Month: August 2023

Careful what you wish for in Florida

A developing tropical system in the Caribbean is moving north, among predictions that give it an 80% chance of becoming a tropical storm before it reaches the Gulf Coast—because, you know, Florida. Even though the tentatively named Idalia probably won’t hit before mid-week, by which time there’s some chance it will have strengthened into a hurricane, Governor Ron DeSantis already has declared a state of emergency for 33 of the state’s 67 counties—because, you know, DeSantis.

And right in the middle of the potential impact zone is Citrus County, where the county commissioners this past week gave a thumbs-up to building a coastal RV park and glampground on a site that averages two to three feet above sea level—because, you know.

Florida.

Remember when you first learned about the supposed suicidal behavior of lemmings chasing each other off a cliff, making you wonder how any animal could be so dumb? Uh-huh.

Sunshine RV-Fishcreek Glampground & Boat Ramp is the brainchild of Jennefer and Dimitri Magradze, who less than three years ago bought a 16-acre parcel at the end of a narrow, key-hopping two-lane road that snakes through the bayou about 60 miles north of Tampa. As I’ve previously reported, the site is bounded by the St. Martins Marsh Aquatic Preserve and the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, a rich off-shore area of marshes, mud flats, oyster bars, mangrove islands and seagrass beds, as well as the only wildlife refuge dedicated to the protection of the West Indian manatee—just the place, the Magradzes decided, to put in a campground for 32 RV sites, 16 glamping cabins and 20 “primitive” sites.

But because the parcel is zoned as a coastal and lakes residential district, which doesn’t allow for RV parks, the Magradzes had to get the approval of the county’s planning development commission—which it declined to give. Twice. Nonetheless, unfazed by the commission’s 5-2 and 6-1 denials or by the gathering storm of local opposition its plans were whipping up, the Magradzes persevered, culminating Aug. 22 in a unanimous vote by the county commissioners to reverse the planning commission. The 5-0 vote came after a five-and-a-half hour meeting attended by hundreds of local residents, which judging from census figures, may have accounted for virtually everyone living within a mile of the contested site.

To be fair, it must be acknowledged that the Magradzes have their supporters, a combination of those with a thin hope they’ll provide an economic boost to the area and those who resent any government attempt to control land use. But the local turnout—so great, according to the Citrus Chronicle, that it overflowed the the hearing room and forced many to watch the proceedings on closed circuit TV—attested to widespread concerns about septic tank contamination from flooding during the inevitable storms, as well as the potential for life-threatening bottlenecks on the narrow roads in an evacuation emergency. As quoted in the Chronicle, one of the planning commissioners said he’d had trouble navigating the access roads in an SUV, “let alone an RV,” adding, “The infrastructure is not there to support this project.”

No matter. The county commissioners overrode their own advisory board for largely inarticulate reasons, such as the commissioner who expressed her “confidence” that the Magradzes would address the various issues that had been raised, or the one who confessed that she still had “concerns” about the effect of flooding and septic tanks on the environment—but had decided to side with her colleagues anyway. But as made clear by county commissioner Jeff Kinnard, who made the winning motion, the whole process was simply a buck-passing exercise. The Magradze proposal still must be approved by several state agencies, including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Kinnard observed, before paternally counseling those in attendance to “take time to heal and get to know your neighbors again.”

The wider RV community seemingly greeted this reversal with glee, if a fawning report from Modern Campground can be believed. In an Aug. 25 post bearing the unmistakable imprint of chatbot assistance, the online news service claimed the Florida RV Park and Campground Association had “celebrated” the decision as a “landmark victory.” The association’s support “was instrumental” in securing approval for a glampground that “had faced significant opposition,” according to Modern Campground. “However,” it added, “the meticulous planning by owners Jen and Dimitri Magradze, emphasizing harmony with the natural environment and catering to outdoor enthusiasts, swayed the county commissioners.”

No mention, of course, of why the Magradzes had faced “significant opposition,” nor of the planning development commission’s double-barreled rejection. Nor was there any description of the couple’s “meticulous planning”—which, forgive my cynical heart, may have amounted to no more than lobbying the Florida RV Park and Campground Association—nor how that planning is going to cope with a storm surge that will handily roll right over the little bit of heaven they’re proposing to build.

The next week may demonstrate just what awaits, even before the first glamping cabin makes an appearance or an RV tries to flee the floods.

