LNT is not the only org lately to promote not tagging specific locations, and I'm really glad it's happening, and really pleased to see American Adventurist adopting it, as well.
There have been numerous articles discussing the large increase in visitors to most outdoor places, and at least one study to show that visitors to well-tagged locations in the PNW has increased at a rate
seven times faster than the population. Here's that article, from May of this year in the
Seattle Times.
Here's another one, written three years ago, from
Washington Trails Association.
I can no longer abide sites, and people, who promote that the increase to far-flung locations is due to population increase alone. That's a sloughing off of responsibility and is taking the easy way out; a shrug of the shoulders as if to say "Oh well, it is what it is. Here are the cool spots!"
WE, current visitors and content creators and writers and photographers, are responsible for the increase as much as anything else and social media makes spreading the word and name of locations that much more ubiquitous.
I've been tagging images with generic locations, not specific. When folks ask, whether online or in-person, I tell them a general area. If they inquire further, I suggest that finding their own favorite spots instead of being hand-fed locations, will result in the location and their experience, both in getting there and being there, becoming much more meaningful and memorable.
Really gets under my skin when someone responds to a post and asks "coordinates?" without even so much as a hello, who they are, what their experience is, or any sort of introduction. Even if they explain it all, I'm going to reply as I wrote above. They will learn more, and appreciate the experience and location more, when finding things on their own.
I always have. Hell, that's half the excitement of being out there, for me, is the making my way back in somewhere and the discovery of it all.