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What is adventure tourism and why is it so big?

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Adventure tourism is big, it’s exciting, it’s fun…. but what actually is it? In this article I will teach you all about this exciting type of tourism, what the history behind adventure tourism is, what the different types of adventure tourism are and what amazing examples of this type of tourism there are around the world. Ready to learn more? Read on…

What is adventure tourism?

History of adventure tourism, hard adventure tourism, soft adventure tourism, hard adventure tourism activities , soft adventure tourism activities , adventure tourism in india, adventure tourism in iceland, adventure tourism in costa rica, adventure tourism in new zealand, benefits of adventure tourism, disadvantages of adventure tourism, adventure tourism: additional reading.

Adventure tourism is tourism that involves any kind of activity or adventure. It especially relates to those that involve risk, or requires extensive planning. The Adventure Travel Trade Association defines it as a tourist activity that includes physical activity, cultural exchange, or activities in nature .  Meanwhile, Sung et al describe it as: the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interactions of adventure touristic activities with the natural environment away from the participant’s usual place of residence area and containing elements of risk in which the outcome is influenced by the participation, setting, and the organizer of the tourist’s experience . HH Sung is an academic who has researched this branch of tourism in great detail.

Ultimately, adventure tourism is all about ADVENTURE! It is a pretty broad term really and many would argue that it is subjective (what I deem to be adventure, you may not). Nonetheless, this is a big part of the tourism industry and whilst it is an example of niche tourism , the sector is growing fast! There are lots of types of activities and types of travel that come under the umbrella term of adventure tourism and I will outline these for you shortly.

Of course, people have been travelling for centuries- the history of tourism is a long and fruitful one! Over the years travel evolved into tourism (travel for travel’s sake) and now we can see many different branches of tourism.

We can trace the roots of adventure tourism specifically back to perhaps as early as 569 AD when Alboin, king of the Lombards, climbed Matajur in the Alps . Adventure tourism is all about doing something with a bit of risk, and putting planning into it. We don’t know how much preparation Alboin put into this expedition or whether it was some sort of off the cuff climb – but it can still be seen as an early example of adventure tourism. Climbing mountains at this time was generally a practical or symbolic activity. It was usually done for economic, political, or religious reasons.

However, in the 1800s, adventurers pushed the limits more and more. It became a formal sport, and people did it for fun. Other adventurous activities such as caving, river-rafting, abseiling and gorge walking emerged as a fun way to pass the time. As people got more into them, these activities formed part of adventure tourism. Organisations such as Nat Geo and also The Explorers Club, as well as Boy Scouts and Girl Guides  to an extent, were established. These have always promoted and supported adventure tourism.

In recent years consumer desires have evolved and many people have/are moving away from the traditional sun, sea and sand package holiday model and instead seeking alternative experience. There are a wide range of types of tourism that people are embracing more and more nowadays, and one example is adventure tourism. There are more adventure tourism companies including travel agents and tour operators who specialise in this field than there have ever been before.

Types of adventure tourism

Adventure tourism can be split into two ‘types’. These are hard and soft. I will explore the differences below…

As the name suggests, hard adventure tourism refers to activities which are typically more high-risk. They require intense training, changes in diet, lots of practice, a guide and so on.

Soft adventure activities are the opposite – much less risky, and don’t require the long-term commitment that hard adventure tourism activities often would. They often are led by a guide, but you can do this sort of thing without. Generally these are much more popular, as they are easier activities and (as mentioned) have a much lower risk.

Adventure tourism activities

There are so many activities which come under the umbrella of adventure tourism. Whether you travel simply for the purpose of undertaking this adventure or decide to incorporate it into your trip, if you have done any of these then you are officially an adventure traveller! I’ll split them into hard and soft as above. Activities like skydiving are something you can do in most places, as long as the weather allows – skiing, however, requires specific conditions and plenty of hills.

• Mountaineering/mountain climbing
• Ice Climbing
• Rock climbing
• Trekking/intense hiking
• Free diving
• Extreme biking
• Birdwatching
• SCUBA diving
• Horse riding
• Kayaking/rafting
• Orienteering
• Hiking (gentle)
• Snorkelling
• Snowboarding
• Eco-tourism

Adventure tourism destinations

You can enjoy adventure tourism activities in pretty much any destination. There are some more than others, however, which are better set up for this branch of tourism.

Adventure tourism is a big deal in India . This diverse and spectacular country has so much to offer – and one of the big draws here is hiking and trekking. There are plenty of incredible places to hike in India. Gentle hikes/treks are a form of soft adventure tourism, while some more intense treks and hikes can fall into the hard category. Uttarakhand is one of the best places to hike in India; the ‘Roopkund trek’ is a famous trek around Roopkund Lake, which is surrounded by hundreds of human skeletons! 

Other examples of adventure tourism in India include surfing in Kovalam, skiing in Auli and white water rafting in Rishikesh.

Beautiful Iceland is one of the most popular places for visiting the Northern Lights. This in itself is a bit of an adventure, but there are all sorts of other things you can do which come under this branch of tourism. You can snorkel or scuba dive in Silfra Fissure, for example, or go inside a dormant volcano at Thrihnukagigur.

It is impossible to be bored in a place like Costa Rica. The country has so much to offer, and is an example of somewhere that to most of us (no matter where you come from) is pretty exotic. Head deep into the jungle on your adventure to see some colourful wildlife; visit the Costa Rica volcanoes and cloud forests ; go rafting and hiking and ziplining and so much more. You can book 10-day trips that encompass all of these things, or you could stay somewhere peaceful and relax for the majority of your holiday, opting to book a one-day tour for some adventure.

Said by some to be the home of adventure tourism, New Zealand is a must for anyone considering this type of trip. With so much space and such a sparse population , is it any wonder that this lovely little country is home to so much adventure? Admire the views from up high by skydiving in many different locations, or raft on the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world in Rotorua! From caving to off-road driving to heli-skiing, there is so much choice in New Zealand.

There are many benefits when it comes to adventure tourism. One huge benefit is simply that it is so much fun. Trying something new, or doing something you already enjoy, is a brilliant way to spend your time while travelling. Gaining a new skill or honing the one you’ve been learning for ages – it’s such a sense of achievement. This is particularly true for activities that require physical hard work such as skiing, or training like mountain climbing.

Adventure tourism is growing fast, and with that comes job creation. This is a definite benefit of any type of tourism. Jobs are created for guides and instructors, for people who work in the booking department of tourism companies, for people working in hotels or restaurants in areas that people may not visit otherwise. All of this means the economy is growing and the industry is thriving, resulting in positive economic impacts of tourism . Local communities are supported by all forms of tourism. This is no exception!

Due to the rise in the popularity of ecotourism and the ongoing conversations around sustainability, adventure tourism companies are often dedicated to protecting the environment. Though it may seem like these activities could be harmful, they are often not. This is because companies ensure the activities they offer are respectful of the planet too. It also allows more people to fall in love with the outdoors.

There are some disadvantages to adventure tourism too. Nothing is black and white, of course, and points on both sides are incredibly nuanced. While these activities are a fun chance to try something new, they can be dangerous. Hard adventure tourism activities are considered high-risk. Many will require you to sign a disclaimer (like skydiving) and for some you need months if not years of training. Most insurance companies won’t cover you either. To climb Mount Everest, for example, you need a permit – with the fees on top, this will set you back around $20,000 before you even buy equipment. There are strict criteria you need to meet to be granted one, too.

And even though many adventure tourism companies are looking out for the planet, individuals often are not. There is no guarantee that visitors will always be respectful of the local environment. From standing on things they shouldn’t to the classing dropping litter, there are many negatives that we can see from an increased footfall.

There may also be cultural and social impacts. With more visitors, locals may see some sort of loss of their cultural heritage over time. This can be devastating. With more tourists in place, especially during peak season, peoples’ roles in society naturally change. The status quo is affected.

Now that you are well-informed about thew adventure tourism industry, you may want to learn more about these tourism industries too-

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• What is glamping and how does it work?
• What is ‘begpacking’ and why is it so bad?
• What is sustainable tourism and why does it matter?
• Volunteer tourism: Everything you need to know

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Adventure Tourism pp 1–9 Cite as

What Is Adventure Tourism?

• David Huddart 3 &
• Tim Stott 3  
• First Online: 26 October 2019

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This chapter considers a definition of adventure tourism that includes physical activity, the natural environment and cultural immersion. Both hard and soft adventure can be important. The trends and numbers involved in this tourism area are discussed, including the growth in demand. Other types of often related niche tourism types are considered and defined, such as ecotourism, wildlife tourism, sustainable and responsible tourism.

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Original research article, sustainability comes to life. nature-based adventure tourism in norway.

• Department of Teacher Education and Outdoor Studies, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway

This paper investigates how tourists and guides perform sustainability during adventure tourism trips in natural environments. The paper draws on empirical data from an ethnographic study of five different multi-day trips in Norway, each of which used skiing, hiking, or biking as the mode of travel. In our analysis, we focus on how the different actors understood, operationalized and practiced elements of sustainability in their everyday lives while on the trips. The paper applies a micro-sociological perspective to the nature-based adventure tourism scene where the interplay between tourists, guides, adventure activities and nature is understood as multiple dialectic performances co-produced by the different actors. Goffman's dramaturgical metaphors, and concepts of frames, appearance, and manner saturate recent research on tourism and nature guiding. This paper builds on the “performance turn” as a theoretical point of departure for understanding sustainability in nature-based adventure tourism experiences. In participant observations and post-trip interviews with Norwegian and international tourists and their guides, we found that sustainability performances were not a major aspect of the trips. We did find some performances of mainly “light” sustainability and, among them, elements of ambivalence and ambiguity. Our data indicate that some guides tread a fine line between enhancing and deepening tourists' experiences of nature and sustainability or negatively impacting the perceived enjoyment imperative of the trip. International tourists expressed deeper sustainability overall. We reflect on the relative explanatory strengths of Goffman's “frames” and interaction order, and Persson's “framing,” for understanding the interplay between guide and tourist sustainability performances and conclude with pointers for teasing out the complexities we identify.

Introduction

Tourism is one of the world's fastest growing industries and in recent years. Norway has experienced a marked increase in domestic and international tourism ( Ministry of Trade, 2017 ). Norway's international reputation for being “sustainable” and environmentally conscious ( Ministry of Trade, 2017 ) arguably creates certain expectations of the country as a destination. This paper investigates how tourists and guides perform sustainability during adventure tourism trips in natural environments. This is not a study of sustainable tourism, but of sustainability as expressed – or not – in tourism experience.

Tourism research is often characterized as multi- and inter-disciplinary as well as a fragmented in its scope ( Benckendorff and Zehrer, 2013 ). In this paper, we draw from the literatures of nature-based tourism and adventure tourism. Nature-based tourism is often believed to “influence tourists' environmentally friendly attitudes, knowledge, and ultimately their behavior” ( Ardoin et al., 2015 , p. 838), however, in their review of the research, these authors found that “few studies have empirically documented these outcomes, and those that do are inconsistent in the variables measured and the time frame analyzed” (p. 838). Previous research on nature-based adventure tourism has typically surveyed guides, tourists, or both ( Pereira and Mykletun, 2012 ; Ardoin et al., 2015 ), but few have gone into the field looking for how concepts of sustainability can ‘come to life in various ways’ during a guided nature-based adventure tour.

Guides function as narrators, social organizers and instructors, and are central to transforming an ordinary tourist experience into an extraordinary or spectacular and unique experience ( Hansen and Mossberg, 2017 ). The extent to which, and ways in which, guides influence tourist understandings, knowledge, and behaviors of sustainability has been the focus of some international research ( Powell and Ham, 2008 ; Randall and Rollins, 2009 ; Weiler and Kim, 2011 ; Pereira and Mykletun, 2012 ), without conclusive results, and to date the Norwegian context has not been studied.

