The Upper Middle “Outdoorsy Survey” examined how members of the oat‑milk elite engage with, conceptualize, and fetishize nature. The survey data suggest that Nalgene-carrying weekend trippers clustered in metroplexes are the most likely to valorize “pure” nature, imbuing it with quasi‑spiritual significance. This aligns with historian William Cronon’s idea that American wilderness became a “moral landscape” for industrial and post-industrial workers crowded into opportunity-rich metroplexes. Most respondents described a compromise – trading daily access to nature for occasional access to an increasingly rarified wild.
Because high salaries are often necessary to reach wilderness, and time spent there is viewed as a marker of virtue, outdoorsiness functions as both a practice and a high‑status signal. The privileged few with limited access to wilderness use it to underscore working class‑coded traits: self‑reliance, independence, and ruggedness.[1]
Moral Good
The vast majority (86.69%) of Birkenstockholders want to spend more time in nature, and the vast majority view it as a moral good. Respondents overwhelmingly believed time outdoors helps them gain perspective (93%), stay centered (95%), and learn self-reliance (88%). Only 1.51% said they do not consider themselves “nature people.”[2]
That said, enthusiasm for nature and actual time spent outdoors were only slightly correlated. Income was a stronger predictor, with those in the highest and lowest brackets spending the most time outside. This suggests the people most able to enjoy nature either have abundant time or abundant money (or both). The group squeezed out? People with jobs that could lead to better jobs. Unless they live in Colorado, Washington, or Oregon (17%), careerists’ efforts to get out tend to be thwarted.
Still, many desk jockeys – specifically those in finance, media, law, and consulting—clustered in high-cost coastal states like California (11.3%), New York (10%), Florida (5.1%), and Illinois (5.3%) reported daily outdoor activities like walking or dog walking (88.9%), hiking (53.7%), and birdwatching (28.5%). However, only half of daily walkers reported spending time in nature at least once a week. This indicates that most do not view their leafy local spaces as “pure” nature—at least not in the self-actualizing sense.
Yet urban and suburban Slack checkers don’t just walk their dogs. Nearly two-thirds regularly participate in wilderness activities. Non-rural respondents were more likely to report being in good shape, having grown up spending time outdoors, and having wilderness training.
Luxury Good
Regular access to nature depends on free time and money, but wilderness access depends almost entirely on money. Urban professionals who valorize wilderness access it using the spoils of the corporate systems for which they’re seeking an antidote. This is clearest when it comes to oceans and mountains: skiing, surfing, and boating were far more common among respondents with $1M+ net worth (41.5%) than those with less (24.3%), and most common among those earning $500K+ annually (49.3%).
But participation is not solely about personal wealth. Family wealth and social capital mediate access, especially for water sports. Creative and Media professionals are an outlier: low- to mid-income earners in this group are disproportionately likely to enjoy boating. Respondents with modest incomes ($75,000–$99,999) but $1M+ net worth were twice as likely to kayak or canoe as the overall population (45% vs. 25%). Many teachers with salaries below $150K (23.2%) also reported boating regularly.
The cultural result: mountain and ocean wilderness is prized, while flattish wilderness (e.g., the Ozarks) is culturally devalued—even though almost everyone hikes.
Looking Good
People who see wilderness as a “moral landscape” over-emphasize their time in nature – but not much. Survey respondents who self-identified as “Outdoorsy” spent more time (+.045R) than others outdoors and were twice as likely to self-report being physically fit.
But the “outdoorsy” identity isn’t just about behavior—it’s about image. High-income earners with net worths below $100K were far more likely than average to want to be perceived as outdoorsy (78% vs. 33%). This desire drives aspirational purchases (keeping Arc’teryx in business); they were more likely than others to buy “outdoorsy” clothing (89% vs. 76%) and more likely to wear it when not outdoors (67% vs. 47%).
Conversely, those with modest incomes ($50,000–$74,999) but high net worth ($750,000–$999,999) reported spending more time outside and caring considerably less about sharing that fact. In particular, teachers reported above-average outdoorsiness (72%), but are unlikely (34%) to want to be seen as outdoorsy—perhaps because the virtues associated with time in the wilderness carry less value in their field.
The outdoorsy identity is also rooted in childhood experiences and inherited resources. Though urban respondents reported spending less time in nature than rural respondents, they were not “stealing valor”—they were just as likely as rural peers to have grown up with outdoor experiences. In fact, urban media professionals were more likely than any other group to have wilderness training.[3]
Implications
The survey makes clear that members of REI’s target demo value spending outdoors but sharply delineate man-made (or shaped) and wilderness environments. This leads to what William Cronon called “Wilderness thinking,” a tendency to fetishize purported sublime peaks and “ignore the places where we actually live.” It also leads, rather improbably, to the conflation of wealth and ruggedness.
Financial elites with access to “pure” environments understood to require and exercise working-class heroism use those environments to perform those traits – not just for others, but for themselves. Put differently, wilderness creates a space for the most privileged members of society to embody virtues associated with the least privileged members of society. Some of it is, of course, a put-on, but some of it isn’t. Boats sink. Ski bindings break. Those risks are real – but also coveted by members of the professional class unable to justify the cost or inconvenience associated with chasing waves, wind, and powder.
Taken together, the findings suggest not only layered ironies, but clustered attitudes and behaviors that map to wealth, professional choices, and childhood experiences. Three specific clusters, each constituting roughly a third of respondents, emerge from the data….
The Sunglasses Tan Cluster
Income Range: $200K and up
Time in nature: 2-3x Weekly
Wilderness Access: High
Performed Outdoorsiness: Low
Common (non-hiking/walking) Activities: Boating, Skiing, Surfing, Horseback Riding, Rock Climbing
The Sports Bra Tan Cluster
Income Range: $250K and down
Time in nature: 2-3x Weekly
Wilderness Access: Low
Performed Outdoorsiness: High
Common (non-hiking/walking) Activities: Kayaking, Camping, Foraging, Bicycling, Rock Climbing
The Pale Cluster
Income Range: NA
Time in nature: Quarterly to Annually
Wilderness Access: Low and only to the ocean.
Performed Outdoorsiness: None
Common (non-hiking/walking) Activities: Boating, Hunting (a bit), Cocaine (one assumes)
High-Status Behaviors (for Cynics)
➺ Take wilderness training classes and talk about them constantly.
➺ Get really into open-water swimming.
➺ Buy your dog a serious-looking hiking harness at REI.[4]
➺ Put a Nantucket oversand permit bumper sticker on your Volvo.
➺ Break your leg skiing.
