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America keeps setting outdoor participation records while spending fewer days outside. That contradiction sits at the center of the Outdoor Industry Association's latest Outdoor Participation Trends Report, released in June 2026. A record 183.2 million Americans, 59% of the population age 6 and older, took part in outdoor recreation in 2025, and the participant base has grown by nearly 30 million people since 2019. The average participant, though, heads out less often than before the pandemic.
So what kind of outdoor activity is all this new participation made of?
Outings per participant fell from 87.4 in 2012 to 65.2 in 2024
The frequency data runs the other direction. According to the prior edition of the report, the average participant logged 87.4 outings in 2012. By 2023, that figure had dropped to an all-time low of 62.5 before recovering slightly to 65.2 in 2024. The newest report confirms the trend held into 2025: The base added 2.1 million people, a 1.1% gain, while outing frequency stayed below pre-pandemic levels.
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8.2 million Americans were new to outdoor recreation in 2024
The people behind the growth look different from the base they joined. The prior edition counted 8.2 million first-time participants in 2024, up from 3.8 million a decade earlier, and found that Black participation grew 12.8% (2.3 million more people) while Hispanic participation grew 11.8% (2.8 million more). The 2026 report adds that women reached a record 53.4% participation rate in 2025 and men hit 64.8%. Among Americans 65 and older, participation climbed from 25.7% in 2016 to 41.6% in 2025.
That last number bears directly on the frequency question. The fastest-growing cohorts skew toward low-impact, self-paced activities like wildlife viewing and birding, per OIA. The typical new participant is not training for anything. They go out when it suits them.
Eight in 10 participants recreate at the neighborhood park
Venue data from the prior edition points in the same direction: Eight out of 10 participants visited their local neighborhood park in the past year, making close-to-home green space the most popular setting in outdoor recreation by a wide margin. Activities that work on a weekday evening a mile from the front door are the ones positioned to absorb a casual participant base.
Hobby metal detecting fits that profile almost exactly. It requires one piece of equipment and no reservation. A city park or a beach qualifies as a venue, and an outing can run 40 minutes or four hours. Anyone curious about the entry point can browse current metal detectors, where beginner machines sit alongside the specialist gear, and swing a coil at the local park the same weekend. The hobby asks nothing of a participant's schedule, which is what the data says the modern participant does with their outdoor time: short, unscheduled, close to home.
Casual participants spend about 30% less on gear
The gap between headcount and frequency is now the outdoor industry's defining business problem. OIA's own research found that core participants, the most frequent ones, spend about 30% more on gear and apparel than casual participants, and the trade group has said its next phase of growth depends less on recruiting first-timers than on turning current participants into frequent ones. Low-barrier activities are where that plays out, because they are where a casual participant either builds a habit or drops off. OIA expects to release its next participation report in 2027, which will show whether the 2024 uptick in outings per participant was a rebound or a blip.