On a related note: It’s been hard to miss the drumbeat of reports about Florida’s growing insurance crisis, much of it driven by, yes, soaring hurricane coverage premiums. At least six insurers went insolvent in the state last year, despite average annual property insurance premiums that rose at the end of last year by triple the national average. Commercial rates are rising even more sharply and are expected to go up 45%-50% this year—and a doubling of premiums won’t be out of the question, according to a report from Yardi Matrix, a commercial real estate data and research firm.

Premium levels are determined by risk, and with each new risky development—such as the Fishcreek Glampground—the industry’s overall risk factor goes up. That suggests the Florida RV Park and Campground Association should hold off on celebrating developments in Citrus County, which in the long run will mean higher insurance costs for all of its members.

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PMRVs: the tail that wags the RV dog

PMRV, for the uninitiated, means “park model recreational vehicles,” which is a nonsensical word salad. Consider, for example, that the La Plata County, Col. building code defines park model RVs as “a special subset of recreational vehicles that are constructed for the purpose of permanent placement in a park or a residential site.” (Why cite a Colorado county code to make a point? More on that in a moment.) The point here is that “vehicles,” defined as “things that transport goods or people,” ipso facto become non-vehicles as soon as they are in “permanent placement.”

Still, the obvious fiction that park models really are just RVs persists, thanks to vociferous industry lobbying. An interview in the current issue of Woodall’s Campground Magazine with Dick Grymonprez, who’s retiring as the longtime director of park model sales for Skyline Champion, has him triumphantly acknowledging that the RV Industry Association—on whose board he served for a decade—was in the forefront of rebuffing federal efforts to regulate park model designs and construction. “A few years ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development was trying to say that park model RV manufacturers were advertising and selling the units as housing,” he recalled dismissively, without disputing the claim.

Park models were a cash-cow not easily relinquished, so it’s not surprising that the industry pushed back vigorously. But after defeating HUD’s efforts, it also did nothing to dispel the notion that park models are so much more than an RV. “I think a lot of people that buy park models are buying them for a second home or vacation home”—or more, Grymonprez added, with a “what are ya’ gonna do?” shrug of his metaphorical shoulders. “If you think about it, a person’s going to live wherever they want to live. The RV business doesn’t want to admit this, but there are people that live in RVs year-round, full-time. There are people that live in park models year-round.”

In some ways, this is old news; what’s more recent is the blasé attitude by industry leaders toward the possibility of serious challenges to the housing hybrid they’ve created. And why not? At a time when RV shipments across the board are plunging by 40% to 50% over year-earlier numbers, RV park models—as seen in the bar chart above—are the stunning exception. Month after month, park model shipments have strengthened over last year and are up 32.1% for the year through the end of June. And while total park model numbers are a fraction of overall RV shipments, they’re also significantly pricier pound-for-pound than their rolling counterparts and have seen the greatest price appreciation over the past few years.

(They’re also increasingly boxier. While limited to no more than 400 square feet [500 in Florida] by HUD standards, all but a handful of this year’s shipments have been more than 8.5 feet wide—the maximum width permitted for real RVs and tiny homes on wheeled chassis. Of the 2,942 park models shipped the first six months of this year, 2,921 were too wide to be wheeled down a highway without a special permit.)

Just how costly these putative “RVs” can become is suggested by an email I received last week from a reader who wants to build his own winter ski chalet at a resort in Colorado. In 2017 he purchased a 20′ by 102′ lot in a private gated campground for $19,000, with the thought of eventually putting a park model on the site. After grading and leveling, installing retaining walls, upgrading to 100-amp electrical service and installing a heated hydrant 12 feet deep, he figures his property value is now $135,000. But in the interim, park model prices increased so much that “what was 50k for a custom model is now in excess of 100k for a cookie-cutter standard model,” making him wonder whether it’s all worth it.

Spending upwards of $200,000 for 400 square feet on a sliver of land no wider than can fit a standard automobile cross-wise isn’t how I would spend that kind of money, assuming I had it to spend. Then again, I’m not a skier. On the other hand, this kind of housing development, disguised as a resort community, is becoming ever more common, and it makes its inroads by maintaining the fiction that 12- and 14-foot-wide park models are just RVs and therefore should be admitted wherever the rolling variety is allowed.

