RVer dilemma: death by fire or by cold
Dec. 28: Now that we’re well into meteorological winter, one sure-fire prediction is that we’re going to see a rising crescendo of reported RV fires. But while towns like Waldoboro, ME adopt new ordinances to force people “to find safe places to reside,” what happens when such places don’t exist? Or as one town leader put it, “They could die from the cold or they could die from the fire, but they’re still dead.”
Overpriced parks drag everyone down
Dec. 17: As the RV park and campground bubble heads toward a fourth year of unsustainable price increases, honest brokers are getting pushed aside, campgrounds that clutter the listings acquire a stigma, and those that do sell must immediately jack up rates and lay off staff to stay afloat. But it doesn’t end there, as private and public campgrounds chasing after “market rates” likewise become over-priced, to the public’s detriment and the eclipsing of a once affordable form of recreation.
ARVC rebrand sees its first defection
Dec. 9: Last month ARVC “rebranded” itself—its choice of words, telling you right there how much of a market research-driven organization it has become—by dropping the ARVC name and calling itself the Outdoor Hospitality Industry. This month one of its largest state affiliates said “Nah, that doesn’t work for us,” and pulled anchor. In doing so, Pennsylvania joined the country’s four largest campground associations as non-OHI members, further diminishing that organization’s clout.
When glamping isn’t bougie enough
Dec. 3: To get permit approval, this Massachusetts developer stresses that he’s simply renovating a run-down campground. But the marketing message going out to a top-dollar clientele will be hyping a “landscape hotel,” complete with yoga classes, catered events, evening cocktails and more. P.S. Don’t plan on “camping” at this “campground,” where all 125 RV sites are being supplanted by 40 upscale park models.
As ’23 winds down, so does the party
Nov. 21: Easing into various seasonal celebrations, and from there into year’s end, various RV industry representatives have been spewing predictions for 2024 that are short on context and long on wishful thinking and data cherry-picking. Call it the holiday effect, an irresistible compulsion to make things merry—but while the party was fun, they’re taking away the punchbowl and tomorrow you’ll wish they’d done so sooner.
Tossing a pebble into the OHI pond
Nov. 18: Lost amid all the usual self-promoting panels and workshops at the OHI national convention earlier this month was a thoughtful question posed by Campspot’s CEO: Why are campgrounds increasingly considering hotel best practices? But that’s apparently too provocative for the campground industry to ponder, resulting in a virtual whiteout of the subject—much to the detriment of the camping public.
RV park is really a cheap trailer court
Nov. 11: When is an RV park not a “park” for “recreational vehicles”? Maybe when its avowed purpose is “to provide a low income housing option” by plopping 20 back-in sites on four acres without any amenities other than a vaguely mentioned “laundry facility.” No bathhouse, no campstore or registration office, no playground or any other structure—and, apparently, no on-site staff. Welcome to Bonner County, Idaho, where an “RV park” is whatever they say it is.
O, hi! Did you know ARVC is no more?
Nov. 7: The RV park and campground industry has for some time put on airs by claiming to be in the “hospitality” business. Today, it went one step farther: the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds has renounced its name and rebranded itself as Outdoor Hospitality Industry, or OHI. That’s not only false advertising, but indicative of a leadership that has lost all connection with its core constituents.
Another year, another flawed survey
Nov. 3: When the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds holds its annual convention next week, among its featured presentations will be the release of a “highly anticipated” survey of the industry. But as with past such efforts, the reality is a superficial exercise in statistical mumbo-jumbo, with too few respondents to justify the bulk of its “findings” and the occasional howler—like a claim of median annual revenues of $3.52 million for campgrounds with a median 92 rentable units—to spice things up.
What we should learn from Otis
Nov. 2: One week after eviscerating the tourist mecca of Acapulco, Mexico, Hurricane Otis is assured of long-term notoriety for two reasons: its sheer ferocity, yes, but also the speed with which it ramped up. That latter point should end all those misguided plans to put RV parks in flood-prone areas because RVs have wheels—as if that will enable them to outrun a tropical cyclone that develops almost overnight and clocks windspeeds of up to 205 mph. Should—but don’t count on it.
One likely reason site fees are up
Oct. 25: Two lawsuits in federal courts and a U.S. Justice Dept. investigation are challenging the use of big data and algorithms in setting apartment rental fees. But the company in their crosshairs, RealPage, has a data base representing just 8% of all rental units nationwide—or less than a third of the market share claimed by Campspot, which has similar data aggregating capabilities for campgrounds and RV parks. What has that meant for campground site fees?
Georgia: the future of RV park taxes?
Oct. 21: Monroe County in Georgia isn’t big on RV parks—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot of RVs. Now, in an effort to clamp down on a growing problem, it has adopted stringent new rules about RVs on private property and about RV campgrounds—and to top it off, it’s adopted an annual fee of $250 per site to pay for county services. The precedent-setting levy recognizes what other jurisdictions are just starting to recognize: many RV parks are no more than subdivisions of low-income housing.
