The well known travel cost method (TC)has been widely applied to outdoor recreation. A second approach has been referred to in the past as the Davis method, the questionnaire approach, and contingent valuation. It will here be termed hypothetical valuation (HV), since it involves creating a hypothetical situation designed to elicit willingness to pay for or willingness to accept compensation for a recreational or other extramarket good (or bad). TC and HV are termed "indirect methods", since they do not depend on the direct information about prices and quantities that economists would prefer to use where available to value goods and services.