In La Plata County, as referenced at the top of this post and as I’ve written before, Scott Roberts, an Arizona-based developer, has advanced his plans to build the so-called Durango Village Camp on the banks of the Animas River. When first presented to local residents and planners last December, the proposal foresaw creation of a 306-site RV park that would include an initial 42 or maybe 49 park models, with more to be added in some indefinite future. According to Roberts’s business model, the park models would eventually be sold—perhaps for as much as $450,000, as they currently are at some of his other properties. Still, regardless of how much that may look like a housing development, Roberts argues that Durango Village Camp “most closely resembles an RV park,” and that’s one of the allowed uses on the property as currently zoned.

But that was then, and this is now. Earlier this month, the final Village Camp paperwork was filed with La Plata County—and in the intervening eight months the proposal’s make-up has changed considerably. Instead of the 306 sites Roberts initially proposed, Village Camp would have only 277—but of those, fewer than half would be RV sites. The balance would include 54 undefined “RV cabin sites” as well as 86 park models, or roughly double the initial number. The narrative laying all this out helpfully observes that the park models “are technically RVs, but their fit and finish is similar to an upscale hotel room with beds, a kitchenette, a bathroom and living room.”

Whether this would be an appropriate use for the property in question is best resolved by the people of Durango. But their job would be much simpler if the whole process were more honest and the evidence of our senses was accepted over industry word-play and obfuscation: a park model is no more a recreational vehicle than a mobile home is mobile. They’re both fixed dwellings, separated by an arbitrary dividing line based on square footage. Nor does it help that zoning regulations all over the country—not just in La Plata County—are years behind the times in recognizing changes in the definitions of camping, campgrounds, RV parks and, now, glamping.

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Without sugar, lemonade is still sour

That old adage about turning lemons into lemonade overlooks a key ingredient, without which you’ll still be puckering up. But where’s the sugar in the RV industry’s latest attempt to sweeten an increasingly sour outlook for its members?

Amid a steady decline in RV sales, higher campsite booking costs and increased camping volatility—KOA’s August report finds that extreme weather has prompted two-thirds of campers to change their travel plans—the RV Industry Association is pinning its hopes on the kids. Well, near-kids. The latest monthly report from its Go RVing marketing arm, released a couple of days ago under the headline “Gen Z means business: young entrepreneurship is on the rise,” makes the tenuous case that the RV industry is well positioned to benefit from . . . hustle culture. Otherwise known as burnout culture.

“More and more young people are starting businesses and side hustles with the aim of creating a more fulfilling life,” the report states. “It’s all part of a larger movement among young people to seek more control over their time and income through nontraditional means. . . . As a result, the concept of ‘hustle culture’ is evolving to include more flexible work schedules, working vacations, and personal time,” creating an opportunity for the RV industry to demonstrate “how working from an RV offers flexibility, inspiration, excitement, and relaxation without compromising on productivity.”

If some of that sounds awfully familiar, that’s because it echoes the lofty praise once lobbed at the “gig economy,” a supposed evolution in labor economics that applied “just-in-time” manufacturing principles to the labor force itself. Creating a new class of rootless workers characterized as freelancers and “independent contractors,” the gig economy sold itself as conferring flexibility and independence to people who otherwise would have to labor as “employees” with all the burdens that entails, including steady paychecks, health care and other benefits and the protections of labor laws, such as overtime pay. Yes, there was a segment of the labor force that took the concept and ran with it to enormous personal benefit, notably among tech workers. But for most of the new employment gypsies, “flexibility and independence” meant gnawing uncertainty, less income, longer hours and erratic schedules subject to the whims of the hiring class.

The manufacturing sector learned about the vulnerabilities of just-in-time scheduling when the Covid pandemic struck, but some employers still view workers from the same transactional perspective, albeit with a rebranding change. “Hustle culture” sounds so much better than a gig economy, as witness Go RVing’s unblinking endorsement of the concept. Hustling sounds like energy and ambition, of going places. Never mind that “side hustles” are promoted as a way for people who are insufficiently paid to make enough money to make ends meet.

