A European View on Recreation

This is a good report on recreation in Europe.

A citation would be....

Simon Bell and Liisa Tyrväinen and Tuija Sievänen and Ulrike Pröbstl and Murray Simpson,
"Outdoor Recreation and Nature Tourism: A European Perspective",
Living Rev. Landscape Res. 1, (2007), 2. URL (cited on <29 2014="" jan="">): 
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrlr-2007-2

It is important to compare and contrast recreation across the globe.

National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, & Wildlife-Associated Recreation

The Census Bureau keeps a good database of recreation demand data at this link. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/fishing.html

Hint Hint for my Quantitative Methods Students... a good database to "play" with (pun intended).

Recreation Demand

While there a lot of good sites to get recreation demand data and forecasting information, this commercial site is useful.  

http://www.outdoorfoundation.org/research.participation.2013.html

" The Outdoor Recreation Participation Report is the only detailed study of its kind tracking American participation trends in outdoor recreation. The study is based on an online survey capturing responses from over 40,000 Americans ages six and older and covers 114 different activities. "

Downton Abbey

I was entranced with the very first episode and now I can't wait for the next episode.  The next episode for us now is Season 5 and if PBS continues the trend that won't occur until January 2015.

Maybe I need to move to the UK, where the next season will be broadcast in the fall of 2014.  Or continue what we have done by donating to PBS to get the whole season early in the States.

If you don't know about this remarkable TV show, check out this link.

Biking in Westfield

MassBike has published a report on the "Bikeability" of Westfield Massachusetts and can be found at this link.  Several recommendations are made to make the city a better place for bicycles.  Let's hope the recommendations come true!

NASA Interactive map

NASA is great for educational resources and the new interactive map found at this link is just another example of the good stuff.

Zusammenhang

What's this have to do with Recreation Geography?  For a definition see this online dictionary.  You can also read this paper published by the USDA-Forest Service.

Recreation and Geography go together

If the Library of Congress (LOC) group recreation and geography, who am I to question the logic?

See this Wikipedia notation.

A different kind of medical tourism

In this case, both the patient and the doctor travel overseas for a procedure.

In this case, despite the $40,000 bill, it was an issue of timeliness.  See the article.

Weather and travel

So, it has been over two weeks since I last blogged and I am going to mention something about that old.

The first of the year was pretty bad for weather disruptions, especially by air.  Our trip to the Caribbean was delayed a day and while our lodging could meet our needs, all I can say is this:

If you need to connect in Miami (MIA), especially returning from out of the country and needing to clear immigration with checked luggage....

give yourself 5 hours!

Welcome to America!

Smoking banned in parks

Boston Massachusetts has banned smoking it the city parks!  The ban takes effect immediately and applies to tobacco, pot, and lighted or vaporized stuff.  Police and park rangers can impose a $250 fine.

This will help improve health.  See the story at the Boston Globe site.