“Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.”
Alice Walker, Author
Advantages & Disadvantages of Picnics
Picnics can be a quite nice leisure activity, especially on sunny weekends.
Many people enjoy a good picnic in the middle of nature.
Yet, apart from the many upsides of having a picnic, picnicking also implies some problems.
In this article, the pros and cons of picnics are discussed in detail.
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Advantages of Picnics
- Nice opportunity to relax
- You can spend your time in a natural environment
- Picnics can give you the opportunity for a short vacation
- Good for dates
- You can educate your kids about our nature
- Picnics can help against mental problems
- You can also forage your food for picnics
- Some people make a hobby out of picnicking
- Picnics can be fun
- You get to know your family and your friends
- Nice family activity
- Picnics give you the opportunity to bring your own favorite food
Nice opportunity to relax
One key advantage of picnics is that you will get the opportunity to relax from your stressful daily life.
Many people in our nowadays society are simply overwhelmed with all the things they have to do on a daily basis.
For instance, many people work in quite demanding jobs and have to take care of their family at the same time.
Moreover, they also have to make sure to have enough time for their friends.
All those things can cause significant stress, which can also turn into serious health issues in the long run.
If you are one of those stressed people, definitely try to make a picnic from time to time in order to relax and to unplug from your daily life.
If you want to relax even more, make sure to turn off all your electronic devices during your picnic so that your brain can also subconsciously take a break.
You can spend your time in a natural environment
Another upside of picnics is that you are geographically independent and can make your picnic almost everywhere you want.
For example, in case the sun is shining and you need a break from your daily life, why not make a nice trip to your local forest or in the mountains and have a nice picnic in the middle of nature?
This will be quite relaxing and will also give you the opportunity to breathe plenty of fresh air, which will be a real blessing, especially if you live in a big city and breathe contaminated air all day long.
Picnics can give you the opportunity for a short vacation
Through picnicking, you can also trick your mind and provide yourself with the opportunity of a short vacation.
For instance, at weekends, you will not be able to drive long distances to a location spot since it will simply not be worth it to drive long hours for just two days.
Instead, consider making a nice picnic at a beautiful spot close to your home.
By doing so, you can have kind of a short vacation even without having to drive long distances.
This will not only be beneficial for your pocket, it will also benefit our environment since you can save plenty of greenhouse gas emissions.
Good for dates
Picnics can also be great if you have a date and want to make something really romantic.
Many women love picnics, yet not too many already had a picnic date.
Hence, if you want to make something special for your next date, try out a picnic!
Many women will really appreciate that and chances are that your date success rate will improve significantly over time.
You can educate your kids about our nature
Another benefit of having a picnic is that you can also educate your kids about the importance of protecting our natural environment.
Many people in our nowadays society have completely lost their connection to nature and therefore don’t care about our environment too much anymore.
However, this is quite bad since we have to solve our environmental problem in the near future and in order to be able to do that, we have to raise the awareness of as many people as possible.
Thus, in order to raise the awareness of your kids, make a picnic in a natural environment and show them the real beauty of our nature.
If you do so, your kids will become more willing to protect our environment and will also be more likely to behave environmentally-friendly once they turn into grownups.
Picnics can help against mental problems
The excessive stress levels that many people face in their daily lives also often leads to serious mental issues in the long run.
Hence, in order to release stress and to avoid those mental problems, make sure to make a picnic from time to time.
You can also forage your food for picnics
In case you want to make your picnic even more natural, you can even forage your food instead of bringing your own food.
Quite often, you can collect plenty of berries which you can enjoy for your picnic.
However, make sure that you really know what you are doing since there are also some toxic berries out there.
Some people make a hobby out of picnicking
Some people really enjoy picnicking so much that they actually make a real hobby out of it.
In fact, making a picnic will not get boring over time since you can always choose new locations and new foods you want to take with you.
You may also want to play some games and make some challenges around picnicking.
Hence, if you really like it, making picnics may even become one of your favorite hobbies.
Picnics can be fun
In general, picnics can also be a lot of fun.
Especially if you spend your time with your favorite people, time will fly and you will have the opportunity to talk with them about many things that are important to you right now.
Therefore, picnics can also be a great way to socialize and also to get to know new people over time.
You get to know your family and your friends
With some family members or friends, you may also have a rather shallow relationship since you don’t see each other too often.
In such a case, picnics can be a great way to improve your relationships with those people since it gives you the opportunity to talk to those people in a relaxing environment.
Nice family activity
Picnics are also great if you have kids.
Especially for smaller kids, picnics can be a great way to improve the connection to your kid and to educate him or her about nature.
Hence, if you want to spend a great day with your kids and your spouse, picnicking can be a nice activity for you.