It’s noteworthy, therefore, that while the Go RVing report cites sources for its observations about the rising incidence of Gen Z side hustles, its conclusions about motives apparently were invented from thin air. If anyone talked to the Gen Zers themselves, they’re keeping it a secret, leaving the field wide open for whatever fairy tales Go Rving wants to concoct. Are Gen Zers hustling “with the aim of creating a more fulfilling life”? Some, for sure—but some undoubtedly because they have no other options. With Gen Zers “more likely to pursue multiple side hustles,” as the Go RVing report observes, is that because they’re seeking “to maximize the value of their time and experiences”—or because, like the Haitians in those old Saturday Night Live skits, they have to work multiple jobs just to keep their heads above water? How much is all this about opportunity—and how much about desperation?

Here’s a clue that tips the balance in an unwelcome direction: total U.S. credit card indebtedness increased by $45 billion in the second quarter, sending aggregate balances over $1 trillion for the first time ever. With that increase also came an increase in the delinquency rate, with 7.2% of credit card payments late by at least 30 days. Any guesses who’s getting hit the hardest? Yup: according to a June study by Quicken Inc., more than half (53%) of millennials and 41% of Gen Z respondents said they were more reliant than ever on credit cards, and Gen Zers had the highest credit card delinquency rates of all.

As reported earlier this week by Yahoo Finance, almost half (49%) of millennials and 55% of those earning under $50,000 a year said they “didn’t see an end in sight” as they live paycheck to paycheck. “Credit card rates are currently in double digits, and not uncommonly 20% or more, which is causing many young people to face a rising debt load,” Quicken’s CEO, Eric Dunn, told Yahoo Finance. “I’m troubled by the compounding problems facing this group.”

Meanwhile, a separate study from TransUnion found that Gen Z credit card balances grew to $55 billion in the second quarter, up from $36 billion a year earlier—an astounding 51.9% increase year-over-year. Half of Gen Z borrowers plan to apply for new credit or to refinance existing credit within the next year, compared to 32% of the general population. At the same time, U.S. News & World Report reported that 46% of student loan borrowers—typically Gen Z and millennials—say they aren’t financially prepared to resume federal loan payments when the pandemic-era forbearance program ends this fall.

If these are the lemons from which Go RVing is hoping to squeeze some industry-reviving lemonade, it better find a whole lot of sugar to add to the mix. What it has now is a bitter, bitter brew.

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Maui fire has burnt away the pretense

As cadaver dogs and forensics teams continue their grisly search of charred Lahaina, state officials investigate why the island’s warning sirens weren’t activated and the Hawai’ian Electric Company girds for lawsuits over its failure to deenergize power lines that may have sparked last week’s fires, any number of “lessons” will be drawn from the tragedy. Most will be somewhat predictable; most will be viewed from afar as being of little broader relevance. How much, after all, can one of the world’s most remote archipelagoes teach the rest of us?

Yet to the extent that Hawai’i is emblematic of other tourist-driven economies on the mainland, the dispiriting answer is: quite a lot.

As the BBC News reported today, the fires have exacerbated an already festering divide between the haves and the have-nots, between the entitled and self-absorbed visitors from elsewhere and the impoverished locals whose economic survival depends on satisfying their guests’ whims. With roughly 80% of the state’s economy fueled by a so-called “visitor industry” that’s served by a largely captive workforce—there’s no hopping into a pick-up here to drive to the next state in search of a better job—Hawai’ian islanders have little choice but to suck it up and repress their frustrations and resentment. So even as Maui officials asked visitors to leave the island, and the Hawai’i Tourism Authority urged outsiders to steer clear for the next few weeks because “our collective resources and attention must be focused on the recovery of residents and communities that were forced to evacuate,” the tourists kept coming.

And the anger kept growing.

In that respect, the fires illuminated much more than a surprisingly flammable landscape: they also highlighted the disparities that exist throughout the U.S. wherever a lot of money has moved in to create affluent playgrounds. Maui’s acute housing crisis, which in its case means cramming multiple families into modest ranch-style homes with curtains or thin plywood walls for partitions, is replicated in other ways in Vail, the Berkshires, Jackson Hole or any other scenic area where housing gets snatched up for vacation homes and short-term rentals. And it’s not just housing costs that get boosted by a tourist-based economy—it’s everything, from groceries to hard goods to entertainment. Hawai’i is an even more extreme case because it’s an island, but the same dynamic is experienced in every community dependent on the “visitor industry.”

