Many of us find a sense of belonging in the outdoors, but finding a community of like-minded adventure partners is sometimes harder to come by. Luckily, new organizations catering to individuals from all walks of life are making it easier for modern adventurers to find connection.

Alpenglow Collective

Female representation in the outdoor industry has come along way in recent years. But when it comes to thinking more deeply about gender and actively including people outside traditional gender norms, outdoor recreation still has a long way to go. Enter , co-founded by Elyse Cogburn and Emily Mannisto this year. The organization leads climbing meetups throughout the West for women-identified, transgender, and gender nonconforming individuals. On top of hosting , Alpenglow’s website features a where anyone can create a small profile about their adventure interests and message others to connect with new adventure buddies.

Adaptive Climbing Group

Kareemah Batts, a writer and disability advocate, started in 2012. The group’s climbing sessions welcome people with permanent disabilities, including amputations, limb differences, spinal cord injuries, neurological diseases, and visual impairments. Current meetup locations include Chicago, New York, and Massachusetts in both indoor and outdoor locations.

Fat Girls Hiking

Body-positivity organization champions the belief that trails beat diet culture any day and that people can be healthy at any size. The self-described “fat activism, body liberation, and outdoor community” was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 2015 and hosts all-inclusive hikes about once a month. So far, the group has regional chapters in Los Angeles, Seattle, the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, and Knoxville, Tennessee.

The Venture Out Project

Perry Norris left the corporate world and found his calling in environmental education, founding the in 2014 to offer a safe and inclusive place for LGBTQ individuals to learn backpacking and wilderness skills from their peers. Programming for both youth and adults promotes the idea that it’s never too late to gain the confidence that can come from outdoor recreation. The Venture Out Project leads trips in New England and the Pacific Northwest.

Women Who Hike

began in 2015 as a social media platform that shared images of outdoorsy women. As momentum grew, founder Nicole Brown realized the Instagram account’s potential. Women Who Hike is now a membership-based network designed to lead and empower women in the outdoors, offering regional meetups and guided hikes in some areas, organized primarily through members-only emails and Facebook groups that anyone can join in nearly every U.S. state, parts of Canada, and Europe. Participants can sign up for regional hikes and outings, which are led by the organization’s ambassadors, after paying a one-time membership fee of $15.

Brown Girls Climb

Founded in November 2016 by Bethany Lebewitz, provides inclusive exploration and leadership opportunities for female climbers of color. The organization started as an but has quickly grown into a community-building resource for climbers of color. Leaders host meetups in Washington, D.C., and Denver, Colorado, both indoors and outdoors. They also put on events like Color the Crag, an annual climbing festival hosted with Brothers of Climbing in Alabama each September.

Sierra Club Outdoors

The Sierra Club has been getting people outside for more than a century, but the organization is in many ways taking a page out of newcomers’ books, creating outing initiatives tailored for certain groups of people. This includes its program, which hosts meetups in communities with limited access to the outdoors, and trips specifically for military veterans. Most people, including those who don’t live in the West or in major cities, should be able to find a regional adventure group through the Sierra Club’s website.

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Two years ago, the released a report estimatingÌęthe national economic impact of the outdoor industry at $887 billion a year. That number has sinceÌębecome a sort of gospel for people looking to push pro-public lands policies across the finish line and invest in recreation economies at a local level around the country.

But what that number didn’t capture was the direct impact recreation has on the local growth of mountain towns and similar outdoor-oriented communities. A newÌę from Headwaters Economics, a , does just that. The report found that a county with recreation attracts more new residents, higher incomes, and faster earnings growth than a county without recreation, particularly for areas designated as rural (less than 10,000 residents) and micropolitan (less than 50,000 residents).

“We already knew that having outdoor recreation nearby brings tourists to your community,” says Megan Lawson, an economist at Headwaters andÌęauthor of the study. “But what we didn’t have great information on was whether that tourist and those amenities translate into people actually wanting to move to and live in these communities.”

Lawson looked at each county in the U.S. that the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service designated as a “recreation county”—meaning that the local economy is primarily dependent on entertainment and recreation, as well as the associated hospitality industry—and found that while many tourism-dependent communities are known for their low-paying service jobs, the people moving there tend to be wealthier. And thoughÌęrecreation county wages are lower on average, they are growing at a pace that will soon meet or exceed the wages of non-recreation counties. Places with recreation are seeing a steady trickle of people moving in rather than moving away—something particularly significant for rural America, which is losing more residents than it is gaining.

“Outdoor recreation is being seen as a legitimate economic development strategy,” says Lawson. “It’s not just ski bums and dirt bags any more that are the face of an outdoor recreation economy. It’s the entrepreneurs that are moving to a community, bringing their families and their businesses.”

But this influx of higher incomes and wealthier residents is not without its challenges, as any member of the workforce in Bozeman, Truckee, Jackson, Crested Butte, or any other mountain town could tell you.

