Abstract
The growing popularity of adventure recreation highlights the need to understand its participants and the individual characteristics of these activities in order to target health and well-being outcomes through adventure leisure pursuits. While exploratory qualitative studies have questioned the centrality of risk and thrill in adventure recreation, these studies often involved small sample sizes and amalgamated diverse adventure activities. The current study investigated adventure recreation motives via semi-structured interviews with a large sample (n = 84) of expert participants across six distinct air, land and water-based adventure activities (e.g., wingsuit BASE jumping, freeriding, downhill mountain biking, big-wave surfing). Seven themes (underpinned by 12 subthemes) emerged during thematic data analysis as key adventure recreation motives: holistic living, emotional diversity, competence, social connectedness, nature experience, agency, and optimal mental states. Although all themes were present across each adventure activity, data illustrated differences in the relative importance of motives across activities. Findings suggested that (1) adventure recreation and associated motives are more heterogeneous than currently conceptualized, and (2) adventure recreation motives should be more broadly conceptualized beyond hedonic motives (e.g., risk and thrill-seeking) to encompass more diverse eudaimonic motives.