Some of the international research has paid attention to tour guides as potential agents of change (see Zillinger et al., 2012 ; Jonasson et al., 2013 ; Rokenes et al., 2015 ; Vold, 2015 ; Weiler and Black, 2015 ; Jonasson and Smith, 2017 ) and there is evidence of a growing research focus on “the relationship between face-to-face interpretation/tour guiding and sustainability” ( Weiler and Black, 2015 , p. 76), at least in wildlife tourism (see Zeppel and Muloin, 2008 ; Ballantyne et al., 2009 ).

Tourists' expectations about what they will experience on a tour arise partly from the information provided by tour companies ( Collado et al., 2009 ; Skinner and Theodossopoulos, 2011 ). If tourist expectations are not met, the companies risk reputational damage and subsequent financial impacts ( Collado et al., 2009 ), so it is in each company's interests to prescribe to at least some extent the activities of their guides. Tour guides, then, “may thus feel relatively powerless to make a difference in contributing to the sustainability of a particular activity, tour, business, community, industry or environment” ( Weiler and Black, 2015 p. 73–74). Our study includes a focus on guides' understandings of sustainability on tour and how those understandings impact their performances of sustainability.

The contemporary Norwegian context provides further impetus for this study. According to the most recent government white paper on tourism, nature is “still the most important reason the tourists choose Norway as a tourist destination” ( Ministry of Trade, 2017 , p. 31). Experience tourism is the fastest growing tourism sector ( Fredman and Haukeland, 2017 ; Ministry of Trade, 2017 ) and tourism businesses that are based on nature-, food- or culture experiences represent the core of the Norwegian tourism product ( Fredman and Tyrväinen, 2010 ; Ministry of Trade, 2017 ). From the government's perspective, it is “authentic” and “meaningful” experiences that should be the basis for tourism value creation, as it is in such experiences that travel motivation and willingness to pay lie. How sustainability can or should be operationalized while tourists are experiencing authenticity and meaningfulness in nature, however, is not discussed ( Ministry of Trade, 2017 ).

A relatively united Norwegian travel industry supported the principles of the white paper with a “roadmap” titled “Toward a sustainable tourism industry.” In it, ‘high yield – low impact” nature-based tourism takes center-stage ( NHO, 2017 , p. 5) with physically active nature and cultural experiences based on the Norwegian tradition of outdoor life (friluftsliv). Friluftsliv – translated as “free-air-life” – is a Scandinavian practice of spending time in nature. Norwegian friluftsliv, in particular, emphasizes traditional modes of travel such as cross-country ski touring, hiking and biking, and “low” technologies, such as camping or staying in simple cabins and cooking on open fires ( Odden, 2008 ). Friluftsliv is considered to be an important part of the (imagined) Norwegian national identity ( Witoszek, 1998 ; Pedersen Gurholt, 2008 ; Gurholt, 2014 ).

The road map stresses that with a stronger global focus on intact nature, climate change and environmental quality, an increasing number of tourists seek destinations offering cleanliness, healthiness, and effective protection of culture and nature. By 2050, when eight out of 10 people worldwide will live in cities, an increasing number of tourists will avoid destinations characterized by hustle and bustle, noise and litter, and instead choose a journey that promotes the environment ( NHO, 2017 , p. 8).

Given the focus on sustainability, broadly interpreted, in both documents, we argue that it is relevant and timely to investigate what is going on in terms of sustainability at the micro-level of tourism experience in Norway. It could be argued that when guides choose to work in nature-based adventure tourism and when tourists choose to purchase a nature-based adventure tour, they are already performing sustainability, however that is not our focus in this paper. Our focus is entirely on what happens once the tour begins through to when it ends. We investigate the experiences of guides and tourists of an industry-leading Norwegian tour-operator for the purpose of discovering how they understand, operationalize and practice elements of sustainability in their everyday lives while on nature-based tours in Norway.

Sustainability

Much of the literature on nature-based adventure tourism, nature-based tourism and ecotourism refers to sustainability without providing an operational definition of it. We consider that contemporary conceptions of sustainability will enhance the reliability of our study and so we adopt Force et al. (2018) distinction between sustainable tourism and tourism sustainability. According to these authors, the former concerns the socioeconomics of tourism, especially at the local level. This is the main focus of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals for sustainable tourism. Member nations are expected to foster tourism in ways that create jobs, support local culture and new product development as well as in ways that protect environment values such as biodiversity, ecosystem health and more (United Nations (n.d.)). Tourism sustainability, in contrast, concerns “the design of tourism activities in ways that contribute to sustainability transitions globally” (p. 431). Our focus is on tourism sustainability. Sustainability transitions are “personal change[s] in tourists' identities” that lead to such things as active “commitment to environmental and cultural protection … nature-relatedness … [and tourists'] awareness of their relationship to the global collective” (p. 433). Our understanding of the term sustainability is also informed by Salas-Zapata and Ortiz-Muñoz' (2019) clarification of its use by researchers. We adopt the meaning “[s]ustainability as a set of guiding criteria for human action” rather than “sustainability as a goal of humankind” (p. 155), “sustainability as an object,” or “[s]ustainability as an approach of study” (p. 157). Criteria for guiding human action include, but are not limited to, such things as utilizing renewable resources, enhancing human well-being, avoiding ecosystem degradation, and generating social and cultural benefits. In this article, then, sustainability means a set of guiding criteria for personal change in tourists and guides toward deeper nature-relatedness, more active environmental and cultural protection, and stronger positive relationships to the global collective.

Nature-relatedness is defined as a degree of “connectedness to the natural world” and “comprises the cognitive, affective, and physical connection we have with nature” ( Nisbet, 2021 ). Nisbet et al's (2009) nature-relatedness scale considers deep nature-relatedness to be expressed as a lot of time spent in natural spaces, preference for isolation in wilderness, self-identification as part of nature, awareness of environmental issues, and lifestyle changes in response to knowledge of, or feelings toward, nature. A light nature-relatedness is the opposite of these factors. Thus, sustainability might be expressed by nature-based adventure tour guides and tourists in one or more of the ways described on a continuum.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines environmental protection in terms of maintaining or restoring the quality of an environment ( OECD, 2003 ). Environmental protection actions could include cleaning plastic pollution from rivers and lakes, protecting populations of threatened species, or donating money to environmental causes, among many other things. Cultural protection refers to protecting the material resources of cultural groups ( Durie, 2008 ) such as artifacts, structures, monuments, language, intellectual knowledge and “places associated with historical events, beliefs, and traditions” ( Cultural Heritage Act, 1978 , § 2). Deep sustainability performances during nature-based adventure tourism trips might include much active interest in, or active participation in, these types of environmental and cultural protection. Light sustainability might include a few, or incidental, expressions of interest in these things.

Finally, a positive relationship to the global collective refers to attitudes of support for worldwide action on shared international problems such as climate change, large-scale pollution, disease, international aid, terrorism, and biodiversity loss ( Sandler, 2010 ). Guides and tourists on nature-based adventure tourism trips might express strong positive relationships as part of their performances of sustainability. Others might express weak positive, or even negative, relationships as part of their light sustainability performances.

We used the concepts of nature-relatedness, action toward environmental and cultural protection, and positive relationships toward the global collective as guides for understanding the types of sustainability found in our data. In the Methods section, we describe how being “guided” by the concepts differs from being “driven” by them. Next, we define our study in relation to the existing literature on sustainability in nature-based tourism.

Nature-Based Adventure Tourism

Nature-based tourism, as a socio-cultural phenomenon ( Sandell, 2003 ), has been defined in many, sometimes overlapping ways ( Fredman et al., 2009 , 2014 ; Fredman and Tyrväinen, 2010 ), such as adventure tourism, environmental tourism, ecotourism, and ecological tourism. At its most basic, nature-based tourism is related to places and objects that are not human-made, and visits and activities that occur beyond a person's familiar environments ( Fredman et al., 2009 ). Hence, we adopt the widely accepted Scandinavian definition of nature-based tourism: “human activities occurring when visiting in nature areas outside the person's ordinary neighborhood” ( Fredman et al., 2009 , p. 24–25).

Our focus is on nature-based adventure tourism ( Buckley, 2006 , 2010 ; Mihalic, 2006 ; Rokenes et al., 2015 ; Beams et al., 2019 ) to foreground the sustainability aspects of commercialized nature tourist experiences that “often involve[e] perceived risk or controlled danger associated with personal challenges” ( Mihalic, 2006 , p. 114). Adventure tourism and nature-based tourism are closely related with some overlap in practice. However, “whilst nature-based tourism products focus on seeing … adventure tourism products focus on doing” ( Buckley, 2010 , p. 4). Thus, nature-based adventure tourism can be considered tourism products in nature that focus on both seeing and doing. In the Norwegian context, adventure tourism experiences commonly center on hiking and biking journeys in nature, skiing through forest or mountain environments, sea-kayaking, and mountaineering. What counts as “perceived risk,” “controlled danger,” and “personal challenges” is highly individualistic, however, “[f]rom the perspective of the individual tourist, anything which they personally consider adventurous can be counted as adventure tourism” ( Buckley, 2010 , p. 7). For our purposes, we accept the types of physical activities mentioned above, when conducted in guided tours in natural environments, to constitute nature-based adventure tourism.

“What Are We Doing”

Experiences of sustainability in tourism are, arguably, important for several reasons of which the most pertinent to this study is that tourism experiences can have educational effects which can contribute to wider public understandings and motivations toward sustainability ( Ballantyne et al., 2010 ; Force et al., 2018 ; Winter et al., 2020 ). Understanding “what is it that's going on” ( Goffman, 1974 , p. 8) regarding sustainability in nature-based adventure tourism allows researchers, policymakers, tourism operators, guides and tourists to respond in ways that further their respective ambitions of sustainability at national, industry, professional, and personal levels, respectively. We take a Goffmanian approach to investigating if and how different actors – the tourists and the guides – understand, operationalize, practice and embody nature-relatedness, active environmentally friendly behavior, and positive relationships to the global collective. As we next explain, taking an ethnographic approach allowed us to focus directly on “performances” of sustainability, a novel approach to the topic in nature-based adventure tourism.

Theoretical Framework

The “performance turn” ( Edensor, 1998 , 2000 , 2001 ; Haldrup and Larsen, 2010 ; Larsen, 2010 ; Urry and Larsen, 2011 ; Larsen and Meged, 2013 ) in tourism research, however, and despite some criticism ( Saldaña, 2006 ), has re-imagined the guided tour as “created by a relational praxis that builds on and involves bodily and verbal negotiations, fluid power relations and interactions between tourists and guides and between tourists” ( Larsen and Meged, 2013 , p. 100). It can be traced back to new ways of investigating, analyzing and understanding tourism, starting in the late 1990s ( Edensor, 1998 , 2001 ; Larsen, 2010 ; Urry and Larsen, 2011 ; Cohen and Cohen, 2012 ; Jonasson and Scherle, 2012 ; Larsen and Meged, 2013 ). Although performances can be considered to be, in part, pre formed, they are not absolutely fixed. The performance turn emphasizes “creativity, detours and productive practices” ( Larsen and Meged, 2013 , p. 89), and “relates to the theatrical perspective and invokes enactment by performers or actors of a role or scripts, as well as display for an audience. Performances involve pretense” ( Harwood and El-Manstrly, 2012 , p. 15, bold in original). More recent research on guided tours has shown how tourists contribute to the co-creation of guided tours both alongside the guide, as well as in opposing and contradictory ways. Larsen (2010) and Urry and Larsen (2011) claim that the performance turn has “challenged representational and textual readings of tourism … by making “ethnographies” of what humans and institutions do – enact and stage – in order to make tourism and performances happen” ( Larsen, 2010 , p. 323). Consequently, the performance turn represents a move to ethnographic research in tourism. The aim of ethnographic approaches is to “go beyond the abstract models and frameworks of attitude-behavior connection …[and] to explore in greater detail how practices are performed and negotiated in situ ” ( Hargreaves, 2016 , p. 57).