What’s the relevance in all this to the RV park and campground industry? Only this: as investor money has poured into the sector, an inordinate number of outsized projects involving hundreds of new RV and glamping sites have been proposed over the past couple of years, from KOA’s two-fer just outside Yosemite National Park, to the Kentucky Bluegrass Experience Resort, to a Roman-themed “resort” next to a brand new Caesars casino in southern Virginia, to name just a few. Virtually all have targeted areas that are down on their heels, holding out the allure of plentiful new jobs, fresh tax revenue and a shot in the arm to local businesses. Virtually all provoke local opposition, in some cases more spirited and better organized than in others, amid predictions of the increased traffic, noise and potential crime that such a tidal wave of visitors may be expected to bring. Some get blocked. Some don’t.

Of those that prevail, few become the economic salvation their supporters anticipated, even as many of the problems their detractors had foreseen come to pass. Yet that’s not the worst of it. While increased traffic, noise and disruption of rural tranquility are nothing to sneeze at, even the most ardent opponents of such megaprojects fail to understand the massive warping effect they have on an area’s social fabric, beside which everything else is mere inconvenience. It’s as though a black hole were to slip into nearby orbit, its gravitational pull distorting every preexisting relationship: of people to people, people to the environment, people to their political and economic institutions.

Hawai’i is an extreme example because of its isolation and the longevity of its subservience to the visitor industry, but the past week has ripped away the veil that screened the island built for visitors from the harsher version left to the Hawai’ians themselves. In the words of a 21-year-old Maui native interviewed by the BBC, “It’s all butterflies and rainbows when it comes to the tourism industry, but what’s really under it is kind of scary.” It is, and that should be an object lesson to the next planning board, zoning commission or county board of supervisors listening to the siren song of a mega-campground developer.

Aug. 17 postscript: An encouraging sign that people can stand up to an exploitative “visitor industry” has come out of Lamoine, Maine, where an Arizona-based corporation was proposing to build a subdivision of so-called “glamping domes.” Despite receiving planning board approval, the project was so out of whack with a fragile coastal environment and local sensibilities that grass-roots opposition quickly flourished, then grew irresistible.

Two nights ago, that groundswell manifested in an overwhelming 397-2 vote to impose a six-month moratorium on any new hotels, motels, resorts or glampgrounds while town planners address issues of overdevelopment “and protect the community’s rural character.” The town meeting turnout was the largest in anyone’s recollection, according to local residents.

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RV cost-analysis devil’s in the details

In recent months, as RV sales fell off a cliff and the industry scrambled for any suggestion that things aren’t quite as bad as they appear, an especially tenuous claim has been advanced that RVing is actually cheaper than other forms of vacation travel. Yes, RVs may be gas guzzlers, and yes, RV parks are charging more than ever for even basic sites. But given that RVs also provide shelter and cooking facilities, they emerge as clear winners when compared with flying and renting a car at a vacation destination, renting a hotel room, eating all meals in a restaurant, yada, yada.

All of which may be true as far as it goes, and even more so the more people you can load into an RV. But it doesn’t go far enough. As I wrote on Memorial Day weekend, in response to a report making such claims from the RV Industry Association, “the  argument that RVing is an economical way to vacation works only if such a vehicle gets deposited in your driveway for free and it never suffers any mechanical issues.”

One immediately obvious problem with the RVIA’s study, conducted by an outfit called CBRE Hotels Advisory, was that the operating costs it cited for various RV classes were seriously out of step with those reported by Go RV Rentals, which issued a contemporaneous study attempting to show the cost advantage of renting an RV vs. owning one. But the big unknown in both reports was the $64,000 question (almost literally) of what it actually costs to own an RV. How much overhead is there to owning an RV that the airline-flying, hotel-booking vacationer doesn’t have to shoulder?

A second potential problem with the RVIA study was how it had calculated RV purchase costs—or, more specifically, what it would cost to finance an RV at a time of high interest rates. As I wrote on the July 4 weekend,  the RV Dealers Association had reported that the average RV sold in May went for $51,896, with most of that amount financed over 16 years at a 9.61% interest rate. Those are huge numbers. What were the chances that CBRE Hotels Advisory was using anything close to being comparable?

As it turns out, none at all.

Now that I’ve seen the entire 125-page analysis, it’s clear that the old saw about the devil being in the details was coined with this study in mind. To start with the second point first, although the study is titled “The 2023 Vacation Cost Comparison,” the financing figures it uses are several years out of date and therefore applicable only to RVs bought before the pandemic. For example, the study assumes that a new travel trailer was financed over 10 years at a 5.49% interest rate, that a new Class B was financed over 12 years at a 4.69% interest rate and that a new Class A motorhome was financed over 20 years at a 4.49% rate. Nice numbers—if you already have them, but not anything you got this year, last year or in 2021.

