Outdoors & Nature
Most urban professionals idealize, but rarely access wilderness, which is rapidly becoming a luxury good for finance bros and tech bros learning to climb.
By Andrew Burmon
86.69% Want to Spend More Time in Nature
41.5% Millionaires Enjoying Mountains/Oceans
20% Increased Likelihood Millionaires Kayak/Canoe
89% High-Earners Who Want to Seem "Outdoorsy"
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.
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.” 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.
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.
Regular access to nature depends on free time and money, but wilderness access depends almost entirely on money.