Picnics give you the opportunity to bring your own favorite food
If you go to a restaurant, you will often have a rather limited choice of foods and your favorite dish may not be on the menu.
However, for picnics, you can bring your own food and can decide what you want to eat that day.
Therefore, you can pick the food which you like most and do not have to rely on restaurants at all.
Moreover, you can also choose to bring high-quality organic food instead of eating in restaurants that often use low-quality food and meat from factory farming.
Disadvantages of Picnics
- Picnics can attract wild animals
- You may disturb the local wildlife
- You have to carry your food over long distances
- Opportunities to have warm foods are quite limited
- You have to prepare your food way in advance
- You may need a picnic backpack
- Littering
- Excessive waste production
- Soil pollution
- Noise pollution
Picnics can attract wild animals
Even though picnicking has many benefits, there are also some issues with picnics.
For instance, picnics can attract wild animals.
Especially if take food with you that produces a significant smell, chances are that you will attract the local wildlife sooner or later.
While this might be rather harmless in some regions, it might be a serious problem in other areas where wild animals like mountain lions or bears are quite common.
You may disturb the local wildlife
Through picnics, you may also disturb the local wildlife.
Especially if you make a picnic in the middle of a nature reserve where no other people go to, chances are that you will disturb deer or other animals.
In turn, since those animals are not yet used to people, they may act in unexpected ways or they might even leave this area since they consider it to be no longer safe for them.
You have to carry your food over long distances
Another downside of picnics is that you have to carry your food over quite long distances.
Especially if you want to make picnics in remote areas, chances are that you will have to walk a few hours and if you have to carry food for your whole family, it can become quite exhausting over time to carry all this food over a longer period of time.
Opportunities to have warm foods are quite limited
When you go for a picnic, you will also have to rely on cold rather than on warm food.
Most often, bringing warm food will not make too much sense since it will get cold anyways until you finally want to eat it.
Hence, if you urgently want to have warm food that day, picnicking will not be the way to go for you.
You have to prepare your food way in advance
Another disadvantage of picnics is that you also have to prepare your own food in advance.
While this will not be a big problem for one person, it can be quite time-consuming for a big family and you also have to store all this food somewhere in order to bring it with you.
You may need a picnic backpack
If you really want to make a professional picnic, you may also want to get a picnic backpack.
This backpack will allow you to carry all the food in an easier and more organized manner.
Hence, if you really want to bring your picnic to the next level, picnic backpacks may be the right way to go for you.
However, those picnic backpacks are not always cheap and you should make sure to have some money left to by one of those.
Littering
Another issue with picnics is that it often results in significant littering.
If you walk through our forests, you will often realize that many people just dispose of their trash into nature while not caring about any consequences for your environment at all.
Therefore, if you go picnicking, make sure to leave no trace and to take all the trash you produce back to your home in order to avoid any sorts of pollution.
Excessive waste production
Picnicking can also lead to the production of significant amounts of waste.
This is especially true if you use disposable cups or cutlery.
Thus, if you go picnicking, make sure that you bring reusable cutlery and cups in order to avoid excessive unnecessary waste production.
Soil pollution
Since plenty of waste from picnics is disposed into nature, this can also lead to serious soil pollution over time.
The waste will decompose sooner or later and when this happens, harmful components will enter the soil and eventually our groundwater.
Noise pollution
Picnics can also lead to plenty of noise pollution.
Especially if teenagers make picnics, the use of alcohol or other substances and are often quite loud.
This can be harmful to our environment since it can disturb wild animals.
Top 10 Picnic Pros & Cons – Summary List
| Picnic Pros | Picnic Cons |
|---|---|
| Picnics can be quite relaxing | Picnics can attract wild animals |
| You can spend your time in nature | You have to carry food for a long time |
| You can spend quality time with your family | You may disturb local wildlife |
| Picnics can feel like short vacations | Only suitable for cold food |
| Can help you with dates | You have to prepare your food at home |
| You can educate your children | You may have to get a picnic backpack |
| Food foraging | Littering is a problem |
| Picnics are fun | Unnecessary waste production |
| You can bring your own favorite food | Noise pollution |
| Can help to overcome mental issues | Soil pollution |
Should You Make A Picnic?
As we can see from the discussion above, there are many advantages and disadvantages to picnics.
While picnicking can be a great experience for your whole family, it can also have negative effects on our nature.
Thus, when you go for a picnic, make sure that you respect nature and leave no trace in order to protect our environment as best as possible.
Sources
https://www.countryliving.com/life/a35410/picnic-tips/
https://www.thespruceeats.com/top-tips-for-a-successful-picnic-435516
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/picnic-hacks
About the author
My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.
As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.
After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.
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