[ashtonkem]

Certain recreational activities are in fact new as hobbies, at least at scale. Skiing, mountaineering, and camping were once things you did out of necessity, not for funsies.

For example, our records for recreational skiing stretch back basically 300 years. Mountaineering has been done practically forever, but as a mass hobby it’s also basically 250 or so years old. The idea that you’d do it for fun rather than as a spiritual quest or to catch a lost sheep is a fairly new idea.

Hiking is a bit more debatable. Humans have walked on local trails for practical and recreational purposes forever. Some European trails are clearly very old, so that’s hardly new. But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century, and certainly got a huge kick in the pants with the creation of the national park system.

[emodendroket]

Well, whether we mean the past century or the basically the entire existence of the United States, it's certainly much older than the GPS devices we're talking about, which was the sort of timeframe I had in mind when I said it is not a "fad." If we mean a couple hundred years then we could also call driving a car newfangled and faddish.

[ghaff]

Here is one set of stats showing significant growth in hiking from 2006 through 2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191240/participants-in-h...

This is consistent with other data I've seen.

[thaumasiotes]

> But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century

Have you heard about Robin Hood? ;D

[ashtonkem]

Yes, but that actually somewhat reinforces my general point if you think about it. Robin Hood hid in the woods because that’s where the power of the state couldn’t reach him. The legend tips it’s hat to the general understanding that deep forests were effectively stateless territory beyond the reach of the law.

For most of human history untamed woods and mountains have been dangerous, unordered places. This is where political dissidents, bandits, and runaway slaves have gone specifically because they’re not places that most people wanted to go given the choice. That’s why the legend of Robin Hood had him there rather than in a safe house in London.

[thaumasiotes]

Living in the woods was for bandits. But it's not obvious that the idea was less popular then than now -- one of the earliest references to Robin Hood is just a complaint that the stories are so popular they're damaging the spiritual fabric of society.

[emodendroket]

I don't think we could really describe living in the woods as hiking.

[thaumasiotes]

The difference between living in the woods and backpacking through the woods is that when backpacking you don't expect to forage for your own food - you bring it in with you.

There is otherwise no difference; backpacking and hiking are separate activities.