Adapting for Solitude: Stress-Coping, Substitution Behaviors, and Intentions to Return in Wilderness Recreation

Increasing visitation to Wilderness Areas is intensifying pressure on ecological conditions and visitor experience quality, highlighting gaps in current monitoring systems that rely heavily on biophysical indicators while overlooking visitor-based psychological and experiential dimensions. This mixed-methods study addresses these gaps by operationalizing Wilderness Character Qualities as measurable visitor motivations and examining how these motivations relate to substitution-based coping behaviors and intentions to return across the six Wilderness Areas of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, USA. Guided by stress-coping theory, the research assessed how the perceived importance of core wilderness motivations (e.g., solitude, pristineness, unconfined recreation) shaped behavioral adaptation and long-term visitor loyalty. On-site intercept surveys (n=1,086) provided quantitative and qualitative data analyzed using descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling, and thematic coding. Findings extend stress-coping theory by demonstrating that coping functions as an adaptive, experience-maintaining process rather than solely a reaction to participation impacts. Visitors who placed high importance on solitude and pristineness were more likely to adjust timing or location through temporal and resource substitutions to maintain desired conditions. These adaptive behaviors, in turn, positively influenced return intentions, highlighting substitution as a key mediating process linking motivations to loyalty. Results provide a validated approach for assessing wilderness character from the visitor perspective and a theory-driven framework for integrating motivations, coping, and loyalty into wilderness management. Strategies that promote voluntary temporal or spatial dispersion, improve infrastructure, and offer targeted educational messaging can help sustain core wilderness character quality while supporting long-term visitor retention.