According to Vold (2015) , nature guides choose which aspects of nature to focus on and by doing so they greatly influence how tourists understand and experience nature and tourism. However, nature-based tourism guides might also be constrained in their choices of focus because they are employed by tour companies that have certain obligations to their clientele ( Prakash et al., 2011 ).

In this paper, we investigate tourists' and guides' understandings and experiences of sustainability in nature-based adventure tourism through their performances. This work contributes to a new perspective to understanding sustainability in tourism, and especially in face-to-face relations in “real (tourism) life.” Recent tourism research has drawn on Goffmanian concepts ( Edensor, 1998 , 2000 , 2001 ; Larsen, 2010 ; Urry and Larsen, 2011 ; Jonasson and Scherle, 2012 ; Larsen and Meged, 2013 ; Williams, 2013 ) to understand the face-to-face interactions between tourists and between tourists and guides. The idea that tourists and guides manage the impressions they make on others in social situations emanates from Goffman's (1959) theory of social interaction, in particular the ideas of “frontstage” and “backstage” performances, frames, lines, face, and the interaction order. In all social situations, Goffman (1959) argues, people want to present themselves so that the “audience” perceives them to be as they wish to be perceived. Performances are designed to make a particular impression on the other people present through “patterns of verbal and non-verbal acts” that Goffman (1967 , p. 5) called “lines.” The “frontstage” concerns how people present themselves within the immediate social surroundings and how they are perceived by others in the same immediate environment.

Self-presentation, or “face” may be defined as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact” ( Goffman, 1967 , p. 5). The “face” adopted by any one person depends on who the “audience” is and what the situational norms are ( Goffman, 1959 ; Jacobsen and Kristiansen, 2015 ). In the “backstage,” people relax and take off their “face-masks” of social performance ( Goffman, 1959 ; Jacobsen and Kristiansen, 2015 ). From this perspective, guided tours can be viewed as dialectical, as shaped by the interplay of performances by the guides and the guided ( Urry and Larsen, 2011 ).

The interplay of “lines” and performances operates through individual “frames” ( Goffman, 1974 ). Frames are operable within social situations, or “social frameworks” in Goffman's (1974) typology. As Persson (2019 , p. 49) explains, Goffman saw social life as social situations shared by individuals, none of whom have “fully reliable knowledge” about one another and so each individual must interact with others at the same time as seeking information about how best to interact. Individuals therefore need to quickly define the situation they are in and this definition is what Goffman called a “frame.” A frame is an “organization of experience” ( Goffman, 1974 , p. 11) and “a different scheme of interpretation for the meaning of an act” ( Goffman, 1974 , p. 231). This concept of frames “emphasized its simultaneously cognitive, social interactive, and situational aspects” ( Persson, 2019 , p. 49). By asking Goffman's question – “what is it that's going on here?” – it becomes apparent that the answer needs to be “seen in the light of its context” ( Persson, 2019 , p. 49) and so also asks the question of “what [social rule or norm] applies here?” Persson (2019 , p. 65).

Goffman's (1959 , 1967 , 1974 , 1983) research centers on what he termed the “interaction order” and the “expressive order” both of which are essential for understanding social interaction. Our collective understanding of these terms is that they are closely related but distinguished by scale. At a larger scale of social interaction, the interaction order aligns roughly with social norms but with a focus on interpersonal interaction rather than social structures or power. It is the shared understandings individuals have of acceptable behavior in particular settings, allowing them to respond to the questions “what is it OK to do here?” and “what possibilities for behavior does this setting open for me?.” Examples of behaviors in the interaction order include maintaining culturally appropriate personal space, keeping right (or left) on footpaths, sitting and quietly watching a movie in a movie theater, dancing and singing aloud in the arena of a rock concert. In these examples, individuals are in face-to-face contact but not necessarily directly interacting with one another. Our collective understanding of the expressive order, on the other hand, aligns more with manners, or the smaller scale, more detailed level of social interactions. These include the shared understandings of acceptable verbal and non-verbal communication between persons in direct face-to-face situations. The “expressive order” is “an order that regulates the flow of events, large or small, so that anything that appears to be expressed by [a person] will be consistent with his face (sic)” ( Goffman, 1967 , p. 9). As we understand it, the expressive order allows individuals to respond to the questions “how is it OK to respond to the other person/s here?” and “what possibilities for response are open to me here?.” An example of the expressive order related to our research topic would be tourists paying attention when guide is explaining the how to prepare for the day ahead (e.g., by facing the guide, making eye contact if culturally appropriate, acknowledging them by uttering “mm” or nodding one's head).

Finally, and importantly, Goffman theorized that if someone challenges or breaches the interaction order or the expressive order, intentionally or not, a corrective process begins to either re-establish the original order or negotiate a new order from the “cognitive presuppositions” shared with the others in the setting ( Goffman, 1983 , p. 5). The corrective will be one or more “face-saving” practices ( Goffman, 1967 ).

In this paper, we interpret nature-based adventure tourism as a social framework within which guides and tourists understand and respond to the interaction order and the expressive order during their encounters with one another. We approached the empirical study from a theoretical viewpoint that an individual's “cognitive presuppositions” shape their “frame” and inform their performances of sustainability while on nature-based adventure tourism trips. We continue by describing our applied methodology and our research and analytical methods, before reporting our findings.

Methodology

For this study an ethnographic approach was deemed appropriate because it “allows one to gain information on tourist action and the embodied, tacit dimensions of nature-based tourism” ( Rantala, 2011 , p. 151) and “simultaneously allow[s] the observation of social and situated practices and participation in them” ( Rantala, 2011 , p. 153). An ethnographic approach is appropriate when the aim is to capture the micro-sociology, the information “given” and “given off” ( Goffman, 1959 ; Rantala, 2011 ; Persson, 2019 ), the embodied as well as tacit practices, and the multitude of different performances that are enacted in and through social situations in nature-based adventure tourism. Our ethnographic fieldwork paid attention to how people talked, words and phrases they used, how they interacted with each other and with the environments they traveled through, where they gazed, how they embodied the landscape, what the guides emphasized or not. Rather than look for specific pre-determined verbal or non-verbal expressions, our aim was to remain open to whatever practices occurred in the field and then consider them in light of the concepts of sustainability discussed above and in the light of the national and industry sustainability focus.

In order to find out “what is it that's going on here,” we focused on tourist participants, tour guides, and the interactions between them. To do this we drew data from multiple, diverse trips offered by a nation-wide, industry-leading tourism operator. In the absence of an agreed definition of what constitutes “industry leading,” we selected one of the oldest nature-based adventure tour operators in Norway that has one of the most extensive tour catalogs. The selected operator offers trips throughout and beyond Norway and has been involved in sustainability discussions at a national level and in sustainability projects internationally. However, their website and brochures (checked during research design phase fall 2017 and immediately pre-fieldwork summer 2018) show that they do not actively market their trips as having a sustainable focus or credentials. Further, this operator could provide the best opportunities for participant observation, including as an apprentice-guide-researcher.

In this embedded single-case design ( Yin, 2014 , p. 50), guides and tourists make up the different embedded units of analysis and “the circumstances and conditions of an everyday situation” (p. 52) are those that occur on the guided nature-based adventure tours. Our decision to select a single tour company was informed by Flyvbjerg's (2001 , p. 77) conception of “critical cases” for enhancing validity. Critical cases are those that are “either “most likely” or “least likely” … to confirm or irrefutably to falsify propositions and hypotheses” ( Flyvbjerg, 2001 , p. 78). An “extreme” critical case, such as the industry-leading tour operator in this study, enabled us to “achieve the greatest possible amount of information” ( Flyvbjerg, 2001 , p. 77) on our topic, which a representative case or random selection cannot do with as much certainty.

Five different tours make up the ethnographic material. All the tours took place in Norway between summer of 2017 and spring of 2018, and in different geographical locations: one in a mountainous part of central Norway (A); one along the coast of northern Norway (B); and three in the arctic high-mountain plateau of the northernmost part of Norway (C–E). Tour A took place late summer with only international tourists. Tour B took place early autumn, also with international tourists. Tours C, D, and E took place in the winter months with mainly Norwegian and some other Scandinavian tourists (from Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland). The tours varied in duration. Tour A, C, D, and E were 4 days each, while tour B spanned 8 days. In total 24 days were spent in the field. A total of 62 tourists and six guides were part of the study.

The study was approved by and conducted according to, the ethical guidelines of the Norwegian Center for Research Data (NSD) and The National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (NESH). All participation in the study was voluntary, on the basis of anonymity, with the option of withdrawing at any time up to acceptance for publication. Participants were informed prior to, and written consent to observe all aspects of the trips, including social chats, and for post-trip interviews was obtained on the 1st day of each trip. Data was gathered through participant observation and interviews, as detailed below.

A general rule of participatory observation is that the researcher participates in the social interactions of the research context while at the same time striving not to influence those interactions significantly ( Fangen, 2010 , p. 80; Zahle, 2012 , p. 54). However, participant observers cannot totally decide their field roles in advance. Roles and the degree of participation are usually in continuous (re)negotiation throughout the fieldwork ( Spradley, 1980 ; Fangen, 2010 ; Wadel, 2014 ). Importantly, Wadel (2014) points out that roles open and close for different possibilities and associated data, and thus recommends that participant observers take on different roles so that they can study the field from a variety of perspectives.

Throughout the five tours in this study, the first author utilized various degrees of participation, involvement and observation to gather data, primarily participant observer and partially participant observer ( Bryman, 2016 , pp. 433–436; see also Spradley, 1980 ; Fangen, 2010 ; Wadel, 2014 ). In addition, on trips C and D, he was an apprentice-guide. This role gave him affordable access to the trip and the benefit of closeness to the guides' perspectives. It also provided “backstage” access to tourists' “backstage” spaces that would have been inappropriate otherwise. One of the guides' responsibilities on these trips was to check on each participant each evening to find out how well they were coping with the physical and other demands of the trip. Often, guides would be invited in to the tourists' accommodation (or invite themselves) and engage in social chat or be questioned about aspects of the trips. In this way, the field researcher gained additional access to tourists' “frames.” While working as an apprentice-guide, the first author aligned his professional frame with the lead-guide's apparent frame and reflected on this alignment in the reflective journal. The first author's opportunity to take on this dual role as both apprentice-guide and researcher gave him valuable first-hand experiences and helped deepen his understanding of the field.

The first author can be considered an insider in the field of nature-based adventure tourism through both his educational and work background. To obtain and maintain analytical distance ( Spradley, 1980 ; Fangen, 2010 ) in the various roles adopted in the field, the researcher kept a reflective journal ( Spradley, 1980 ; Saldaña, 2016 ) and used a field diary and voice recorder for field observations. He wrote the reflective journal throughout the fieldwork phase in order to become aware of any preconceptions and to increase introspectiveness ( Spradley, 1980 ). Detailed observations were recorded throughout each day and were assisted by pre-prepared descriptive questions, such as “how do tourists talk about themselves, nature, and their experiences?” “what do the guides focus on/give emphasis?,” “how do tourists behave while on tour?,” “how do guides behave while on tour?.” These questions were also condensed into laminated, pocket-sized field cards that helped the researcher stay on-task throughout the fieldwork.