Rapid growth in many recreation communities means a higher cost of living, affordable housing challenges, and development encroaching into wildfire-prone and other vulnerable landscapes. If we aren’t careful, the report warns, these risks could outstrip the benefits of a growing recreation-based economy.

“The local government has to play an active role in countering that. It’s not something that will just fix itself,” saysÌęStacy Corless, commissioner for California's Mono County, home to Mammoth.

That can take many forms—from paying for basic needs and services to making high speed internet available to accelerating innovative housing solutions for a town’s workforce. And on top of all that, local governments in outdoor destinations are often the ones who step in to invest in recreation infrastructure when no one else can.

“What we’ve come to recognize is that we need the recreational amenities of our public lands to be in good shape, for our own quality of life, for our communities, but also for our recreation and tourism-based economies,” says Corless. This includes “really basic things like making sure bathrooms get opened in time for the annual fishing season opener. The Forest Service is only budgeted to start doing that stuff on Memorial Day, so we cover the cost and we have our contractor go in and open the bathrooms, clean the bathrooms, and empty trash dumpsters. And I think things like that happen all over the west in rural counties.”

Despite the tradeoffs and active role local governments would have to play to both support and grow and then ultimately deal with the cons associated with recreation economies, the findings from Headwaters Economics show that investing in this kind of recreation infrastructure could be a game changer for many communities.

“There are definitely communities that are looking at recreation, and they want to have those problems associated with too many people moving to town,” says Lawson. “It’s important to recognize that recreation is not a silver bullet for every place. It’s not the case where you build a trail, people will come, the rivers will flow with milk and honey and all of our problems will be solved. It’s one option in the toolbox. But for some places, it might be a good fit.”

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I’m a hat person out of necessity. Thanks to several years of high-alpine living and more than my fair share of sunburns, I’ve tried embracing trendy wool wide-brim hats and summer sun hats made of straw. However, nothing really fits the, ahem, bill for me like a trucker hat.

Now a staple for bad-hair days and a symbol of a life lived outdoors, trucker hats get their name from the fact that they were originally given away as freebies to truck drivers, farmers, and other rural workers in the 1960s as promos from farming-supply companies.ÌęBut over time, their popularity has grown to the point where nearly every outdoor brand has at least one in its lineup. With so many options on the market, I picked these favorites by focusing on a few key things—company ethics, overall quality and durability, andÌęstyle. Here are the ones that rose to the top.

Meridian Line

“My Meridian Line hats are designed from the inside out—every stitch and piping and internal art considered,” says Jeremy Collins, an illustrator whose imagery has saturated nearly every niche of the outdoor industry. He’s worked with everyone from Keen to Protect Our Winters on highly recognizable marketingÌęcampaigns. In 2014, he cofounded his own brand, .

“Truckers have become an unignorable commodity for most brands, but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable just slapping some art on a stock hat and calling it a day,” Collins says. Known for his highly detailed line drawings of nature and wildlife, he applies the same meticulous approach to quality to the brand, and hats are arguably the best canvas for artwork in his line of soft goods.

All of the Meridian Line hats showcase his art, but my favorite is theÌę ($25), because the faint linework on each one intentionally stands out more and more as the hat fades with time, meaning the more wear and tear you put it through, the more interesting and unique each design gets.

NativesOutdoors

There areÌęa lot of brands out there combining social or environmental responsibility with product, but NativesOutdoorsÌęfounder Len NeceferÌęuses his brand to create space for indigenousÌęartists and outdoor athletes. His goal? To empowerÌęthrough representation.Ìę“We’re looking to cultivate artists who are natives and who are doing cool things with design,” says Necefer, “but our imagery isn’t necessarily recreating what you’d see on a Navajo rug or a Gwich’in beaded piece. It’s using that as the influence or base.”

NativesOutdoors hats feature geometric patterns and bright colorsÌęand are an indigenous response to the plethora of culturally appropriated imagery currently saturating the outdoor market. I especially love the five-panelÌę ($24). ItÌęstands out in a crowd thanks to the plays on modern colors and graphic elementsÌęthat still honorÌęa traditional indigenous aesthetic. The company works withÌę to create the hats, which Necefer chose for their durability. BoCo uses a woven—rather than foam—front panel, which reinforces the sturdy feel of the hat.

This item is currently out of stock.Ìę

Bigtruck

With itsÌębold graphics andÌętrademark off-center logo, there’s a lot to love about Bigtruck. The company specializesÌęin trucker hats, which allows itÌęto really hone in on not just the technical features but also pack tons of personality into each design. “Bigtruck got its start making a simple yet symbolic beacon of California mountain life: the trucker hat,” says Bill Sinoff, the company’s general manager.