But financing is only a piece of the overall cost of ownership, to which has to be added the initial cost of the RV and from which—as CBRE notes—can be subtracted the tax-deductible cost of interest, just as with second-home mortgages. For reasons it never explains, however, CBRE completely ignores the costs of maintenance and upkeep, which are not insignificant and arguably much higher for a vehicle than for a second home. Moreover, the study computes a hinky “weighted average” for what it misleadingly calls the “total cost of ownership,” by separately calculating costs for new RVs and for used ones, then combining the two, with 36.2% of the total based on new ownership and 63.8% on used ownership. In other words, your results not only may but definitely will vary, unless you somehow land one of those mythical part new, part used RVs.

Yet here’s the real curve ball CBRE throws into the mix: even before getting to the bottom line, the study assumes that every RV will be sold after seven years—and therefore that the true cost of ownership can be reduced by the anticipated “residual value” of the RV at time of sale. So, for example, a new Class B that was purchased for $93,000 will have an expected residual value in seven years of $55,800, which means its cost to you (before accounting for interest) is just $37,200. Mix in the fantastical financing costs and the weighted-average methodology and assume 25 days of use a year, and before you know it you’ve reduced your per-day cost of Class B ownership to just $197 (or of Class C ownership to $233, to cite another example).

It’s entirely understandable why RVIA would try to buck up the troops with claims of a supposed RV cost advantage, what with RV shipments continuing their relentless slide—down 49.2% through the end of June compared to last year. But it’s a bogus, or at least meaningless, juxtaposition. As the numbers above illustrate, the comparison is between hard and fast numbers on the non-RV side—the price of a plane ticket, hotel room and car rental that you can reserve today—and the assumptions and weighted averages applied to a hypothetical family that owns a hybrid new-used RV that never needs repairs. And while it may make some abstract accounting sense to discount today’s costs by future residual value, that kind of math is meaningful only for businesses, not for a family of four trying to figure out how to budget a trip to the Grand Canyon.

RVIA, alas, has waded into the weeds on this one.

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‘No mercy’ for RVing full-timers

A recruiting pitch a few years ago, at the annual Quartzite RV show, for RVers to become South Dakota residents. Quartzite is in Arizona, which is a long way from South Dakota.

A staff writer and columnist for RVtravel, an online magazine and news service, yesterday demonstrated yet again why gypsies, travelers and other foot-loose wanderers so often are regarded with suspicion and resentment—not because of their supposed freedom, as some prefer to believe, but because they’re seen as parasites.

Writing under the somewhat misleading headline, “Full-time RVers not welcome here: South Dakota’s attempt to prevent RVers from voting and residency sparks outrage and concerns,” Nanci Dixon whined about a summons for jury duty received by her husband, requiring him to be on call for 30 days starting sometime in September. The problem? The Dixons aren’t actually in South Dakota, even though that’s where they get their mail, vote and have their RV registered. They are in fact full-time RVers and currently are working as campground hosts in another state, where they’re expected to remain until October 20. They also have medical appointments and a minor skin cancer treatment scheduled through that date. Jury duty over the next couple of months, as far as the Dixons are concerned, is simply a no-go.

Okay. Jury duty almost invariably is inconvenient—even for those, as Dixon claimed for herself in a subsequently appended comment, who “look at Jury Duty as a responsibility and an honor.” But when Dixon asked Minnehaha County officials to postpone this responsibility and honor, she was aghast at their response. “They showed no mercy,” she wrote. “We were only offered a chance to move it within the year. No, not next year after the spring thaw, but in November or December of this year. December in South Dakota in the winter . . . on icy roads . . . in a motorhome. And over Christmas! More than 1,600 miles from our snowbird retreat! To say I was shocked is an understatement.”

Wow. Inconvenience piled on inconvenience, by a court system that clearly doesn’t understand the Dixons aren’t, you know—South Dakotans. That the Dixons are horrified, for instance, by the idea of driving on their adopted state’s roads in winter, when apparently all of South Dakota should simply shut down. That the Dixons have pressing responsibilities, but apparently not in the state they claim as their own, with jobs in one place and a winter retreat in another and doctor appointments who knows where—except not, it seems, in South Dakota, so South Dakota’s people should just call the Dixons’ people and work out something that will fit the latter’s busy non-South Dakota schedule.

