SALT LAKE CITY — Growing up in San Diego between the Pacific Ocean and the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Jake Esayian has always had an appreciation for the outdoors.
It wasn’t until COVID hit, at the end of his high school days, that his appreciation blossomed into a deep love.
“All my buddies and I … I had a Jeep at the time … we’d take pickup trucks and whatever else, and just go out and kind of explore these desert mountain areas in Southern California, and nobody was out so it was great,” Esayian, a master’s student at the University of Utah, said. “I ended up coming to the U. because, obviously, Salt Lake is an outdoor mecca, and that’s where this whole kind of thing started.”
That “thing” Esayian is referring to is his newly launched app — Always Outdoors — which went public about a month ago. It combines Esayian’s passion for the outdoors with another cause he’s adamant about promoting: social connectedness.
Connecting enthusiasts
Essentially, Always Outdoors is a social networking app built to help outdoor enthusiasts connect and get outside together.
“We started just with one feature, which was a swiping feature, to connect individuals who had common interests. So that looks like, you know, a Tinder or a Bumble BFF,” Esayian said, adding that he toyed with the idea of doing things differently, but people liked the familiarity of swiping.
Esayian described this as the “core feature” of the app.
“If I join up, I’m able to go in and say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for people who are intermediate mountain bikers within 25 miles of me,’ and you can match up,” Esayian said.
Always Outdoors founder Jake Esayian is pictured. Always Outdoors is a social networking app built to help outdoor enthusiasts connect and get outside together while promoting social connectedness. (Photo: Always Outdoors)
While that will likely be the main draw for most users, Esayian said he’s personally more enamored with two of the app’s other features.
The first is what he calls the “event marketplace,” where people can find and browse different outdoor-specific events. The other feature is basically a planning and communication platform for group outings or larger trips.
“So all of the planning and information stays in one place. It makes it quite a bit easier, so you don’t have people, you know, on eight different platforms, especially for a bigger event,” Esayian said.
‘True personal connection’
But beyond the pure enjoyment derived from being in nature, Esayian said it’s also helped him through some of the toughest moments in his life.
“I had a very tough time in middle and a bit of high school with my mental health. Parent separation and, you know, a lot of other stuff going on,” Esayian said.
It was also at this time that his dad started taking him and his brother to the beach, or excursions to the desert to ride dirt bikes.
“That’s really what started to uplift me out of that funk, and I didn’t realize what it was at that point,” Esayian said. “It was a mixture of the outdoors and doing stuff with people I cared about that I really enjoyed.”
Esayian realizes his story isn’t unique, which is part of what drove him to create and launch Always Outdoors.
He specifically mentioned suicide rates as an indicator that people crave more connectedness — both with nature and, more importantly, each other.
“What we lack is that true personal connection,” he said.
In 2023, 696 Utahns died by suicide. The state’s suicide rate has been consistently higher than the national rate for more than a decade. Surveys from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services and the Utah State Board of Education also reveal widespread despair among youth, with 37% of high school students reporting persistent sadness, 22.9% seriously considering suicide and 9% attempting it in 2023.
Esayian said he doesn’t want these facts to become “taboo” to focus on.
“There’s no better way to get to know a group of people or truly express your feelings than when you’re sitting around a campfire in the middle of nowhere,” Esayian said. “My aim is to create something where people can not only find each other and make posts and do all the things that social media’s so great at, but that also drives people off their phone and to create these real connections and to make it as easy as possible.”
Always Outdoors can be found on the App Store and the Google Play Store.
Suicide prevention resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call 988 to connect with the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Crisis hotlines
Huntsman Mental Health Institute Crisis Line: 801-587-3000SafeUT Crisis Line: 833-372-3388 988 Suicide and Crisis LifeLine at 988Trevor Project Hotline for LGBTQ teens: 1-866-488-7386
Online resources
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.