From the scenic prints on theÌę line to the eye-catching and easily recognizableÌę designs (both $35), each Bigtruck hat speaks to an outdoor lifestyle. The company is also a , which means you canÌęfeel good about the environmental and social impact of each hat itÌęmakes.

Bristlecone Designs

Artist Ann Piersall’sÌębold line drawings of the eastern SierraÌęare unmistakableÌębut only available in a handful of area shopsÌę(that luckily have online stores), includingÌę. The natural and often neutral paletteÌęof her artwork on the front of each hat isÌęoffset by bold, jewel-toned flat bills and mesh backs. TheÌęcombo looks great on folks who like walking around with fine art on their foreheads (and covering up their dirty hair).

Piersall, who sells her original paintings as well as prints in addition to the hats, says, “I started printing my art on hats with the intention of making the art accessible and available to people, like most of my dirtbag friends, who wouldn’t traditionally purchase art.”

Piersall’s brand is under the radar, but that’s one of the reasons I love it. It’s tough to pick a favorite design, but if I had to, it’d beÌętheÌę ($28).

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I stood on the porch of a backcountry cabin high in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains with 15 other women, all of us there for a lesson in pack fitting from Becky Marcelliano, the marketing manager ofÌęDeuter, an outdoor-bags company.ÌęThe women gathered around Marcelliano were all partÌęof the outdoor industry and there as part of a leadership summit organized by . We were adventure photographers and writers, businessÌęfounders, and professional athletes. The collective miles we’d logged over the years was indisputably considerable.

MarcellianoÌęexplained design elements and how exactly a pack made to carry 10, 30, or even 50 to 60 pounds of weight should be distributed on a woman’s body.

This level of attention to women’s design wasn’t always the case. One of the first people to design women’s-specific packs was Wayne Gregory of Gregory Mountain Products. HeÌęstarted making prototypes with the input of his wife, Suzie,Ìęin the 1970s.ÌęDecades later, many brands are still working to improve their women’s designs, focusing onÌęeverything from the shape of a woman’s body to how she moves with a pack on. The goal? Maximum efficiency on the trail, allowing the wearer to hike longer and carry more weight comfortably. But while a women’s pack willÌęfit many female body shapes, some women might be better off ignoring which gender is indicated on the label.

“Gender is just a way to normalize some patterns that we talk about,” says Rosie Mansfield, Osprey’s product-line manager, who I called after the summit. SheÌęexplained that the women’s or men’s linesÌęare really shortcuts that help people find the product most likely to fit their body, saving consumers time and energy.

Dave Polivy agrees. He owns Ìęin Truckee, California, and has been fitting packs on both men and women for over 16 years. “Women should always start with trying on a women’s-specific pack. If it doesn’t fit well, they should try on a men’s,” he says. “It depends on the shape of your body. Same with men—there might be some who are skinnier or shorter who might fit better into a women’s pack.”

Women’s packs aren’t simply a marketing ploy. MostÌęon the market today have tailored the three ingredients of proper fit—hip belt, harness, and torso length—to best fit the proportions, ratios, and shapes that are often found on average female forms.

“It’s like if you were to try to tie a ribbon around a football. Women’s hips tend to be a little more curved, and the hip belt has to fit that,”Ìęsays Mansfield.Ìę“We changed the shape of the hip belt for women’s-specific packs in order to fit more conical hips.”

Like many women, I have very curvy hips and a lower center of gravity. Because of this, I hike much more efficiently when the weight of my pack is centered mostly on my hips and lower back, rather than dumpingÌęonto my shoulders. According to Mansfield, because I use women’s-specific packs, my hip belts have been designed to work with this lower-body strength and fit my curves, contouring to my hips to evenly distribute the weight on the strongest point of my body while minimizing discomfort.

Over the years, I have heard many women hikers complain about bruising caused by their hip belts, even on women’s-specific packs. “WomenÌętend to be more narrow in the shoulders and torso than men, and have a smaller amount of space between the neck and shoulder, so accounting for that while reducing chafing and friction is important,” says Polivy. “The challenge for designers is in using less material than they would in men’s packs [due to average size differences between men and women]Ìębut making sure the weight is still distributed correctly. The overall goal is maximum comfort over distance and hours.”

And while it matters more that you find a pack that feels good on your body regardless of whetherÌęthe tag readsÌęW or M, the specific design elements unique to women’s packsÌęprovide a better distribution of load for manyÌęfemale athletes. “I always tell people to be relentless about taking the time to figure [out fit],” says Mansfield. “Having a bag that fits, from the hip belt to the harness to the back panel, will allow you to carry weight a lot more efficiently. Not only is it about comfort, but in a backcountry situation, it can be about safety—being able to move efficientlyÌęwithout getting tired or unstable.”

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Since Utah established the country’s first state office of outdoor recreation five years ago, the idea has spread rapidly. Colorado and Washington opened offices in 2015; in 2016, three more states started offices or initiatives dedicated to promoting outdoor recreation. Last year, the number nearly doubled, bringing the total to 11.