Again: wow.

The irony is that this precious behavior is as much South Dakota’s doing as it is the Dixons’. RVers who have sold their bricks-and-sticks homes and live year-round in their RVs still need a legal address, so they can get mail and claim residency to open bank accounts, register to vote, apply for a driver’s license or perform any number of the other dull bureaucratic duties that come with living in a society. And South Dakota has been only too willing (as are Texas and Florida, to a slightly lesser extent) to court such low-maintenance customers, advertising itself as a low-tax, low-consequence haven for the foot-loose and fancy-free. No state income tax! No personal property tax! No pension or (state) social security tax! No vehicle inspections, low vehicle license fees and low, low car insurance rates!

Best of all, the whole “become a Mount Rushmore State resident” process is as slick as those icy roads Nanci Dixon doesn’t want to navigate in December. Spend a couple of hundred bucks for a mail box at one of a handful of mail forwarding services. Spend a night in the state to nail down your status as an “official resident.” (Indeed, one of those mail forwarding services, South Dakota Residency Center, operates out of the Spearfish Black Hills KOA campground—how convenient is that?) And just like that you’ll have everything you need to get a South Dakota driver’s license, good for five years before it has to be renewed, and the keys to the kingdom will be yours.

Almost.

One fly in this officially sanctioned ointment of fictional residency is that being domiciled entails having voting rights—and with a growing number of transient “South Dakotans” having no more connection to the state than a one-night stand, it’s fair to ask why they should have a voice in how the state or its counties should be run. As Dixon herself wrote, albeit to explain why nothing should be expected from her, “As most South Dakota full-time RVers, we rarely travel there. We do not use the roads, the schools, parks or a myriad of other things.” And yet as a South Dakota full-time RVer, Dixon can vote on tax issues, for South Dakota’s Congressional representation and for everything in between, including city council and school board positions. If the people who actually live in South Dakota decided, for example, that they should institute a personal property tax to help fund their public schools, any serious doubt about how the Rvers would vote?

Nor is this a trivial population. Americas Mailbox, one of the state’s biggest mail forwarding services, is located in the town of Box Elder and has more than 9,000 registered voters among the 15,500 people using its address. In the 2020 general election, according to reporting by local television station KELO, 5,856 of those “one-day residents” cast ballots—or more than half of the 10,119 people that actually live in Box Elder. Only 39 of those Americas Mailbox “residents” voted in person; the rest voted by mail.

Or consider a report by the Dakota Free Press that the “three residency mills” of Americas Mailbox, South Dakota Residency Center and Dakota Post have a combined total of 27,000 members. “If those ersatz residents all vote, they constitute 4.6% of the currently registered South Dakota electorate,” it summarized, observing that in 2018, Kristi Noem won her gubernatorial race by a margin of only 11,458 votes.

Such outsized influence by outsiders has raised some hackles in the state, which recently amended its voting registration laws to require that voters have “an actual fixed permanent dwelling, establishment, or any other abode” in South Dakota to which they return “after a period of absence.” The amendments also impose a new, 30-day period of actual residency before would-be voters can register, although it’s unclear whether the changes will apply to existing registered voters. The one-day requirement to establish residency, meanwhile, remains the same.

Yet as Nanci Dixon’s piece underscores, at least some full-timing RVers clearly want it both ways—something a preponderance of more than a hundred commenting readers pointed out—by having a minimum of responsibilities and costs while obtaining as many privileges and rights as any other member of society. By getting a free ride, or at least as close to one as possible. By paying low taxes, or none at all, while benefitting from roads, police and fire services and all the other trappings of civil society, not just in South Dakota but in all the other states in which they don’t pay the freight. By voting without living with the consequences.

By fussing over jury duty, for which there apparently is no convenient schedule.

For full-time RVers, all this is part of the freedom of the road they’ve chosen over the heavy chain of social obligation that weighs down everyone else. For many members of that “everyone else,” however, that marks the full-timers as freeloaders, the grasshoppers having their day in the sun while the ants toil away against the coming winter. Nice work if you can get it—but is it reasonable to pout when the ants require a little contribution to the public weal? Shouldn’t the inconvenience be met with grace, out of recognition of the blessings that have been bestowed?

