Nature experience and outdoor recreation planning.
This paper presents and discusses some landscape architecture students' written descriptions of memorable places in their lives. The environmental autobiographies are examined for references to nature experience. The writers, who came from a wide variety of backgrounds, conveyed a profound sense of involvement with nature in their everyday lives. Nature experiences occurred in distant environments and in backyards; in sites planned for recreation and many that were not. The personal documents indicate that the perspective of recreation professionals has been unduly limited. It is concluded that experiences as people describe them in their own words do not always fit with professionals' expectations of what those experiences are. There are consequent implications for outdoor recreation planning.