Twenty-nine participants and five guides were interviewed by the field researcher between 3 and 12-months post-trip (mid 2018 to mid 2019), using a semi-structured interview guide. The average duration of interviews was 1 h and 15 min, and the interview questions began very broadly (e.g., “tell me about the trip”) and became more focused as the interview progressed. If the interviewees had not mentioned sustainability themselves, the topic was brought up by the interviewer late in the interview. Twelve of the post-trip interviews were done face-to-face, while the majority, for logistical reasons, were conducted by digital videoconference or phone. The limitations of physical distance to qualitative interviewing ( Bryman, 2016 ) were arguably offset by the fact that rapport had already been established between the interviewee and the interviewed, as they had spent many days living closely together while on tour.

Analytical Approach

Interviews were transcribed verbatim using the Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data-Analysis Software (CAQDAS) MAXQDA. We used AI-transcription software with manual checking to transcribe eight interviews. All fieldnotes were transcribed and imported to MAXQDA. MAXQDA was used to code interview transcripts and fieldnotes. The use of CAQDAS has been criticized by some for influencing and enforcing a specific method to the analytical process ( Kuckartz and Rädiker, 2019 ). However, we used CAQDAS as a “method-neutral toolbox” ( Kuckartz and Rädiker, 2019 , p. 9) that aided data organization for analysis ( Ribbs, 2014 ).

The first author performed all interviews, transcribed all interviews and fieldnotes, and coded the transcribed material. All interviews were conducted in English or Norwegian, as the interviewee preferred. All authors are fluent in English; the first and third author are native speakers of Norwegian and the second author has a working knowledge of the language. The first author coded the data in both Norwegian and English and manually translated the excerpts quoted in this paper. To avoid known pitfalls of solo-coding ( Saldaña, 2016 ; Braun and Clarke, 2019 ) and to strengthen coding validity, any coding uncertainties were discussed with the second and third author. The second and third author also read some of the interviews. The coding process started during the process of transcription with “preliminary jottings” ( Saldaña, 2016 , p. 21) and continued with an initially inductive, data driven, coding approach, through which themes were generated. Braun and Clarke (2019 , p. 592) define themes as “stories about particular patterns of shared meaning across the dataset” and “underpinned by a central organizing concept” (p. 589). For this study the “central organizing concept” was that of “sustainability performances.” Once themes were generated, the data corpus ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ) was read iteratively with definitions of sustainability. In this way, Force et al. (2018) distinction between sustainable tourism and tourism sustainability, and Salas-Zapata and Ortiz-Muñoz (2019 ) clarification of sustainability as “a set of guiding criteria for human action” (p. 155) guided rather than drove the analysis, in that they became an analytical framework for organizing the different performances of sustainability identified in the data analysis. In this sense the analytical process could be considered that of a combination of “inductive” and “theoretical thematic analysis” ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 , p. 83–84).

Results – “What is it That's Going on Here?”

In our data, we identified 11 types of sustainability performances. These are: noticing nature, desiring isolation in nature, responding to global issues, reducing pollution, supporting others' sustainability performances, minimizing environmental degradation, reflection on human/nature, connecting with nature, modeling sustainability performance, choosing tour operator, and learning about nature and culture. We also found performances not related to sustainability. While at first these results seem clear cut, they point to ambivalence and ambiguity in guides' and tourists' performances of sustainability in nature-based adventure tourism. We identify as ambivalence the low level of deliberate focus on sustainability during the trips generally and apparent randomness with which it occurs when it does. The ambiguities are one challenge and one conflict. The challenge is between sustainability performance and enjoyment, and the conflict is between sustainability performance and logistics. These are all detailed below and subsequently discussed in relation to the claims and criticisms of performativity and frames (see also Table 1 ).

Table 1 . Sustainability themes/performances.

Noticing Nature

Throughout each trip the tourists noticed and regularly commented on the scenery, the wildlife, the vistas, the local culture, the “lack of other people,” the quietness, the fresh air, the experience of journeying through a landscape. Nature took center stage regardless of the travel mode in the different tours. Photography was another dimension of noticing nature. The tourists photographed the landscapes they traveled through, elements of those landscapes, and nature, and themselves or others in nature. Both international and Norwegian tourists stated in their interviews that the act of taking photos, and sometimes even thinking about taking photos, made them notice nature more.

Desiring Isolation in Nature

Many of the Norwegian participants enjoyed being given time and place to just be “alone” together outside, to think about everything and nothing, to listen to their own breathing, find their own rhythm, feel and listen to the wind. Our summary of the tourist's perspective is that they want to get what they paid for: the experiences (hard earned), vistas and the solitude in nature as promised by the images in the company's brochure. On field trip A, for example, as the group traveled from the high-mountain and down to the coast, they encountered more and more people along the way until they reached a small coastal town. For one of the participants this town “was overly crowded with tourists” which they later stated was quite a shock and a negative experience for them. One of the main reasons this international tourist had come to Norway and do this particular trip was because they expected few other people there and they were disappointed to have come from the solitude of the high mountains and suddenly find themselves in a crowded tourist trap.

Reducing Pollution

When guides addressed concepts of sustainability it was related to “leave no trace” ( https://lnt.org ). How this topic was addressed varied from guide to guide. Some gave an introductory talk the first day, emphasizing that if a person needed to use a toilet while out hiking, biking, or skiing, they should do so but dispose of the toilet paper in the doggy-bags made available by the guides. All but one of the guides highlighted the importance of not leaving any trash behind, using the doggy-bags for one's own garbage as well as that of others' found along the way. They talked about what would happen if the group did not do so, typically referring to how the landscape would turn into a garbage pile if everyone visiting left even only one or two things behind.

The observation of guides addressing concepts of sustainability mainly through their focus on “leave no trace” and “take only pictures, leave nothing but footprints” is corroborated by their reflections in the post-trip interviews. Although the degree to which they themselves claim to focus on leave no trace varies between the guides, it comes across as their main way of addressing concepts of sustainability in their guiding practices. For some of the guides, the first briefing is the only time that they mention “leave no trace” and they do not enforce it rigorously during the trip.

When tourists were asked if and how they felt that their guides highlighted concepts of sustainability or environmental issues, those who could be specific mentioned the way guides emphasized “leave no trace” throughout the trip, as well as the introduction and use of “doggie-bags.” For both international and Norwegian tourists, concepts of sustainability became a matter of “leave no trace,” an experience in nature that is run in a way so that future generations can have the same experience in the same environment, and recycling.

Modeling Sustainability Performance

Some of the guides emphasized that they deliberately try to “model environmental behaviour”; that is, during briefings they would stress the need to make sure not to leave any trash behind, but they would not mention the possibility of tourists picking up trash found along the way. Instead, they would do that themselves and through that, model a behavior that made picking up trash and cleaning up nature “second nature,” something one just did. A few of the tourists mentioned how they felt that the guides “modeled behavior” through staying on the path, not littering, and picking up other people's litter along the path.

All of the guides believed they could, to some extent, influence tourists' environmental attitudes and behaviors. They acknowledged that their influence might not be lasting nor necessarily very profound, but nevertheless positive. Four of the guides believed their influence stems from modeling behavior and also from “modelling appreciation” for nature, such as by enthusiastically emphasizing the beauty of the surroundings, the taste of blueberries picked, the smell of the mountain moss. One guide, however, believed that taking part in nature-based adventure tourism trips itself is sufficient for strengthening tourists' sustainability and environmentally-friendly behaviors and attitudes. This guide favored “seeing and being” in nature as the primary influence, not what guides do or don't do. In this guide's view, “seeing and being” gives tourists a deeper appreciation of the natural world which, in turn, could lead them practice sustainability more in their everyday lives.

Thinking About Sustainability

When asked whether they felt sustainability and related themes were topics for discussion during the trip, most of the tourists gave ambiguous responses. While most did not discuss sustainability, many of them (particularly internationals) felt that sustainability was omnipresent on the trip, mainly in the form of “leave no trace.” At the same time, most of the tourists claimed to be environmentally conscious and that issues related to sustainability and environmental topics both concerned and, in many cases, affected them in their daily life. When asked to exemplify, most of them mentioned a general concern about issues such as over-use of landscape and that they “do their part – I/we recycle.”

The international tourists were more specific about how their understanding of sustainability influenced their everyday life (e.g., they engaged in the public discourse on sustainability in their local communities) and how it influenced them as tourists (e.g., by paying a carbon tax for air travel).

Supporting Others' Sustainability Performances

Not leaving any trash behind had some consequences for the guides. More than once on the skiing trips one or more of the tourists lost paper-wrappings in the wind. Each time, someone in the group would yell and make everyone aware of what was happening, and a guide would sprint off to catch the trash. When successful they were greeted with applause and loud compliments by some tourists. Other tourists' gestures – shrugged shoulders and facial experiences – and muttering indicated that they thought those applauding was making a big deal out of something unimportant.

Minimizing Environmental Degradation

During late summer and fall hiking trips, the guides emphasized the need to stay ‘on-trail’. They explained that if everyone walked outside the path they would contribute to erosion and possibly to establishing new, unnecessary paths that contribute to environmental degradation.

Reflection on Human/Nature

At one point during a trip, while on a scenic saddle overlooking a large, deserted beach with cliff-faces towering several hundred metres into the air, one of the guides instructed the tourists to sit down in solitude and take in the vista, the landscape, the smells, and the sounds. He encouraged them to do so for ~5 min without engaging with the others. All of the tourists except one complied with guide's instructions; one person walked around taking photos instead. The guide later said that he believed facilitating “sit-downs” and solitude reflections potentially could enhance the nature-experience for the participants and that taking in the beauty of the scenery could have a positive impact in terms of valuing the preciousness of the landscape and consequently its need to be preserved. He linked this “sit-down” with a talk he had planned later that same day addressing the issue of plastic pollution in the ocean and in general. This was the only time during the five different fieldtrips that the field researcher observed any of the guides deliberately facilitating such activities. After the “sit-down,” the guide invited the tourists to find their own path down to the beach below and to meet up by the shore at a given time for lunch. This gave the tourists opportunities to connect with nature on their own terms.

Choosing Tour Operator

Most of the tourists acknowledged that sustainability is not of major importance when they choose a tour operator and destination. It was important for a few of the international tourists. For these people, sustainability was understood broadly, encompassing environmental, social and economic aspects.

Learning About Nature and Culture

Compared to the Norwegian tourists, the international tourists were keen to learn as much as they could about the country and landscape. These tourists depend on the guides' local knowledge in order to get the experience they expect. The guides notice this difference between types of tourists. One informant, an apprentice guide fresh from training, observed that most international tourists are about “seeing it,” while some are also into “being there” which he thought was a deeper and better way of experiencing a landscape or destination. By contrast, this guide felt that Norwegian tourists on the same trips are more about “being” on the trip, or in a Norwegian sensibility, “doing” friluftsliv: doing, seeing and experiencing things together with friends.

The more experienced guides echoed this view and added that as guides they have to deal with the two groups differently. Some of the guides were explicit that it was much “easier” to work with international tourists because they are generally more enthusiastic about the planned trip and related activities, including learning about new culture, nature, landscape, and traditions. The guides felt international tourists generally asked more questions. However, the guides offered relatively few opportunities for tourists to learn about the local environment and culture. There was occasional storytelling by the guides, but storying the landscape in terms of history, geography, geology, biology, or culture was not a central part of the guides performances. Rather, their focus was on gazing upon the landscape and traveling through it for enjoyment.

What became evident in interviews with the tourists was that their acceptance of the guides' focus varied greatly among them. Some would not mind more emphasis on history, culture and landscape and some were quite happy with the status quo. A third group wanted as little input from the guides as possible, because they preferred to see the landscape for themselves and experience the trip as described by the tour company.

Responding to Global Issues

As stated above, when sustainability was brought up in discussion, it was mostly by one or other of the international tourists. Often, it would be as a specific question of the guide or researcher, such as “how is Norway affected by climate change?,” or “do Norwegians think about their carbon-footprint?”