Cornwell crows about a sham victory
Oct. 20: It’s only natural that the president of the Florida RV Park & Campground Association would preen about a legislative “major victory” in which he played—at best!— only a minor role; he is, after all, a politician of sorts. But what can you say about Woodall’s Campground Magazine, which despite pretending to be a journalistic product is missing a huge news story while giving Bobby Cornwell free rein to muddy the waters?
When RVs are for travel, not housing
Oct. 17: It’s always risky to draw broad conclusions from brief experiences, but I’ll take a stab at it anyway: European RVs are built with an entirely different mindset than their U.S. counterparts. Smaller and sleeker, they’re clearly designed as transportation first and lodging second, whereas in the U.S. it’s typically the reverse. And because of that difference, European RV parks are not at all like ours, either.
Greed and fear: the twin motivators
Oct. 12: After a six-week hiatus, I’m struck by how little has changed in the RV and campground industry—and how much has changed in the world it occupies, and how little it seems to care. That won’t last long. Greed will inevitably curdle into fear as certain realities became inescapable, starting with the sky-rocketing cost of property insurance goosed by a rapidly deteriorating natural environment.
Idalia, disabled vets and glamp hustle
Sept. 2: Idalia gave the lie to promoters of a Florida glampground who dismissed worries about possible evacuation obstacles because of narrow roads and storm surge. In Minnesota, meanwhile, a glampground promoter wanted to build a park that is accessible only by boat but would cater to disabled vets—and when her rezoning request was denied, opened it for business, anyway, disregarding concerns about first-responder access. All of which makes this a perfect time for me to bail for six weeks!
Careful what you wish for in Florida
Aug. 27: As a tropical system in the Caribbean threatens to become Tropical Storm Idalia and Gov. Ron DeSantis declares a state of emergency for more than half of Florida’s 67 counties, it’s business as usual in Citrus County. That’s where county supervisors overrode their own planning board last week to approve a glampground and RV park on coastal land averaging two to three feet above sea level, despite strong local opposition. We’ll see if Idalia has anything to say about that.
PMRVs: the tail that wags the RV dog
Aug. 22: PMRV is a nonsensical word salad that means “park model recreational vehicles”—nonsensical because, as defined in one typical example, park models “are constructed for the purpose of permanent placement in a park or residential site.” But by virtue of such definitions, park models can create instant subdivisions in so-called RV parks, which may be part of the reason they’re the only industry segment that is flourishing as other RV sales plummet.
Without sugar, lemonade is still sour
Aug. 17: Amid a steady decline in RV sales, higher campsite booking costs and increased camping volatility, the RV Industry Association is pinning its hopes for an RV revival on the kids. But while RVIA wants to believe Gen Z has embraced “hustle culture” because of an excess of entrepreneurial zeal, the evidence suggests it is just trying to keep its head above water—not exactly the best target audience for more big-ticket discretionary purchases.
Maui fire has burnt away the pretense
Aug. 15: Maui’s fires have illuminated much more than a surprisingly flammable landscape: they also have highlighted the disparities that exist throughout the U.S. wherever a lot of money has moved in to create affluent playgrounds. Hawai’i’s tragedy should be an object lesson for every planning commission and board of supervisors asked to sign off on a mega-campground big enough to distort a local economy.
RV cost-analysis devil is in the details
Aug. 11: 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 cheaper than other forms of vacation travel. Now all the assumptions behind that conclusion are available—and oh, boy, are they a tortured example of fitting the facts to achieve a desired outcome.
‘No mercy’ for RVing full-timers
Aug. 7: An article in yesterday’s RVtravel, an online magazine and news service, 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. And that includes RV full-timers who buy South Dakota citizenship with a one-night stand, then complain when they get the bill.
Col. illustrates diverging RV worlds
Aug. 5: 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 Great American RV Show, which for the first time will include tiny homes, and the opening of a Love’s RV park that specifically targets “campers”—as opposed to those other people in RVs.
Chill out by camping? Not exactly . . .
July 28: We’re wrapping up the hottest month in recorded history, not just in the U.S. but across Europe and Asia—but you’d never know that from the campground and RV industries. Meanwhile, the death toll of people trying to connect with The Great Outdoors by going for a day-hike just keeps climbing, as though it’s perfectly normal to take a walk in a blast furnace.
‘Signals’ a sign of higher rates ahead
July 25: The trend toward monopoly pricing of campground rates got another boost this week with Campspot’s release of its Signals data platform, enabling campground owners to see the competition’s pricing, occupancy rates and other information in real time. The move also increases Campspot’s dominance of the reservation software industry, none of which bodes well for either campers or campgrounds.