This rush of activity indicates that state governments have come around to the idea that outdoor recreation is a significant driver of economic activity that also offers other important environmental and social benefits. Until relatively recently, most states gauged the value of federal public lands within their borders purely in terms of their viability for extractive industries like mining, logging, and oil drilling. But in recent years, thanks to a growing awareness of the consumer spending and state tax revenue associated with outdoor recreation, that attitude has begun to evolve. Now these new offices are looking to advance changes in policies to further support the sector.

While this is good news for the recreation industry, by Utah State University’s suggests these offices are in dire need of more support Ìęfrom outside the outdoor industryÌęif they’re going to have an enduring impact.

“The offices of outdoor recreation represent a watershed moment in the recognition of outdoor recreation being a critical component of any state’s economy, livability, and public policy,” says Bob Ratcliffe, chief of conservation and outdoor recreation programs at the National Park Service (NPS), which commissioned the report. “My interest was to have a better understanding on what ingredients are emerging from these offices, identify their areas of focus, then determine how federal agencies can better align, collaborate, and support public land policy that helps achieve those goals.”

One standout finding in the report was that conversations about the outdoor recreation economy are increasingly commonplace among local, state, and federal politicians. Historically, government agencies haven’t factored in the revenue generated by activities like hiking and biking when assessing public lands. But recent efforts by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) and the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to estimate the size of the recreation economy have spurred a shift. The OIA put consumer recreation spending at , while the BEA, which didn’t count apparel and equipment manufactured overseas, put it at $373 billion.

The increased dialogue and financial analyses have created momentum for the new state offices, but the report alludes that many of them are still too small or poorly funded to be as effective as they need to be. Some have just a single staff member, in some cases assisted by college interns. Small budgets limit the work of most of the offices, though funding in Maryland, Rhode Island, and Vermont is especially anemic.

Some state legislators have been hesitant to invest much in the offices because they view them as experiments. Another challenge is the fact that compared to top-of-mind voter concerns like jobs, health care, and infrastructure, supporting recreation can seem like a very low priority to policymakers. “Outdoor recreation doesn’t generally have a lot of crises on its own,” said one unnamed government employee quoted in the report. “Crises are what sometimes get money and attention.”

Another political challenge to the offices comes from the fact that they can be created by governors. According to the report, this can lead to an office being seen as an extension of a political agenda, and thus a target for elimination by the next administration. The report suggests that offices will benefit by remaining independent from political parties or executives.

The good news is that outdoor recreation is something both liberals and conservatives support, though often for different reasons. The offices in more progressive states like Oregon, Vermont, and Washington focus on conservation as an end goal to increased use of public lands. Other states, like Maryland, North Carolina, and Wyoming, tend to view recreation as revenue source first, with conservation as a potential side benefit.

Despite their current limitations, some offices have already won big victories. The Utah office successfully lobbied to secure a portion of revenue from hotel and motel taxes for projects like like boat ramps and trail construction in counties and cities.

In determining the offices’ impact, the report stresses that states shouldn’t limit their assessments to economics and the environment. In Rhode Island, for example, theÌęrecreation council’s primary goal was improving public health. (Rhode Island's office was a temporary test to study the feasibility and effectiveness of an recreation office,Ìęand the results are still being examined.)ÌęRecreation doesn’t “exist in a vacuum,” as one government employee was quoted saying in the report, so their impact shouldn’t be measured in one either.

“States that have already set up offices of outdoor recreation haven’t only seen economic benefits,” says Jordan W. Smith, one of the report’s authors and an assistant professor of environment and society at Utah State University. “They’ve also seen benefits to state transportation systems, health care, and people’s general quality of life.”

While it’s clear that all the states’ offices need a lot more resources if they’re going to be effective, the simple fact of their creation is a testament to a new attitude about outdoor recreation and the value of public lands. “For many years, outdoor recreation was really thought of as a byproduct of public lands,” Ratcliffe says, “not as a resource in its own right.”

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When graphic designer Vernan Kee received an invitation to the winter Outdoor Retailer market in January 2017, he jumped at the chance to attend, hoping the opportunity would help him advance his career and build his client base. Like most Outdoor Retailer rookies, he was initially blown away by the innovative product designs and outdoor merchandise displayed by brand after brand. Outdoor Retailer is, among many other things, a chance for brands to debut new product lines and show off a bit.

But the more products and brands Kee saw, the worse he felt about pursuing work in the outdoor industry.

Kee is DinĂ©, or Navajo. As he walked among the flashy booths, he saw the designs of his people plastered on everything from scarves to snowboards. Symbols like the sacred DinĂ©tah diamonds that symbolize the four corners of the Navajo Nation, the traditional Spider Woman crosses that honor the culture’s history as weavers, and the sun-face graphics that symbolize prosperity were being used with no respect for their traditional meanings.