Global issues relating to climate change concerned several of the international tourists who acknowledged the dilemma of wanting to travel to pristine destinations while knowing that doing so would leave a significant carbon footprint. Some of these people stated that they had recently put planned travel on hold because they did not feel comfortable about the carbon-footprint required to get to the desired destination. In a similar way, some of the international tourists expressed concern about travel that they thought would contribute to (over)populating the chosen destinations; this concern had led, in a few cases, to decisions to drop their plans all together due to the number of other tourists expected to be at the same destination.

The Norwegian tourists, too, were conscious of the carbon-footprint of flying to destinations, but as a group they were less clear about how they understood sustainability and most of them acknowledged that it was not a major factor in their decisions and practices.

Not Sustainability

While we did find performances of sustainability in our data, sustainability was not a major focus for the tourists. What does appear to be in the foreground for both the international and the Norwegian tourists are the experiences they are taking part in at the moment, the experiences that are to come in the near future (later that day, or the next day), and how these experiences are felt. After a long day out hiking, biking or skiing, the tourists' focus was on re-living the day's experiences and sharing feelings and thoughts about them. In these discussions, only sometimes initiated and led by the guides, the vantagepoint of experience was “the self.”

We found the same low attention to sustainability among the guides. In the main, they do not emphasize it as a topic of interest or concern in their briefings, nor during the more leisurely talks and discussions with their tourists. Overall, the guides' main focus seemed to be on practical information regarding the immediate needs for the day's journey. In particular, when briefing and talking with international tourists, the guides focused on providing detailed information about technicalities of the forthcoming activities, such as the quality of the path (gravel, loose rock etc.), altitude gain/loss, distance to be covered, safety concerns and how to deal with them, expected pace, when and where to eat the bagged lunch, how to dress, what to have in the backpack in terms of spare clothing and other accessories, what they could expect to see during the day, and why this experience would be worthwhile. When engaging with Nordic tourists, the guides provided the same type of information but with less detail, as if they expected the Nordic tourists to be more familiar with the weather, equipment and environment.

Although the five different trips took place in different landscapes, at different times of the year, using different adventure activities, the way the tour days were organized was very similar. Each day began with a shared breakfast usually followed by a short and practically-oriented briefing about what was ahead, then some time to pack personal gear, and meet at a designated location at about 9 a.m. The activity of the day usually lasted around 8–10 hours and ended with supper at around 7 p.m. Each day's journey had a similar pattern: hiking, biking, or skiing for 50 minutes, usually in single file, before a 10-minutes break. This routine would continue throughout the day, until the group reached the planned destination, and it created a conflict for the guides. Addressing the group as a whole while hiking, biking, or skiing was a demanding and difficult exercise for the guides because they were left with 10 in every 50 minutes as their “window of operation.” In this time, they had to monitor the group and individual well-being, attend to issues such as broken equipment, adjusting backpacks or skis, taping up blisters, and make sure that they engaged in at least one conversation with each participant each day. Several of the guides emphasized in their interview that they were reluctant to overtly interrupt the breaks with information about landscape, culture, history, or sustainability, because they wanted to allow individual participants to make use of the break as each saw fit.

Further, the guides felt challenged to tread a fine line between enhancing the tourist experience while at the same time not appearing to “have an agenda” or creating a “situation” that the tourists had not signed up and paid for. Many of the respondents also said that an outspoken sustainability and environmental focus from the guides could easily be interpreted as moralizing, which they were neither interested in nor positive toward. Several of the guides stated in various ways, both during the trip and in post-trip interviews, that their primary task was to make sure the tourists had a good time on their vacation. In fact, the guides stressed the view that the tourists were on vacation, implying that being on vacation imposed some guidelines in terms of a guide's behavior.

We set out to investigate if and how tourists and guides understand, operationalize, practice, and embody deeper nature-relatedness, active environmental and cultural protection, and relationship to the global collective. We found that performances of sustainability are not a major component of guides' and tourists' performances while on tour. Of the sustainability performances that we did find, the guides and tourists practiced and embodied nature-relatedness at both shallow (everyone noticing nature) and deeper (some tourists seeking isolation and reflecting on human/nature) levels. They expressed a limited range of environmental protection actions (reducing pollution by picking up garbage, minimizing environmental degradation by staying on tracks) and international tourists expressed interest in local culture which is one aspect of motivation for cultural protection ( Calver and Page, 2013 ; Richards, 2018 ). Further, we found that international tourists and, to a lesser extent Norwegian tourist, expressed interest in global issues (mainly carbon footprint), which is arguably a signal of positive relationship to the global collective. In addition to these types of sustainability, a few tourists chose the tour operator with sustainability in mind, however our data does not indicate which aspects of sustainability informed those choices. Finally, tourists and guides expressed an over-arching thoughtfulness on sustainability: they all thought about it, some guides modeled it, and tourists supported the guides' modeling. However, these mainly cognitive actions did not apparently lead to additional expressions of sustainability by the tourists.

We understand the variability in expressions of sustainability through a Goffmanian lens of four distinct clusters of frames: one cluster is made up from the Norwegian tourists; another from the international tourists; a third from most of the guides; and the fourth from one particular guide. Goffman's ideas of “going about” normal life and “being alert” to threats and changes are useful for describing these frames. In the Norwegian tourist frame, going about nature-based adventure tourism means performing friluftsliv while being guided, connecting with nature individually, and not being disturbed (threatened) by issues beyond the immediate enjoyment of activity and environment. By contrast, the international tourist frame seeks out the challenge of difference (e.g., curiosity about Norwegian culture and history) and environmental threat (e.g., climate change) while also enjoying the immediate activity and environment. Most of the guides shared a frame that fits/matches that of the Norwegian tourists: a “normal” guide allows tourists to go about their tourism without being alarmed by the intrusion of overt sustainability performances by the guides. The fourth evident frame was that of a single guide who considered nature-based adventure tourism to normally involve challenging tourists' perceptions of sustainability. Clearly, these four frames are not all, always, compatible, which suggests that the guides and tourists reached a common expressive order for the trips. This consensus revolved around enjoyment, as we now discuss.

Sustainability Performances vs. Enjoyment

Through both interviews and comments made during the different tours, it is evident that a primary aspect of the guides' frame is prioritizing tourist enjoyment within the scope of the planned trip. Enjoyment is central to the interaction order of these situations. The guides express a high degree of awareness of the fact that the tourists have paid to get a certain product. The product is defined in terms of sites to see, places to visit, adventure activities to do, and more generally when, what and how the different aspects of the trip are supposed to take place. These details are stated in the written “contract” - detailed information about the content of the given tour - on the tour operator's website that tourists access before the trip. This “contract,” then, is the tour company's frame for the particular trip: it provides the “social information” ( Goffman, 1967 ) that helps tourists and guides to understand “what sort of situation [this is]” and, consequently, what sort of performances are expected of them. The “contract” tells tourists what they can expect to happen and to experience. It tells guides what they have to deliver. Through both interviews and field conversations it is clear that the guides see their work as contractual and that they feel obliged to deliver a “product” as close to the “contract” as possible. In Goffman's (1959) terms, they conform to the “interaction order” and in doing so they prioritize enjoyment over sustainability. Their emphasis is on facilitating a relaxed, friendly and positive social atmosphere within the group and making sure that the tourists have a good time and enjoy themselves. It is only if and when tourists express enjoyment of deeper sustainability that the guides respond. Thus, it is the tourists who must first challenge the interaction order; the guides follow tourists in opening up for deeper sustainability. Larsen and Meged (2013 , p. 101) argue that it is tourist's “participatory and attentive tactics” that turn guided tours into co-created performances. Larsen and Meged (2013 , p. 101) also found that “guides rely on the energy from interactions and participants which is why the guiding is equally affected when the tourists log off.” A possible explanation to why the “interaction order” seems to stay fairly fixed on enjoyment in the tours we observed, could be that the guides are sensitive to tourist “logging off” if addressing or emphasizing deeper sustainability performances when not initiated by the tourists themselves.

As noted in the results, we did identify one performance by one guide that might have challenged the tourist's perceptions of sustainability and thus also the “interaction order.” This was the invitation to sit and reflect, then to find one's own way to the beach and take some time there. As this episode took place on a trip with international tourists, it is pertinent to ask whether guides use different frames depending on what type of tourist groups they guide, whether international tourists tend to challenge the interaction order more, and if so, how these challenges are resolved. These questions will be the focus of a future article.

A primary focus on enjoyment, however, does not preclude other foci, less central to the frame. For some guides, a focus on sustainability was possible as long as it didn't interfere with enjoyment. In the next section we discuss susceptibilities that produce potential for more, or deeper, sustainability.

Susceptibility to Sustainability

Some of the guides expressed that their understanding (or frame) of the trip and, therefore, their potential scope of action, differed based on the type and length of the trip they were guiding. One guide mentioned that trips longer than 2 weeks provided more opportunities to address a broader range of topics because there is more time to interact with individual tourists. While no such trips were the subject of this study, the guide's comments throw light on a way that guides can manage social interaction for particular effects. This guide explained that:

“. in the end you deliver a product that someone has paid for. so you need to know your group … Some are very susceptible for discussions and new ways of thinking, others find it annoying … So I don't push [sustainability issues/practices] so much, but do more sort of systematic brainwashing [laughs out loud]. because you spend quite a lot of time with the tourists, and then you can lead them, in the direction that you would like to see them end up … And that is not something you do the first day. It takes time.”

Following Goffman (1974) , one explanation for this guide's comments is that guides can have multiple backstage topics that they intend to emphasize throughout the trip and which, through planned performances, can gradually become front-staged, possibly without the tourists noticing the shift. In other words, sustainability could be an aspect of the guide's frame for the trip from the outset, but he or she keeps it “backstage” ( Goffman, 1959 ) until they feel that the tourists are ready (“susceptible”) for it. By back-staging sustainability, this guide managed the impression of himself so that his “front-stage” ( Goffman, 1959 ) performance matched his perception of tourist interest in sustainability, and this saved the tourists' “face” rather than creating an uncomfortable or embarrassing situation. However, this explanation fails to address how tourists become more interested in the guide's prepared topics. If this static view of frames is adopted, the question of how tourist frames can be made more susceptible to sustainability remains open. It also calls into question how the guides ascertain tourist susceptibility.

Taking into consideration the guides' educational backgrounds, it could be that this guide did actually have a deliberate educational program in mind in his “backstaging-to-frontstaging” of sustainability. In fact, five out of the six guides in this study have attended nature guide-related educational programs at university level in Norway. Andersen and Rolland (2018) argue that nature guides educated in friluftsliv (as is the norm in nature-based higher education courses in Norway) can “add value by enhancing participant's experiences and adding more learning to the experience. The learning relates to skills and techniques … and connecting the participants more closely with nature” (p. 1). However, Weiler and Kim (2011) argue that because tour guides, in general, have limited exposure to or experience with “theory, tools, and techniques for optimizing the visitor experience and visitor-environment interaction within a sustainability framework” they might not be “fully realizing their potential to communicate and role-model sustainability in their tour content and practice” (p. 113). In our view, there is merit in asking if the guide education programs in Norway do provide the necessary “theory, tools, and techniques” required for framing sustainability in their professional roles.

Goffman (1967) highlights the importance of the communication process in “the nature of the ritual order” (p. 42). It is the communication process that takes place between the guides and the tourists that is important for explaining “what it is that's going on” and according to Goffman this is largely due to feelings. Feelings are “vulnerable not to facts and things but to communications” and “[c]ommunications … can be by-passed, withdrawn from, disbelieved, conveniently misunderstood, and tactfully conveyed” ( Goffman, 1967 , p. 43). The trust that the guides build through their individual way of communicating with the tourists creates the potential scope for action to discuss sustainability. If the communication between the parties involved is not open and trusting, the possibility of maintaining an expressive order is made more difficult. The longer a trip lasts, the better everyone gets to know each other, which then gives room to expand the repertoire of what it is acceptable to talk about.

