Adventure racing enables access to cultural ecosystem services at multiple scales

Abstract Protected areas are increasingly being viewed and acknowledged within broader social-ecological landscapes as providing a range of ecosystem services, which offer an important connection between nature and society. We explore non-mechanised adventure racing as a form of nature-based tourism, how this activity enables access to a suite of cultural ecosystem services, and its facilitation by a network of relatively open-access protected landscapes. An international adventure race, set within the Garden Route, South Africa, was used as a case study. The physical setting (appreciating nature’s beauty and experiencing the environment in a different way) played the most important role as a motivating factor for participation within adventure racing. Mountainous scenery, rugged coastlines and encounters with iconic species along with the challenge, physical exertion and social bonding also contributed strongly towards the overall experience. Social media and live tracking provided an opportunity for broad exposure and a virtual experience of cultural ecosystem services at a range of spatial scales. In this manuscript we contribute to profiling adventure tourism within a cultural ecosystem service framework, and highlight some implications for protected area management.