“I tried ignoring it at first, but it just got worse. Almost every brand had something Native American–related,” says Kee, who had at various points approached some of the brands for work but had never been hired. “A lot of them were using actual symbols that are sacred and mean something.”

This uncredited adoption of imagery and symbols has a name: cultural appropriation. Outdoor brands, like countless clothing, bedding, and furniture manufacturers before them, have put Native imagery on all sorts of apparel and technical gear for years. Only a fraction of that imagery has been created by Indigenous designers and artists. The problem is especially ironic as the outdoor industry has aligned itself with tribal interests in protecting public lands, from Bears Ears National Monument to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s time to elevate the work of Native people who are fully capable of creating that aesthetic on their own and have been doing it for untold generations before white people realized how good these designs look on Instagram.

“Let’s face it,” says Shain Jackson, a Coast Salish artist and lawyer based in British Columbia, “we are the most impoverished demographic in this country. Our artwork, nationwide, is our biggest source of private direct revenue. Handcrafts, arts, and designs are hardly scratching the surface, but we just want the benefit from the artwork to go to the right people, or at least a large part of it.”

Mainstream—that is, mostly white—culture continues to steal from and profit off Indigenous people who have already lost land, language, culture, and countless lives to colonialism and cruel policies. Using meaningful Native images on products simply for aesthetic reasons is a way of ignoring the context of colonialism and stolen lands. The trendiness of Native imagery compounds the problem even further by making it harder for talented, motivated Native people like Kee to break into the industry.

“We’re not stuck in the Stone Age,” Kee says. “I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, and I’m implementing traditional designs in modern, artistic ways.” Kee’s client list includes NativesOutdoors, a B-Corp organization that works to support Indigenous people in the outdoor industry and beyond. (NativesOutdoors was founded by Len Necefer, a co-author of this article.)

This problem extends far beyond the outdoor industry, but it’s worth scrutinizing especially as outdoor brands publicize their politics, as they did in 2017, when Outdoor Retailer moved from Salt Lake City to Denver in protest of Utah’s position on public lands. Brands walk a fine line between a white savior complex and true allyship when they ignore other injustices in how they treat Indigenous cultures and artwork.

“Part of reconciliation is being honest about the history that is difficult to hear,” says Gregg Deal, a Native activist and artist who is very vocal about the relationship between Indigenous identity and pop culture. “And knowing your history isn’t just like saying, ‘I know Indians got a raw deal.’ Look at something like the Sand Creek Massacre,” in 1864, when U.S. soldiers raided a Cheyenne and Arapahoe village, killing hundreds. “Once you have that context, then you understand things like historical trauma.”

The outdoor industry, which is already making strides in upholding stringent guidelines in other areas, such as sustainabilityÌęandÌęspecific standards on feather sourcing for down products, could give the same treatment to ethical standards when it comes to Native designs. “A good ally is someone who facilitates the opportunity for our people to speak for ourselves,” Deal says.

Customers should ask questions and make sure they’re spending money on real Indigenous designs, Jackson says. “Ask if an Indigenous design on a product is not only a real Indigenous design, but also if the artist has been remunerated for that design,” he says.

Over the past year, Jackson has partnered with Mountain Equipment Co-Op, Canada’s version of REI, to help the retail chain set standards of fairness to Indigenous artists. He educated MEC staff about the impact of cultural appropriation as the co-op began to remove products from its inventory that used Indigenous imagery but weren’t created by Natives.

“For me, it’s been an incredible learning journey,” says ShonaÌęMcGlashan, MEC’s chief governance officer and internal leader of the company’s effort to remove appropriated designs from its shelves. “The first two or three times this question came up to me, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is no big deal.’ It has taken me a while to understand what I currently understand. You have to confront things that you were doing in the past that you maybe don’t feel that great about.”

MEC has been relatively quiet about this new policy, but the company now asks each brand it carries to prove a Native artist was financially compensated before placing an item with Indigenous symbols or graphics on its shelves.

If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. “It’s hard for people like me to confront the shoulders they’re standing on. It’s very uncomfortable, and it’s very necessary,” McGlashan says. “There are a lot of gray areas. If it was an easy question to have solved, we would have solved it.”

Still, consider that the outdoor industry contributes $373 billion to the U.S. economy, and brands have been known to brainstorm very long lists of potential product names for each jacket in their line. Why not put the same effort into making sure Native designs are properly used? Treating Native artists fairly isn’t a simple process, but that doesn’t mean that the line between right and wrong is blurry.

“There are things that somebody will consider egregious appropriation and others will think is fair artistic game,” McGlashan says. “When people say a product is ‘inspired’ by something, that’s already a red flag that has my ears pricking up. One of the things that I will say in my work on this subject is that art absolutely exists to challenge and critique society. Outdoor retail, not so much.”