In our study, most tourists framed the trips in non-sustainability ways, as did most guides. However, occasionally guides were prompted by tourists to focus on a deeper sustainability at least with regard to learning about environment and culture, or when they received positive feedback from the tourists such as when they were applauded for retrieving trash. At those times, the guides at least attempted to respond in a deeper sustainability way themselves. Conversely, when the tourists were invited to deepen their relationship with nature by taking a “sit-down and reflect,” their framing of the trip might have shifted or widened to encompass a (slightly) deeper focus on sustainability. None of them reported that it did, however. One possible reason could be that, as all the tourists on this particular trip were non-Nordic and well-experienced in nature-based adventure tourism, they might have already reached a deep-enough level of sustainability practice that such reflection is normal and not note-worthy. If so, this particular trip could be considered similar to many eco-tourism trips which have been challenged for “preaching to the converted” rather than increasing the public's exposure to deeper sustainability experiences ( Beaumont, 1991 ).

Several of the guides found Norwegian tourists in Norway to be less interested in learning from the tour and more critical toward the guide. This difference apparently has an effect on both how the guides perform their guiding, and the guides scope of action. With Norwegian tourists, the guides often felt the need to prove their competence while at the same time sensing that many of the Norwegian tourists felt they did not actually need a guide. Also, working with the less enthusiastic (Norwegian) tourists affected how the guides behaved and their guiding style. It seems that working with a group with the same cultural background poses some challenges for the guides in terms of what to focus on in their guiding practice. This possibility is worth further investigation for its impact on the sustainability potential of domestic nature-based adventure tourism.

The Complication of Tour-Logistics

We turn now to consider guides' framing and its relationship to the tour company. Weiler and Black's (2015) observation that tour companies can leave guides little power to perform sustainability on any given tour is pertinent to this discussion. In our study, the way the tours were organized left little time for performing sustainability that was not already framed by company.

The tour logistics emphasized: (1) the adventure activity itself (hiking, biking, skiing), (2) gazing ( Urry, 1990 ) upon the landscape, and (3) journeying through the landscape. The tour logistics, in our interpretation, are framed as getting the tourists from point A to point B. Performing nature-based adventure tourism seems to mean giving the tourists what they had paid for. The different sustainability performances we did observe mostly took place during the adventure activities, not as planned nor pre formed performances linked to the company's programme, but rather as spontaneous performances that took place in situ . Only on a few occasions did we observe the guides choosing to facilitate sustainability. In our study, then, sustainability was inspired mainly by the responses of tourists and guides to their immediate experiences of the adventure activities, within particular settings. Sustainability actions and practices were not emphasized strongly in the orchestration of tour logistics.

The tour company involved in this study did not “frame” sustainability as part of the experience of the trips. That we found sustainability performances in our data suggests that tourists are “ready” for “light” sustainability at least. Arguably, this company and others would not damage their reputations by promoting the level of sustainability that tourists will happily accept. By framing sustainability into the experiences, tour companies would also be opening up possibilities for guides to frame their work for deeper sustainability.

Conclusions

This study has shown that sustainability, as we understand it, did occur at the micro-level of the nature-based adventure tourism experiences we studied in Norway, albeit as a minor theme in guides' and tourists' framing of trips. The sustainability performances we found mainly sprang from spontaneous responses by tourists and guides to experiences of adventure activities in particular natural settings. We have shown that sustainability performances can be ambiguous, complex and contingent upon the interplay of guides' and tourists' frames.

Nature-based adventure tourism companies appear to be key agents in the framing of trips by both guides and tourists. There appears to be potential for deeper sustainability to be expressed on guided trips if companies allow it. The implications for promotional messaging and expectation-setting through pre-trip interactions with tourists are worthy of further investigation. Similarly, there are implications for guide training and for the knowledge and skills demanded by nature-based adventure tourism companies of their guides.

Deeper sustainability might be found more readily in situations of “foreignness” or difference, such as among international tourists. This possibility needs further exploration. If susceptibility to sustainability is greater in “foreign” contexts, how can the tourism industry respond? This question seems especially pertinent in the current relatively closed global context and in the prospect of international travel in the foreseeable future being limited by cost and pandemic controls.

While not generalizable to other settings, our findings demonstrate that sustainability in tourism can be empirically studied by taking a performative ethnographic approach in field work. Further studies in a wider variety of settings, and especially longer trips, could potentially tease out some of the ambiguities and complexities we have noted. Study designs that access tour operators', guides' and tourists' perceptions of one another's frames would shed additional light on the ways in which these actors influence one another's sustainability understandings and actions. Finally, studies that access guides' and tourists' longer-term reflections on trips might also bring to light important aspects of trip dynamics on sustainability in their everyday lives.

This paper presents a study of how sustainability is operationalized in a nature-based adventure tourism setting. The study is novel in its method, empirical data, and Norwegian setting. The results are relevant to the national as well as the international tourism industry.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Author Contributions

ARo, PL, and ARa contributed to the research idea and design of the study. ARo conducted the fieldwork and data analysis under supervision of the other authors. ARo wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Winter, P. L., Selin, S., Cerveny, L., and Bricker, K. (2020). Outdoor recreation, nature-based tourism, and sustainability. Sustainability 12:81. doi: 10.3390/su12010081

Witoszek, N. (1998). Norske naturmytologier. Fra Edda til økofilosofi. Pax Forlag A/S.

Yin, R. K. (2014). Case Study Research. Design and Methods, 5th Edn . New York, NY: SAGE Publications.

Zahle, J. (2012). Practical knowledge and participant observation. Inquiry 55, 50–65. doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2012.643626

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Keywords: sustainability, adventure tourism, nature, environment, ethnography, dramaturgy, performance

Citation: Rosenberg A, Lynch PM and Radmann A (2021) Sustainability Comes to Life. Nature-Based Adventure Tourism in Norway. Front. Sports Act. Living 3:686459. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2021.686459

Received: 26 March 2021; Accepted: 07 May 2021; Published: 11 June 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Rosenberg, Lynch and Radmann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Axel Rosenberg, axelr@nih.no

This article is part of the Research Topic

Environmental Sustainability in Sports, Physical Activity and Education, and Outdoor Life

Danger, prestige and authenticity draw thrill-seekers to adventure tourism

Associate Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of South Carolina

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Scott Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of South Carolina provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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The tragic news of the destruction of the Titan submersible has brought attention to the thrilling, dangerous and expensive world of extreme tourism.

As a researcher who studies hospitality and tourism management , I pay attention to the trends in tourism and study ways in which organizations like theme parks and resorts operate and change over time.

Tourists are generally seeking more authentic experiences that occur without prescribed paths or known endpoints. Technology can often make the extreme environments of adventure tourism more safe, but at the bottom of the ocean, the vacuum of space or the cold of a mountain summit the consequences of failure can be high.

Adventure tourism as authentic tourism

In recent years, there has been a trend in the tourism industry toward authentic experiences . More and more, people want to experience something unique and not in a preprogrammed or controlled setting.

An example of the difference between authentic and inauthentic tourism is the difference between a zoo and a safari. Zoos are built to allow large crowds of people to easily view unique and often dangerous animals. Zoos are typically a spectator experience and are very safe, but they offer little opportunity for visitors to interact with the animals.

A safari in Africa, by comparison, provides a much more authentic experience by removing a lot of the safety barriers between you and the animals. Most safaris bring a limited number of tourists, with guides who can provide closer interaction with the animals in their real environment. This, of course, also increases the risk for tourists, as the barriers and safety features found in a zoo don’t exist in the wild. The sense of danger that comes from authentic tourism often adds to the adventurous traveler’s experience .

The final appeal of adventure tourism is the status or prestige of a dangerous, expensive trip . Almost everyone can afford to visit a local zoo, whereas an African safari requires a level of spending that is a display of your status and income.

The same authenticity, danger and prestige apply to many types of adventure tourism, whether it is mountaineering, space tourism or trips to the bottom of the ocean.

Technology doesn’t always mean safety

As technologies have improved, companies and tourists have been able to push the limits of safety for many activities. For example, over the past 30 years, roller coasters have gotten progressively taller, faster and more extreme to capture the attention of thrill-seekers . These rides are able to maintain high levels of safety thanks to better engineering and technology.

The narrative that advanced technology provides safety in extreme situations typically helps to reassure tourists the activity they choose to engage in is safe. The reality is that any activity – whether it’s crossing the street or visiting the wreck of the Titanic – will always carry some level of risk. The problem is that many of these extreme activities take place in very dangerous environments and have incredibly small margins for error. When something does go wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic or, as with the case of the Titan submarine, fatal.

Prevalence and legal limits

It is hard to get exact numbers on extreme tourism deaths per year, but when these sad events do occur, they typically receive a lot of attention from the press . As a tourism researcher, I follow these types of stories and feel comfortable saying that very few occur in the U.S.

In the U.S., there are federal , state and local tourism boards and agencies. More often than not, specialized agencies regulate activities most relevant to their areas of expertise – for example, the Federal Aviation Administration regulates space tourism , and national park and state park agencies permit mountaineering in many places. These organizations generally promote tourism and safe practices, but no amount of regulation and oversight can absolutely guarantee anyone’s safety. And for many activities, like deep-water tours, there is no mandatory certification process.

Perhaps the best advice for people seeking authentic, thrilling experiences would be to use the idea of “buyer beware.” If you are choosing to engage in extreme tourism, ask questions about what safety procedures are in place for whatever activity you are choosing to do. And if you are not comfortable with the answers you get, move on to another company or activity.

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Tourism Review

ISSN : 1660-5373

Article publication date: 9 October 2019

Issue publication date: 20 February 2020

This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of adventure tourism in tourism the tourism industry and in tourism research. Apart from giving an overview of current literature and discussion, this paper also looks into future trends in adventure tourism.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper looks at the state of the art of adventure tourism re-search and discusses current trends. Based on literature, it gives an overview of the development of adventure tourism, the current situation and how adventure tourism will develop in the future.

This paper discusses the development of research in the field of adventure tourism and propagates that research should be increasingly focussing on theory building. The work by Rantala and Rokenses (2016) was the much-needed kick-start to lay the groundwork for a theoretical framework. The last few years have seen a rise in older tourists embarking for adventure trips, as well as families. Younger adults seek microadventures nearby their home. Health and well-being have also seen a stronger focus in adventure tourism research. Interdisciplinary research teams should see into these phenomenon and analyse the different motives and implications. This will help to develop a framework for adventure tourism research.

Originality/value

The importance of adventure tourism in the tourism industry and science will be demonstrated, and for the first time, the scientific examination of adventure tourism will be presented with three phases and important publications. In addition, the importance of theory formation in the field of adventure tourism will be pointed out. This paper not only gives an overview of current research but also looks ahead into future developments.

• Adventure tourism
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Gross, S. and Sand, M. (2020), "Adventure tourism: a perspective paper", Tourism Review , Vol. 75 No. 1, pp. 153-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-06-2019-0211

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Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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Adventure tourism: the world’s most inhospitable destinations.

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For many, the thought of using precious vacation time to do something other than relax and unwind is inconceivable. But adventure tourism is big business. The lure of far flung places, of inhospitable environments and of physical and mental challenge is exactly the kind of thing adventure seekers live for.

Kayaking in Antarctica between icebergs… the ultimate call of the wild.

The most extreme kind of adventure tourism has recently come under the spotlight with the tragedy of the Titan deep sea submersible loss. There are, however, many other ways to challenge yourself and experience extreme environments with far less risk. Post pandemic, the lure of the wild has become more popular to tourists than ever, and the operators catering to it, more creative in the adventures they curate.

