Of all the weird gen Z behaviours I have read about, this latest trend may be the most surprising: they are rambling. Yup, sturdy boots, waterproofs and Kendal mint cake (it’s vegan!). What next? Alfred Wainwright memes? Plastic map pouches as summer’s hottest gorpcore accessory?
I have some experience of this: my younger son has gone on two serious hiking trips in the past year. “Who are you?” I whispered, baffled, at his retreating, cagoule-clad back, from the comfort of my sofa. I enjoy a modest country walk as much as the next middle-aged person, but wild horses couldn’t have dragged me up a hill in my teens or 20s. (OK, possibly a very strong wild horse could have.)
He goes alone, though, whereas the wider trend is apparently about camaraderie as much as kilometres. Group walks can be a way to combat loneliness; the Lonely Girls Club runs walks for solo women and the walking group Overground’s 24-year-old founder, Jeb Jagne, encourages attenders by saying that even if they arrive on their own, they will make friends, “then return together”. Its Instagram is full of pics of big, happy groups yomping round rural beauty spots.
With an alarming increase in the number of young people experiencing mental health problems and reporting higher levels of loneliness, it’s heartening that they are finding community and solace in beautiful places that traditionally attract the maturer Gore-Tex wearer. Footpaths are free, unlike so much else, and I love the idea of them being full of young people, especially those for whom the countryside has traditionally felt unwelcoming, “an exclusive, mainly white, mainly middle- class club”.
But, hmm, it’s not the only older-person thing they are into, is it? This comes on the back of stories about gen Z rediscovering libraries, starting book clubs and choosing interesting experiences over boozy partying on holiday. They go to bed early and they are getting into birdwatching (the RSPB has a TikTok account so memeified that even I, a bird person, don’t really get it). Time to face facts: they are coming for our hobbies, they are faster and they have way better knees.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