Indigenous artists like Kee are ready to make their voices heard—with or without the support of larger brands and other potential allies. Toward this goal, with the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs and the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office to gather 20 tribes’ elected officials at this summer’s Outdoor Retailer show to discuss their involvement with the outdoor industry and public land management. This gathering is the first of its kind and will create a bridge between the industry and the tribes.

“I really wanted to make the industry aware that there are Native Americans here now—at Outdoor Retailer, in the outdoor industry, and purchasing products as outdoor consumers,” KeeÌęsays. “These brands should just be aware of that. Things need to change a little bit around here.”

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Social media is often more aspirational than realistic, but for those of us planning trips or even just wishing we could, Instagram’s many travel accounts still feel like a digital, personalized postcard from places we long to go. Here are nine accounts that inspire travel and broaden horizons, one 1080×1080-pixel image at a time.

@hipcamp

Hipcamp is the Airbnb of camping, connecting people who want to get off the grid with more camping options across the country. The specialty ofÌę? Highlighting those usually quiet, often overlooked moments that lead to the best travel memories: lounging in a hammock, soaking in a hot spring, sipping a steaming cup of coffee next to a waterfall. The brand’s photos remind me of the slow, easy feeling that comes when you’ve been staying in one place for a few days, rather than the smile-for-the-camera shots you end up with when trying to squeeze too much into your itinerary.

@jedidiahjenkins

, editor of Wilderness magazine, is one of my favorite writers to follow. His photos of everything from a surfer on an empty beach to nomadic offices are lovely, but the real power is in his captions. These aren’t your average short bouts of wit or flowery navel gazing that clutter social media. Rather, Jenkins’ words are brutally honest and leave me thinking a little deeper about my own observations when I pass a stranger on a street or see a flower blooming on a rocky trail.

@brycejohnson

I’m a sucker for color and brightly lit beach scenes, so is one of my favorite Instagrammers. The Kauai-based photographer balances photos of surfboards and campouts with the occasional cityscape or drone photo. I can’t stop drooling over the surf, sand, and plethora of palm trees every time I scroll through his feed.

@kidsspeakforparks

If you’re like me and need a public lands pick-me-up now and again, there’s no better account than . He’s an articulate and incredibly dedicated ten-year-old who’s on a mission to protect public lands and reduce our dependence on plastics. Originally from Hawaii, Bond travels the country to educate his followers on national parks, monuments, and environmental issues.

@onshegoes

On She Goes is a travel-centric podcast with a mission to “help women of color travel more confidently, more adventurously, and more often.” Its is an inspiring collage of travel imagery, doodles and art, quotes and travel advice, and profiles of women who are scratching that travel itch.

@alexandra_abroad

There are countless young nomads on Instagram, but what I love about is how she seems to really get to know the places she travels to. She’s not constantly on the road, but rather exploring from a temporary home base. She just moved from Michigan to Moab, where she plans to spend a few months exploring the Southwest.

@85for85

85 for 85 is a new literary and arts publication featuring the work of artists inspired by Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante to raise $8,500 to support the fight to preserve these public lands. The art featured on this colorful and creative, including watercolors of mesas and crisp photography of starry skies, and I love the mission behind the project and the intentions behind each artist’s work.

@helloamerica

Kristen and Matt, the duo behind the account, shoot exclusively on film, and I find the old-school photography style refreshing. To me, it represents slowing down and really enjoying the place you’re visiting. Bonus: Get ready for plenty of pics featuring the couple’s adorable dog, Asher.

@womenontheroad

The ’ Women on the Road Podcast mix #vanlife with a varied feed of different faces and perspectives. The podcast is about women who lead nomadic lives, and the Instagram account seamlessly curates different voices into one feed, dedicating each post to a new traveler. I use it to discover under-the-radar Instagram storytellers to add to my feed.

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Like many gearheads, I like having backcountry apparel options. So, over the past month, I’ve added something new to my gear closet: adventure dresses. The primary goal of these dresses, which are made with different styles, body types, and materials in mind, is to keep up with us on the trail and in town. When made right, they’re durable, comfortable, and, above all else, versatile.

I looked for dresses that wick sweat, are easy to move in, don’t ride up when I take large steps, and feel decent with a backpack on my shoulders. I was pleased to find several that did all those things. I felt both tough and feminine in my favorite styles of the dresses I tested.

I don’t know if I’m ready to abandon my hiking pants for good, but I did find a lot to love about romping around in a dress. From a muddy Sierra trail to the office where I contract as a copywriter to happy hour with my girlfriends, these options fit right in.