Where, then, are the most popular inhospitable places in the world that people want to visit? Perhaps unsurprisingly, according to a recent survey conducted by Antarctica Cruises it is the world’s greatest wildernesses and tallest mountains that inspire the most adventurers.

Boundless and beautiful Antarctica may be, but don't expect a warm welcome.

Most popular of all is Antarctica, with visitor numbers expected to be up more than 40% over even the best pre-pandemic years, which translates to more than 100,000 visitors in 2023 alone. The world’s biggest desert stretches for some five and a half million square miles and is the very definition of inhospitable – regular 50mph winds, an average temperature of -27°F (-33°C) and at its closest point, more than 600 miles to the nearest city.

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But with such hardship comes the promise of great reward. Simply, there is nowhere else on Earth quite like Antarctica. From the seemingly endless and constantly changing expanse of ice and snow, riddled with bottomless glaciers and towering icebergs, luminous blue rivers and hidden frozen lakes, many writers have talked of its power to hypnotize those who visit. Its wildlife too is exceptional – vast colonies of penguins, Chinstraps and Gentoos, kings and Emperors. Leopard, Weddell and Crabeater seals and sea elephants, whales of every ilk from Minke to Humpback, Blue to Orca. And that’s before we even consider casting an eye skyward to the birdlife.

Tourists look on as a humpback whale raises its fluke before diving deep to feed in Antarctica.

Most visitors to Antarctica spend surprisingly little time actually on land, with cruises by far the most popular way to experience the continent without having to sacrifice life's modern luxuries. Most depart from Ushiaia in Argentina, heading south from Patagonia across the notorious Drake Passage, a two-day voyage famed for its rough seas – but not enough to put off thousands of tourists with a keen eye focused on the bottom of the world.

Next most popular is the world’s tallest mountain, Everest. Towering to 29,029 feet (8,848 meters), it has long represented the pinnacle of human endurance with its regular 33 mph winds and average temperature of -16°F (-27°C). Summiting Everest remains a great physical and mental challenge, which is why only around 6,000 people have achieved it.

It may be the roof of the world, but even on route to its summit, Everest is busy.

Reaching Everest Base Camp however, at ‘only’ 17,600 feet (5,365 meters), is a much more achievable feat that still puts you in the heart of the Himalayan experience. Around 40,000 tourists each year make the spectacular trek from Lukla Airport, winding through awesome mountain scenery, traditional Sherpa villages and high-altitude passes.

Closely following Everest in third spot is another mountain – Argentina’s Aconcagua, the highest peak outside the Himalaya. At just shy of 22,000 feet (6,960 meters) and with an average temperature of minus -16°F (-27°C), Aconcagua is already inhospitable before you mix in the unbelievable average wind speeds of 63 mph.

Aconcagua Peak is the highest mountain in the Americas and a popular destination for climbers.

Just 68 miles from the nearest city of Mendoza, Aconcagua sees around 3,500 visitors try and reach its peak annually, although those conditions mean only 30-35 percent of them are successful. Make the summit, though, and you’ll be rewarded with some of the world’s greatest views reaching out in every direction over the Andes Mountains to Chile, the Pacific Ocean and the sweeping plains of Argentina.

Of the top 10 most inhospitable places ranked by Antarctica Cruises, Argentina has more than any other country with three entries – Aconcagua; Cerro Mercedario, the tallest peak in the Cordillera de la Ramada range and eighth highest in the Andes; and Walther Penck, also known as Cerro Tipas, the third highest volcano in the world.

Eight of the top ten places are mountains, which highlights the amazing popularity of hiking and climbing as well as the enduring appeal these vast natural formations hold over people from all walks of life and all corners of the world. For those with the will to brave the elements, embrace the difficulties and overcome the hardships, the rewards of a vacation into the inhospitable places of the world can be life changing.

Denali, AKA Mount McKinley, towers over Byers Lake in Alaska and is North America's tallest ... [+] mountain.

The top ten most inhospitable travel destinations people are most keen to visit

• Antarctic Desert
• Mount Everest, Himalayas, Nepal & China
• Aconcagua, Andes, Argentina
• Ismoil Somoni Peak, Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan
• Mount Logan, Saint Elias Mountains, Canada
• K2, Karakoram, Pakistan
• Denali, Alaska Range, USA
• Mercedario, Cordillera de la Ramada, Argentina
• Walther Penck, Andes, Argentina
• Mount Elbrus, Caucasus Mountains, Russia

You can see the methodology for this ranking here .

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Adventure tourism: amazing destinations around the world

Find out all about adventure tourism and discover some of the best adventure destinations in the USA and abroad and how to get free accommodation near them

Bárbara Nicoli

Feb 10, 2024

Adventure tourism is a type of travel that is gaining more and more adepts around the world. Unlike traditional tourism, which usually has comfort and relaxation as its main goals, adventure tourism is for those who like to leave their comfort zone.

Many people travel to rest, but there are also adventure seekers like me, who seek excitement through intense activities . In this article, I will explain what adventure tourism is, what its main activities are and where to practice them in different parts of the world. 

Furthermore, I will give you a great tip to save on accommodation while you go off exploring these amazing places.

What is adventure tourism?

Adventure tourism is a form of tourism that involves engaging in exciting and challenging activities , such as adventure sports in nature . Its main goals are to stimulate adrenaline and explore wild and remote places .

Depending on the activity, you might need to have some physical skills and a certain level of preparation. For example, if you intend to go on a multi-day trek, your body needs to be strong enough to walk for several hours while carrying a heavy backpack.

In other activities, such as bungee jumping and parachuting, you just need to be psychologically prepared to face the adrenaline. In some cases, basic training, special equipment, and specialized guides may also be required to ensure safety during activities.

Besides providing physical and mental challenges, adventure tourism seekers usually aim to connect with nature and discover local cultures. Therefore, in addition to adventure, this form of tourism can also be an enriching and transformative life experience.

Top adventure tourism activities

Adventure tourism activities involve three elements of nature: land, water, and air. Some activities may combine more than one of these elements at the same time, occurring in different environments, such as natural or built spaces. 

The most common activities in this type of tourism include:

Climbing (indoor and outdoor)

Climbing is a versatile sport that can be practiced individually or in a group. This activity incorporates mountaineering techniques and movements  aiming to reach the top of places, which can be natural (like mountains) or artificial (indoor climbing).

Rappelling is a rope descent technique practiced on rocky walls, bridges, and waterfalls. Your objective is to reach a place below the starting point, using movements that release and lock the ropes.

Zip lining is an activity that doesn’t require much physical effort, making it accessible to almost everyone. It consists of sliding on cables suspended above the vegetation, crossing from one point to another. It can be practiced both in mountain regions, among trees, above lakes, at beaches etc.

Bungee jumping

Bungee jumping does not require strength or physical conditioning . It is a free fall jump, carried out in different locations, such as bridges, parks and even waterfalls. It allows untrained people to safely experience the thrill of free-fall jumping.

When you go bungee jumping, you will be attached by the feet and/or waist and chest. Elastic ropes are used to absorb the impact, avoiding any sensation of impact for the practitioner.

Tree climbing

Tree climbing is a less common (but super fun) type of adventure tourism activity. It consists of crossing a route suspended between platforms mounted on trees. Steel cables and ropes are used to facilitate or intensify the challenge.

Trekking is a walk, which can vary in difficulty, depending on the location and distance chosen. The predominant motivation is leisure and connection with nature. It is generally practiced in natural settings that are difficult to access, such as mountains, forests, and deserts. It usually lasts more than one day.

Hiking has the same principle as trekking and can be considered a round trip on the trail. In this case, there is no need to carry camping equipment or large backpacks. It is an ideal activity for those who want to enjoy a day away from the city or explore trails in parks in metropolitan areas.

Mountaineering

Mountaineering is an adventure tourism activity that can be done individually or in a group. The goal is to reach the top of one or more mountains for contemplation or personal achievement, whether through hiking, climbing, or another appropriate method.

You might also like this article: 7 amazing mountain vacations in the US

Diving is an activity practiced underwater and can be carried out in several ways: with the help of a cylinder, using a snorkel mask or just by controlling your breathing.

Rafting is based on descending rapids as a team , using inflatable boats and safety equipment. Depending on the location, it can be practiced by people of any age and, in most cases, by people with no previous experience, making it an accessible sport.

Canoeing is a water sport practiced with the help of an oar and a canoe or kayak. Navigation takes place on rivers, dams, lakes, or the ocean. The sport can be practiced professionally or recreationally.

Surfing is a sport practiced on the surface of the water (its name comes from the word “surface”). It basically consists of gliding along the sea waves using a board. The more adventurous seek places with big waves, such as Nazaré, in Portugal, and Pipeline, in Hawaii.

Safaris are expeditions to observe nature and wildlife in their natural habitat. It is important to respect the fauna and flora, not interacting with animals or feeding them.

Skydiving is an exhilarating activity that involves jumping from a plane or elevated platform and literally free-falling through the air before opening the parachute to slow down and glide gently to the ground.

In addition to the activities mentioned above, adventure tourism includes several other intense and challenging experiences. They often lead us to overcome our own physical and mental limits. But where can you practice them? Below, I present some destinations that are perfect for adventure tourism.

Best places to practice adventure tourism

There are many destinations with natural settings suitable for adventure tourism in all corners of the world . Often, you don't have to go far to venture out; In your own city or nearby, you can find parks, mountains, rivers, or waterfalls where you can practice some of these activities.

Below, I will give examples of some of the best destinations in the United States and abroad for those who want to practice adventure tourism. And the best part is that in many of them you can get free accommodation through Worldpackers .

If you haven’t heard of this platform, let me briefly explain how it works: there are hosts spread across more than 140 countries, and they are all looking for travelers who want to exchange their time and skills for a free stay and other perks like meals and tours.

You just need to access the website, choose the destinations you want to explore and filter vacancies by type of host, which can include social projects, NGOs, ecovillages, hostels and local communities.

After choosing a position you like, apply and wait to be accepted. You will then help the host with a few hours of work a week and enjoy your free time as you prefer.  Each position has its own perks, which you can check out on the website.

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Adventure tourism destinations in the USA

The USA is a country rich in natural beauty and offers several options for those looking to practice adventure tourism. Among the best national destinations, there are:

Yellowstone National Park

Established in 1872, Yellowstone is not only the first national park in the United States but also the first national park in the world. It covers an area of over 2.2 million acres and is known for its diverse ecosystems, geothermal features, and abundant wildlife. There you can go hiking to iconic sites like Grand Prismatic Spring, Fairy Falls , and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, as well as boating, rafting, camping and more.

Nearby you’ll also find Jackon Hole , a beautiful valley surrounded by the Teton Range to the west and the Gros Ventre Range to the east. With the vibrant town of Jackson at its center, you’ll find lots of activities to do there, such as skiing, snowboarding, and wildlife viewing. It’s also the gateway to Grand Teton National Park, a haven for outdoor enthusiasts.

Feel like volunteering in Jackson? Take a look at the opportunities available there .

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park, located in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, is renowned for its breathtaking landscapes, towering granite cliffs, majestic waterfalls, and diverse ecosystems. The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site , also offers a wide range of adventure tourism activities, like rock climbing, river rafting and hiking. The Mist Trail and the John Muir Trail are among the popular hiking routes.

Check out the work exchange positions in Mariposa County , just outside Yosemite Park.

Lake Tahoe is a stunning freshwater lake located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, known for its crystal-clear blue waters, breathtaking mountain scenery, and a wide range of outdoor activities. 

During the winter you can go skiing and snowboarding there, and in warmer months it’s a great destination for hiking and biking. You can also practice water-based activities such as kayaking and paddleboarding.

