3 REASONS TO #OPTOUTSIDE WITH US ON BLACK FRIDAY

#1: John Muir said it best: “Going to the mountains is going home.” We could elaborate on this, offer a study or some statistics to prove what we already inherently know. Time spent outdoors is good for us, in both mind and body. So we won’t bore you with data, we’ll just dare you to test it out yourself. We’re a big fan of the double-dog-dare; some of our best stories begin with one. We double dog dare you to go out and create your own badass adventure. Preferably not one that ends with an altercation revolving around the last $100 flat screen TV.

#2: You could be personally responsible for more people having the day off. You know that has to be some good karma. Imagine if we all #OptOutside this could be a start of another holiday… Anti-consumerism Day. Yep, we’re officially naming it. Businesses throughout the world may join in with us and actually pay people to have the day off. Imagine the possibilities.

#3: Opting Outside for Black Friday means you can support something even more important – Small Business Saturday. Instead of giving your hard earned money to the big box retailers of the world, wouldn’t you feel better knowing your money stayed local and supported a family-owned business? We know it makes us feel all warm and gooey inside. Don’t you like feeling warm and gooey?

We could continue on with even more reasons. In fact, we came up with 134 in less than 10 minutes. But most of those reasons involved what we’d be doing on Anti-Consumerism Day, like kayaking, climbing and such so we won’t give you those reasons. It’s not really fair. We have an advantage seeing as we #OptOutside almost every day.

We hope you’ll take the pledge to #OptOutside with ACE and REI this Thanksgiving weekend. It isn’t everyday a major retailer decides to close its doors on one of the biggest shopping days of the year – Black Friday – in order to support families and a love of the outdoors. We happen to think it’s pretty perfect. Bravo REI, bravo.