, recreation providers, and outdoor enthusiasts across the country. In total, 1,012 outdoor recreationists were surveyed through the Leave No Trace community in a 48-hour window beginning on the morning of April 9th. Our hope is that the results of this rapid assessment will provide valuable information for managing the changing recreation use of public lands, predicting spikes in recreation, and offering insight for land managers as they work to protect the natural world. The following tables, figures, and corresponding brief descriptions are intended to provide initial results of this research effort. Further results are forthcoming.

Land managers and public agencies strive to manage parks and protected areas (PPAs) for a balance between the preservation of ecological health and the visitor experience. To fulfill this dual mandate, an understanding of recreationist visitation patterns in PPAs is vital. Mobile phones, passively capturing location data while in use throughout our daily lives, represent a significant opportunity for PPA managers and researchers. This study conducts a scoping literature review to understand how mobile phone location data has been used in PPA research to measure visitation, spatial patterns of use, and visitor experiences in PPAs. The body of research included in this review provides methodological guidance and highlights room for growth in our understanding of the use, limitations, and analysis of mobile phone location data. This scoping literature review presents existing applications of mobile phone location data in PPA research, limitations identified, and opportunities for future research.