Volunteer in Nevada and go explore this amazing destination.

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Adventure tourism destinations abroad

Want to go beyond national borders? In addition to many other amazing destinations in the USA, there is no shortage of places around the world for enjoying the best of adventure tourism. 

There are plenty of deserts, mountains, forests, beaches , and other environments perfect for outdoor activities. Check out some of the best adventure tourism destinations abroad:

Home to the famous Inca trail that leads to Machu Picchu, Peru offers a plethora of exhilarating experiences. The Huaraz region is the trekking capital of Peru , where you can climb snow-capped mountains and enjoy surreal blue lagoons.

Rafting on the Urubamba River is also a popular adventure tourism activity in the country. The river stretches from the Andes mountain range to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, passing Machu Picchu and entering the jungle. Another exciting activity is sandboarding on the desert dunes in Huacachina.

There are more than 150 vacancies spread across Peru, check them all out here.

Brazil is the country with the biggest biodiversity in the world, so there’s no shortage of beautiful places where you can enjoy nature and practice adventure tourism activities.

Among the best adventure destinations over there you will find Chapada Diamantina , where I highly recommend doing the Vale do Pati trek; the Amazon Rainforest , where you can go on a boat ride on the rivers or night hikes in the middle of the jungle; Bonito , the best equipped ecotourism destination in the country; Serra do Cipó , which is great for mountain biking and parachuting; and Serra da Mantiqueira , a big region full of adventure activities

Check out all the work exchange positions available in Brazil.

You might like this article:  Backpacking Brazil: tips from a local for traveling on a budget

Nepal is the perfect destination for trekking and mountaineering lovers . It is home to some of the highest mountains in the world, such as Mount Everest, and several challenging trails, such as the Annapurna Circuit. The country is a paradise for adventurers!

Rafting is also a very common activity in Nepal. Some routes can last several days, such as rafting along the Narayan River , which runs from Kathmandu to the Terai, a region close to the Indian border.

See all volunteering opportunities in Nepal.

Keep reading:  Discover India's top 3 best ecotourism destinations

With a rich biodiversity, Costa Rica is a great destination for ecotourism and adventure tourism. You can choose to sail through the canals of Tortuguero observing the fauna and flora, dive in the coral reefs of Puerto Viejo or experience the activity of the Arenal Volcano.

Other popular adventure tourism activities in Costa Rica are wildlife watching in Manuel Antonio , rafting on the Pacuare River, or canopying in Monteverde. Canopying is a mix of tree climbing and zip lines, an activity widely practiced in Costa Rica .

You can volunteer in Costa Rica, with more than 100 hosts spread across the country.

The big country down under offers a variety of adventure activities, especially in the coastal regions. Highlights include diving in the Great Barrier Reef, climbing Ayers Rock (Uluru) , surfing at famous beaches and hiking in national parks.

On the island of Tasmania , off the southeast coast of Australia, you can enjoy an exciting 7-day rafting trip down the Franklin River. If you prefer something less extreme, you can choose to practice tree climbing in the Daintree Forest , in Queensland.

See where you can stay for free in Australia.

South Africa

South Africa is at the end of this list but is actually one of the best adventure destinations in the world. Between skydiving, quad biking, hot air ballooning, windsurfing, safaris, tree ziplines, surfing and sailing along the coast, there is no shortage of exciting activities and incredible experiences surrounded by some of the most stunning scenery in the world.

Find out about the volunteering opportunities in South Africa.

Did you like to know a little more about adventure tourism and the best destinations to practice it? Create your profile at the Worldpackers platform for free and start saving your favorite volunteering opportunities!

Join the community!

Create a free Worldpackers account to discover volunteer experiences perfect for you and get access to exclusive travel discounts!

Bárbara Nicoli Danielli dos Santos

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The Moscow Metro Museum of Art: 10 Must-See Stations

There are few times one can claim having been on the subway all afternoon and loving it, but the Moscow Metro provides just that opportunity.  While many cities boast famous public transport systems—New York’s subway, London’s underground, San Salvador’s chicken buses—few warrant hours of exploration.  Moscow is different: Take one ride on the Metro, and you’ll find out that this network of railways can be so much more than point A to B drudgery.

The Metro began operating in 1935 with just thirteen stations, covering less than seven miles, but it has since grown into the world’s third busiest transit system ( Tokyo is first ), spanning about 200 miles and offering over 180 stops along the way.  The construction of the Metro began under Joseph Stalin’s command, and being one of the USSR’s most ambitious building projects, the iron-fisted leader instructed designers to create a place full of svet (radiance) and svetloe budushchee (a radiant future), a palace for the people and a tribute to the Mother nation.

Consequently, the Metro is among the most memorable attractions in Moscow.  The stations provide a unique collection of public art, comparable to anything the city’s galleries have to offer and providing a sense of the Soviet era, which is absent from the State National History Museum.  Even better, touring the Metro delivers palpable, experiential moments, which many of us don’t get standing in front of painting or a case of coins.

Though tours are available , discovering the Moscow Metro on your own provides a much more comprehensive, truer experience, something much less sterile than following a guide.  What better place is there to see the “real” Moscow than on mass transit: A few hours will expose you to characters and caricatures you’ll be hard-pressed to find dining near the Bolshoi Theater.  You become part of the attraction, hear it in the screech of the train, feel it as hurried commuters brush by: The Metro sucks you beneath the city and churns you into the mix.

With the recommendations of our born-and-bred Muscovite students, my wife Emma and I have just taken a self-guided tour of what some locals consider the top ten stations of the Moscow Metro. What most satisfied me about our Metro tour was the sense of adventure .  I loved following our route on the maps of the wagon walls as we circled the city, plotting out the course to the subsequent stops; having the weird sensation of being underground for nearly four hours; and discovering the next cavern of treasures, playing Indiana Jones for the afternoon, piecing together fragments of Russia’s mysterious history.  It’s the ultimate interactive museum.

Top Ten Stations (In order of appearance)

Kievskaya station.

Kievskaya Station went public in March of 1937, the rails between it and Park Kultury Station being the first to cross the Moscow River.  Kievskaya is full of mosaics depicting aristocratic scenes of Russian life, with great cameo appearances by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.  Each work has a Cyrillic title/explanation etched in the marble beneath it; however, if your Russian is rusty, you can just appreciate seeing familiar revolutionary dates like 1905 ( the Russian Revolution ) and 1917 ( the October Revolution ).

Mayakovskaya Station

Mayakovskaya Station ranks in my top three most notable Metro stations. Mayakovskaya just feels right, done Art Deco but no sense of gaudiness or pretention.  The arches are adorned with rounded chrome piping and create feeling of being in a jukebox, but the roof’s expansive mosaics of the sky are the real showstopper.  Subjects cleverly range from looking up at a high jumper, workers atop a building, spires of Orthodox cathedrals, to nimble aircraft humming by, a fleet of prop planes spelling out CCCP in the bluest of skies.

Novoslobodskaya Station

Novoslobodskaya is the Metro’s unique stained glass station.  Each column has its own distinctive panels of colorful glass, most of them with a floral theme, some of them capturing the odd sailor, musician, artist, gardener, or stenographer in action.  The glass is framed in Art Deco metalwork, and there is the lovely aspect of discovering panels in the less frequented haunches of the hall (on the trackside, between the incoming staircases).  Novosblod is, I’ve been told, the favorite amongst out-of-town visitors.

Komsomolskaya Station

Komsomolskaya Station is one of palatial grandeur.  It seems both magnificent and obligatory, like the presidential palace of a colonial city.  The yellow ceiling has leafy, white concrete garland and a series of golden military mosaics accenting the tile mosaics of glorified Russian life.  Switching lines here, the hallway has an Alice-in-Wonderland feel, impossibly long with decorative tile walls, culminating in a very old station left in a remarkable state of disrepair, offering a really tangible glimpse behind the palace walls.

Dostoevskaya Station

Dostoevskaya is a tribute to the late, great hero of Russian literature .  The station at first glance seems bare and unimpressive, a stark marble platform without a whiff of reassembled chips of tile.  However, two columns have eerie stone inlay collages of scenes from Dostoevsky’s work, including The Idiot , The Brothers Karamazov , and Crime and Punishment.   Then, standing at the center of the platform, the marble creates a kaleidoscope of reflections.  At the entrance, there is a large, inlay portrait of the author.

Chkalovskaya Station

Chkalovskaya does space Art Deco style (yet again).  Chrome borders all.  Passageways with curvy overhangs create the illusion of walking through the belly of a chic, new-age spacecraft.  There are two (kos)mosaics, one at each end, with planetary subjects.  Transferring here brings you above ground, where some rather elaborate metalwork is on display.  By name similarity only, I’d expected Komsolskaya Station to deliver some kosmonaut décor; instead, it was Chkalovskaya that took us up to the space station.

Elektrozavodskaya Station

Elektrozavodskaya is full of marble reliefs of workers, men and women, laboring through the different stages of industry.  The superhuman figures are round with muscles, Hollywood fit, and seemingly undeterred by each Herculean task they respectively perform.  The station is chocked with brass, from hammer and sickle light fixtures to beautiful, angular framework up the innards of the columns.  The station’s art pieces are less clever or extravagant than others, but identifying the different stages of industry is entertaining.

Baumanskaya Statio

Baumanskaya Station is the only stop that wasn’t suggested by the students.  Pulling in, the network of statues was just too enticing: Out of half-circle depressions in the platform’s columns, the USSR’s proud and powerful labor force again flaunts its success.  Pilots, blacksmiths, politicians, and artists have all congregated, posing amongst more Art Deco framing.  At the far end, a massive Soviet flag dons the face of Lenin and banners for ’05, ’17, and ‘45.  Standing in front of the flag, you can play with the echoing roof.

Ploshchad Revolutsii Station

Novokuznetskaya Station

Novokuznetskaya Station finishes off this tour, more or less, where it started: beautiful mosaics.  This station recalls the skyward-facing pieces from Mayakovskaya (Station #2), only with a little larger pictures in a more cramped, very trafficked area.  Due to a line of street lamps in the center of the platform, it has the atmosphere of a bustling market.  The more inventive sky scenes include a man on a ladder, women picking fruit, and a tank-dozer being craned in.  The station’s also has a handsome black-and-white stone mural.

Here is a map and a brief description of our route:

Start at (1)Kievskaya on the “ring line” (look for the squares at the bottom of the platform signs to help you navigate—the ring line is #5, brown line) and go north to Belorusskaya, make a quick switch to the Dark Green/#2 line, and go south one stop to (2)Mayakovskaya.  Backtrack to the ring line—Brown/#5—and continue north, getting off at (3)Novosblodskaya and (4)Komsolskaya.  At Komsolskaya Station, transfer to the Red/#1 line, go south for two stops to Chistye Prudy, and get on the Light Green/#10 line going north.  Take a look at (5)Dostoevskaya Station on the northern segment of Light Green/#10 line then change directions and head south to (6)Chkalovskaya, which offers a transfer to the Dark Blue/#3 line, going west, away from the city center.  Have a look (7)Elektroskaya Station before backtracking into the center of Moscow, stopping off at (8)Baumskaya, getting off the Dark Blue/#3 line at (9)Ploschad Revolyutsii.  Change to the Dark Green/#2 line and go south one stop to see (10)Novokuznetskaya Station.

Check out our new Moscow Indie Travel Guide , book a flight to Moscow and read 10 Bars with Views Worth Blowing the Budget For

Jonathon Engels, formerly a patron saint of misadventure, has been stumbling his way across cultural borders since 2005 and is currently volunteering in the mountains outside of Antigua, Guatemala.  For more of his work, visit his website and blog .

Photo credits:   SergeyRod , all others courtesy of the author and may not be used without permission

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40 facts about elektrostal.

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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