A plug about my books

 Need help sleeping?  Try one of these.

Bristow, R. (2025).  The Real Appalachian Trail BC.  Appalachian Trail Museum.

Jenkins, I & Bristow, R. (2024). Sensory Tourism: Senses and SenseScapes Encompassing Tourism Destinations. CABI. 

Bristow, R. S. & Jenkins, I. (eds.) (2022). Spatial and Temporal Tourism Considerations in Liminal Landscapes. Routledge.

and if something shorter, try these recent papers:

Gross, A., & Bristow , R. (2022). Rail trails and housing values: A longitudinal study. Turyzm/Tourism, 32(2), 107–126. https://doi.org/10.18778/0867-5856.32.2.06

Bristow, R. S., & Taylor, J. (2022).  Recreating the history of cultural heritage sites with 3Dimensional Modeling. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites. 22(3-6):199-214. doi:10.1080/13505033.2021.1980265

Bristow, R. S., Therien, A., & LeDoux, T. (2021). Applying LiDAR for Parks and Protected Area Management.  Journal of Parks and Recreation Administration. 39(2):98-107. doi: 10.18666/JPRA-2020-10481

Bristow, R. S. & Jenkins, I. (2020). Spatial and Temporal Tourism Considerations in Liminal Landscapes. Tourism Geographies. 22(2): 219-228. doi: 10.1080/14616688.2020.1725618

Bristow, R. S. (2020). Communitas in Fright Tourism. Tourism Geographies. 22(2): 319-337. doi: 10.1080/14616688.2019.1708445.

Bristow, R. S., & Therien, A. (2019). Discovering archaeological landscapes in parks and protected areas. North American Archaeologist.  Volume 40 Issue 2, pp. 99–115   doi: 10.1177/0197693119868912

Bristow, R. & Jenkins, I. (2020). Geography of Fear:  Fright Tourism Contributing to Urban Revitalization. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events. 12(2): 262-275. doi: 10.1080/19407963.2019.1631319 

Use the World Catalog to find a copy in a library near you.

Model Rockets

I am returning to my teen age years with model rocketry. There is something about model rockets, the "safe" version of fireworks, that kids and adults like.  Me, building a rocket from a kit and then shooting it up into the sky and hoping the rocket doesn't land in the top of some tree, boy that is fun.

Well, truth be told, I have lost several rockets in trees, and recovered two of them. One two stage rocket got carried away in the wind to never be seen again.  I got four rockets needing the repair of fins, tubing, and other damage from crashes.

Recreation Geography Defined

Over the years, I have attempted to define recreation geography.  Sometimes it is recreation and sometimes it is geography, but hopefully it is mostly "recreation geography.

I started this blog several years ago to share my rambling thoughts about recgeog, and while I (frequently) share my thoughts on other subjects, I do try to keep it focused on the theme of the blog.

Consider doing a search on the definition to see the different ways it has been considered.

Recreation Geography Defined

I opened this Blog a few years ago with that statement.  See (or search) for multiple definitions on the Blog.

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.

Super Moon Tonight

Caught this news feed from the Ottawa Citizen about tonight's great show.  The Moon will be close and as a result, look bigger.

For us in New England, the weather looks promising. And the moon should rise for us about 7:45 PM.

So after dinner, before you start studying Recreation Geography, check out the moon.

so Why Recreation Geography

Why is the topic important. Who Cares?

So recreation geography studies the human participating in some activity at some resource. It could be a woman hiking the Appalachian Trail, or an elderly couple visiting the Musée de l'alimentation on Lake Geneva.

Journals for Tourism

While not all geography journals, this list is pretty comprehensive:
http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/journals.html

When I did a survey on folks teaching recreation or tourism geography with Barbara Carmichael a decade ago, we found a significant loss of recreation geography courses. You need to remember that geographers were the leader in recreation research back in the 1960's and the shift to more tourism geography related teaching started in Nineties.

We also saw the birth of Tourism Geographies:
http://www.geog.nau.edu/tg/contents/index.html

Will geographers continue to lead in tourism?

Recreation Geography

So, what is this thing called Recreation Geography. Take the two words and define each. Then merge the two definitions to come up with one possibility. How is this like the definition that we have used in our class?

Use the photo to explain the term.

Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium

Off to the Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium this weekend! Yes, it is my annual springtime conference on Lake George at the Sagamore. A great venue for the conference and a place I'd never be able to afford in the summer. The organizers are expecting close to 200 participants this year and as always, the USDA-Forest Service will publish the Proceedings.

The research at this conference serves as much of the readings I use in Recreation Geography. In fact, when I first taught rec geog online back in 1997, most of the course used readings from the conference. Since I am doing the online version in the fall 2010 semester, it is likely this government document will still remain an important part of the course.

My picture is available on Google Earth.