Patagonia Sliding Rock ($75)

The first time I pulled on Patagonia’s high-neck, , I jumped around the house a bit to test the built-in bra. It was surprisingly supportive for my C-cups, and while I wouldn’t go for a run in it, the Sliding Rock definitely held up on casual hikes and urban adventures. The knee-length skirt is a nice balance to the slinkier backside. Throwing a denim button-up over it made this dress appropriate for business-casual. I wore it to the top of a large waterfall on a five-mile round-trip hike and opted for a fanny pack rather than a backpack to reduce chafing from the open back and shoulder straps, which worked out just fine. My only gripe? No pockets.

This item is currently low in stock.

Toad&Co Sunkissed Romper ($89)

While technically not a dress, this piqued my curiosity because it could theoretically replace several articles of clothing on its own. I have a long torso and a larger backside, and I was sure the shorts would give me a major wedgie that would make it hard to walk, let alone hike. But I was shocked at how comfortable this piece was—like wearing pajamas. Fashionable, functional pajamas that are breezy and seem to be made for the kind of humidity that makes my legs stick together and my face turn bright red. This was the only item on my list that I wore without spandex shorts underneath on a three-mile trail behind my house. Pleased with how the Sunkissed romper fit and moved, I turned what was supposed to be a hike into more of a trail run. Plus, the romper transitioned just fine when I threw on a layer and went straight from the trail to a local brewery.

REI Co-Op Aoraki ($70)

My favorite dress with sleeves by far was Ìę(currently out of stock) from REI. The Aoraki was perfect when I needed a little extra sun protection or just felt like wearing something a little understated. While some of the other dresses I fell in love with had some unique quality about them, this one was perfect in its cut and simplicity and can replace my go-to shorts and T-shirt any day. I also loved that the waistline hits right at my rib cage, creating a universally flattering A-line and sitting above where I buckle my pack around my hips—meaning less fabric between my skin and the straps, which led to virtually no friction. I’ve come home from many backpacking trips with bruises or raw skin where my strap rubs, but the polyester-spandex performance fabric slid against my hip bones rather than chafed.

This item is currently out of stock.

United by Blue Ridley Swing Dress ($78)

This comfortable, stretchy Ìęfrom United by Blue is another style that is effortless to wear. It flares out just enough so it doesn’t cling to my body, and the thick, stretchy jersey fabric is soft and comfortable. The Ridley isn’tÌęas good at wicking moisture as some of the more technical fabrics, but after a five-mile hike with significant elevation gain, it didn’t smell nearly as bad as I thought it would. Under a pack, thisÌędressÌębunched around my waist as I hiked, but it was a price I was willing to pay for how comfortable the material felt against my skin.

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Long associated with cookie sales and friendship bracelets, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) a new adventure-oriented collaboration with The North Face. With 12 new adventure badges, it will be the largest national organization to offer skills like trail running, mountaineering, rock climbing, and backpacking specifically for girls.

Still in the development and piloting phase, the badges will be available to earn as early as summer 2019 for girls from kindergarten to senior year of high school. The North Face is developing the programming alongside GSUSA, offering its outdoor expertise to the 106-year-old organization. The partnership bolsters The North Face’s initiative, which aims to elevate the stories of female role models in the outdoors and beyond. GSUSA, for its part, seem to be responding to continued requests for more adventurous and skill-based curriculum.

“When we were looking at how we could truly enable the next generation of female explorers, our way forward was really clear,” says Cara Williamson, senior brand manager at The North Face. “We wanted to partner with the longest-running and most-established organization in support of the next generation of women. And that was the Girl Scouts.”

To earn the badges, the girls will take turns leading and learning teamwork as they discover new outdoor skills. As with all GSUSA programming, girls will meet each requirement at their own pace to complete each badge. According to the Girl Scouts, these new adventure badges will continue to allow girls to take a hands-on role in their accomplishments. GSUSA has yet to release further details on what skills will be offered.

The new badges come at a time of change for both the Boy and Girl Scouts: The Boy Scouts of America started allowing girls into limited programming in October, then changed its name to Scouts BSA in May. The Girl Scouts remain, in the organization’s words, “all-girl, girl-led, and girl-friendly.” And while it has sometimes been criticized for not serving girls as well on the outdoor-adventure front, GSUSA has a well-documented history of being the organization more willing to make changes for inclusivity. “[The Girl Scouts] always had more badges than the Boy Scouts. Their variety of activities have always been pretty vast, and this seems like a continuation on this path of variety,” says Kathleen Denny, whose explored the implicitly gendered content of Girl Scout and Boy Scout handbooks and manuals. “This doesn’t really represent a dichotomous shift from a black to white, A to B, or yes to no. I think it seems like a pretty consistent or not totally unexpected continuation of [the Girl Scout’s] evolution, which has been ongoing for some time.”

