Outdoor literature

Outdoor literature is a literature genre about or involving the outdoors. Outdoor literature encompasses several different literary genres variously called Exploration literature, Adventure literature and Nature literature. These genres can include activities such as exploration, survival, sailing, mountaineering, whitewater boating, kayaking, etc. or writing about nature and the environment. They all involve being IN the outdoors as a central theme and are usually narrative non-fiction. It differs from Travel literature, although the two genres can mix and there is no defintive boundary.

Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1845-1847) is an early and influential work. Although not entirely an outdoor work (he lived in a cabin nearby civilization) he expressed the ideas of why people go out into the wilderness to camp, backpack and hike: to get away from the rush of modern society and simplify life. This was a new perspective for the time and thus Walden has had a lasting influence on most outdoor authors.

Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879), about his travels in Cévennes (France), is among the first popular books to present hiking and camping as recreational activities, and tells of commissioning one of the first sleeping bags.

The National Outdoor Book Awards was formed in 1997 as a US-based non-profit program which each year honors the best in outdoor writing and publishing.