Col. illustrates diverging RV worlds

Just how muddied the RVing waters have become can be seen later this month in Colorado, where two unrelated events will illustrate the growing complexity of what was once a recreational niche. The first is The Great American RV Show, set to run Aug. 17-19 in Colorado Springs; the second is the opening of the Love’s Travel Plaza & RV Park in Canyon City, tentatively scheduled for Aug. 24.

The Great American RV Show traditionally features scores of travel trailers, fifth wheels and motorhomes, not to mention factory representatives, manufacturers and dealers, all offering Incredible Deals as they try to move last year’s models out of inventory. This year’s version, however, for the first time will include—tiny homes. As in, not RVs but small cabins on trailers. As in, little houses that don’t necessarily conform to RV standards but are too small to be covered by national standards for manufactured homes. Which could be a problem, for any number of reasons.

Why an RV show would diversify its portfolio this way isn’t exactly clear—if tiny homes, why not houseboats, for example—although it’s noteworthy that the factory and showroom for the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, one of the industry’s leading manufacturers, also happens to be located in Colorado Springs. But a spokesman for AMP Expos, the organization behind the RV show, explained the change by recasting the show as “an exceptional event focused on sustainable living.” Or as he further elaborated, “We believe that by showcasing the possibilities and benefits of alternative housing options, we can inspire individuals to adopt more sustainable lifestyles and contribute to a more attainable future.”

RVing, in other words, should no longer be viewed as merely a recreational pursuit. It is instead just one segment of a much broader spectrum of “alternative housing options” devoted to “more sustainable lifestyles.”

It’s debatable whether tiny homes, cute as they are, can support “sustainable” lifestyles in any meaningful sense. As I’ve written before, they’re neither RV fish nor housing fowl—too heavy and cumbersome to be readily mobile, yet too small and limited to provide adequate housing for most people for any extended period of time—and never mind their exorbitant cost. But there’s no question that they fit right into the trend of RVs becoming housing of last resort, no matter how unsuitable they are for that purpose, as the continued high cost and inadequate supply of conventional housing leave growing numbers of Americans scrambling for any kind of shelter at all. It can be argued, therefore, that the Great American RV Show is just adapting to a changing reality—although in that case a name change also is in order. Maybe to The Lesser Attainable Future Show.

Meanwhile, the other end of the RV spectrum is being embraced by Love’s, a nationwide chain of more than 660 truck stops and convenience stores in 42 states, with more popping up all the time. Recognizing that the pandemic-driven demand for RV sites was rapidly exceeding supply, Love’s started adding small RV parks to its existing locations a few years ago, most with 15 to 30 spots and only basic amenities, and now has nearly 40 such mini-parks around the country. Apparently they’ve done well enough that Love’s is doubling down: the Canyon City park will have more than 100 full hook-up sites and the standard restroom and laundry facilities, but also a dog park, pickleball and basketball courts and several gazebos.

Best of all, nightly rates at all the Love’s parks range from $37 to $48, or roughly half the going rate at most commercial campgrounds.

One of the more interesting things about the Love’s move is how it’s being viewed by management. While AMP Expos is reframing RVs as part of a broader housing spectrum, thereby diluting the RV concept, Love’s is moving in the opposite direction. “It is not an ‘RV park,’ it is intended for campers,” the Canyon City travel plaza’s general manager, Dave Paulson, told a reporter from the Cañon City Daily Record. “We are really dedicated to providing a great place for people to come and camp for a couple of weeks or a month and enjoy all the great things Colorado has to offer.”

The undefined distinction Paulson draws between campers and those who stay at ‘RV parks’ presumably comes down to length of stay: nobody is going to “live” at a Love’s, where 28 days is the max, although relatively few RVers stay in one place that long. But as more people seeking “alternative housing options” crowd into conventional RV parks, gradually transforming them into trailer courts and tiny home/park model subdivisions, the Love’s alternative will provide a much-needed relief valve for everyone else—and underscore the importance of a business staying focused on core competencies.

One final thought: as Love’s continues its expansion, it may within a few years become second only to KOA as the country’s largest RV park chain. Interestingly, Love’s then will have occupied the niche KOA tried to secure with its controversial brand segmentation, the lowest-tier KOA Travel campgrounds shouldered aside by dozens of newer, lower-priced competitors from a company that sells gas, doughnuts and coffee.

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