The new adventure badges are also unique in that they factor socioeconomic or cultural barriers to the outdoors into a girl’s successful completion of the program. For example, while GSUSA owns 427 outdoor camps and more than 180,000 acres of land throughout the country where girls can get outside, scouts can also earn these new badges in less-traditional outdoor environments. “Girls can do the badge steps with inexpensive, common items they might already own and just go outside,” says Jennifer Allebach, vice president of girl experience at GSUSA. “Or they can complete them with more sophisticated equipment.”

GSUSA also offers outdoor acclimation programs for kids who have never left an urban environment or spent much time in nature. The organization’s 112 regional councils throughout the country determine the needs of each of the troops in their area. Girl Scouts of Greater New York, for example, brings girls from the city upstate to Camp Kaufmann to “understand and find their balance in nature,” says Meredith Maskara, CEO of GSGNY, in a about the group’s trip. “Instead of just bringing girls directly from the city and throwing them out here in the middle of the woods, we need to acclimate them,” she says.

While the focus of the new badges is on the outdoors, the skills girls will learn through this new programming will extend far beyond the trail or crag. “It’s definitely not restricted to the outdoors, and it shouldn’t be,” says Williamson of both the GSUSA partnership and Move Mountains. “If we can lead the way in the outdoors, because that’s our world of credibility and authenticity, then fantastic, but we want it to go further.”

By expanding the definition of exploration and encouraging outdoor adventure, the new outdoor badges offer Girl Scouts hands-on experience with problem-solving, risk, and creative-thinking skills.

“From the Girl Scout perspective, if you can get girls outside to be comfortable in their own skin and develop leadership qualities, those skills are in direct correlation to the experiences they can bring into social settings with their family and friends, even to the boardroom,” Allebach says. “We’ve always had the outdoors as a cornerstone of our movement, but we have also always been very interested in and committed to really shaping them into confident women. That’s our whole goal. That’s what we’re trying to build.”

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In April, the Outdoor Industry Association predicted that outdoor recreation in the United States is worth $887 billion and responsible for 7.6 million American jobs. On Wednesday, the trade group released individual reports that break down those numbers by state, with some surprising revelations.

Each state report reveals the impact of outdoor recreation on consumer spending, state and local tax revenue, and employment. This updates data released in 2012 and now includes 70 percent survey data, conducted by Southwick Associates, a market research, statistics, and economics firm. The 2017 reports also factor in more types of activities, like mountaineering and surfing. One big takeaway is that outdoor spending is on the rise throughout the country. And the industry’s influence is also on the rise—in Texas, for example, more direct jobs depend on outdoor recreation (411,000) than on the oil and gas industry (212,000).

“This latest study reiterates what an important economic driver the outdoor industry is for every state in our nation,” says Matt Powell, sports industry analyst at the NPD Group. “State and local governments should be working to leverage this important revenue growth vehicle.”

Here’s what we learned from the data.

The Top Spenders May Surprise You

Surprisingly, none of the states with a government office dedicated solely to outdoor recreation, like Colorado, were among the top five. Instead,Ìępopulation plays a huge role in establishing a state’s overall contribution to the outdoor economy.

1. California generates $92 billion in annual consumer spending and $6.2 billion in state and local tax revenue.
2. Florida generates $58.6 billion in annual consumer spending and $3.5 billion in state and local tax revenue.
3. Texas generates $52.6 billion in annual consumer spending and $3.5 billion in state and local tax revenue.
4. New York generates $41.8 billion in annual consumer spending and $3.6 billion in state and local tax revenue.
5. Pennsylvania generates $29.1 billion in annual consumer spending and $1.9 billion in state and local tax revenue.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Hubs Employ the Most People

If you look at how many people are employed by the outdoor industry in each state, proportional to its overall population, the list gets a little less predictable. Densely populated states tend not to fare as well here, while the states that come out on top are those known for their outdoorsy draw. Still, count us surprised that New Hampshire made it into the top five while Colorado came in only at number 14.

1. In Alaska, 9.7 percent of the population works in the outdoor industry.
2. In Wyoming, 8.5 percent of the population works in the outdoor industry.
3. In Vermont, 8.2 percent of the population works in the outdoor industry.
4. In Montana, 6.8 percent of the population works in the outdoor industry.
5. In New Hampshire, 5.9 percent of the population works in the outdoor industry.

All the Recreationists Are in the West, with One Exception

More than 50 percent of mostÌęstates’ÌępopulationÌęconsiders themselves an outdoor recreationist. That percentage is highest in Alaska and Montana (both 81 percent) and lowest in New Jersey (the only state to dip below 50 percent, at 46 percent). Other top contenders:

1. Alaska and Montana: 81 percent
2. Idaho: 79 percent
3. North Dakota: 76 percent
4. Wyoming: 73 percent
5. Utah, Vermont, and Washington: 70 percent

You can view each state’s entire report . Thanks to the Outdoor REC Act, which passed last December, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis will release confirmed numbers on the outdoor industry’s overall impact on the U.S. economy in 2018.

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