Bubble, bubble, glamping trouble
July 23: The glamping industry’s propensity to over-reach, an affliction from which not even the biggest corporate players are immune, currently is on display most vividly in the Maine town of Lamoine. What started as an overly ambitious proposal to build a subdivision of geodesic domes has galvanized so much local opposition that the town is now considering a six-month moratorium on any new lodging—and conceivably could kill the proposal altogether. If that happens, call it death by hubris.
For RVIA, fed regs bad, fed $$ good
July 19: Against a backdrop of air temperatures spiking worldwide, driven by global warming, the EPA has proposed new, more stringent emission standards for internal combustion engines. The RV Industry Association, no surprise, thinks that’s a bad idea—but maybe it’s time to get past knee-jerk responses and for RVIA to ask the question it has so far avoided: how can it sustain the RV industry in a rapidly deteriorating environment whose demise its products are hastening?
When things don’t add up . . .
July 16: There are a lot of people prepared to call out illiteracy—not so many when it comes to innumeracy. Which tends to explain why even a company as well-staffed as KOA can issue misleading press releases, and why less-resourced RV websites can end up embellishing those original claims with even more over-the-top observations.
RV parks a magnet for flimflammery
July 13: Once a backwater of the commercial real estate market, RV parks and campgrounds have moved firmly into the mainstream once occupied by time shares and dredged swampland. The latest example of over-the-top hustling? Royalty Camping, which promises to shake up the industry by building the world’s first RV park completely enclosed by a humongous transparent air dome for year-round camping convenience.
KOA takes a holistic view of camping
July 7: It’s been a couple of months since KOA released its latest annual report on North American camping, and as usual, subsequent industry coverage was faithfully upbeat. But drill down through the numbers and you’ll realize that a lot of the data is actually about glamping, as the company that was once synonymous with camping has decided to look “more holistically at outdoor hospitality”—even as camping per se appears to have plateaued.
On Ellsberg, Exxon and RV expenses
July 4: As significant swaths of the country swelter under heat domes and wet-bulb temperatures that run into triple digits, a growing number of Americans may find themselves wondering at all the fuss about “the great outdoors.” Add to that the growing costs of camping at a time when household debt is at record highs, and you may be excused for wondering: is the RVing thrill over?
Do soft sales mean quicker repairs?
June 27: Shipments of new RVs are stagnating at a hair above 30,000 a month, posting a near 50% decline year-to-date over 2022—and that means dealers have to find other ways to make money. One possible outcome? Faster turn-around times for RV repairs, which aren’t as profitable as sales but which have been backlogged for months, providing a ready source of income. Initial indications are that this is indeed the case—but it’s complicated.
CalOHA has lost sight of its roots
June 24: Forty-eight years ago, when California’s RV park and campground owners got together to create an association to protect their interests, they had a pretty clear idea of what that meant. But times change, and definitions get blurred. Several name changes later, as a growing number of campgrounds look like trailer courts, CalOHA can’t figure out who it represents but is pretty sure it shouldn’t have to accept rules that apply to mobile home parks.
Rule 1: own the land under your home
June 21: If you’re in the economic bracket that forces you to live in a trailer park, recent news has been alarming, with more than half-a-dozen such parks announcing their imminent closure just within the past week. Yet a growing number of RV parks also are encouraging campers to stay year-round, offering what may seem like a much needed housing alternative—until you realize it’s just another version of the same trap.
Shady side of Caesars-linked RV park
June 18: The storied city of Danville, VA, is attempting to revitalize its economy by becoming the home of a major Caesars casino—but as with many such enterprises, the gamblers pulled into its orbit are not all at the tables. Meet Joe Cubas, a real estate speculator who says he wants to build a 333-site luxury RV park despite having no apparent relevant experience in the business—and oh, yes, he also thinks it would be nifty to bring tens of thousands of bikers into town for an annual bike week.
WWJD? Why, go RVing, of course
June 14: When it comes to attending an evangelical Christian camp in Monterey, Massachusetts, the question naturally arises: what would Jesus do? And the answer, as affirmed this week by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, is that he’d camp in an RV, even if the town’s zoning bylaws prohibit everyone else from doing so.
RV camping in flood zones? Why not?
June 11: There are few more enticing pieces of land for throwing up a campground than a flat, easily sculpted . . . flood plain. True, there’s the little problem of occasional high water—but a developer seeking permission for just such a development along the aptly named Cape Fear River in North Carolina has just the solution: put up warning signs to let campers know they have to evacuate within 24 hours of a declared state of emergency.
A dreadful orange sky for RV lobby
June 8: It is beyond irony that more than 120 RV industry leaders—representing manufacturers, suppliers and campgrounds—have converged on Capitol Hill just as the Washington, D.C. skies have turned orange. But that’s not why the RV reps are in town. They’re here to lobby for their preferred legislation, which includes getting tax dollars for infrastructure development, loosening regulatory restrictions and selling their products and services to the great American public. Environmental concerns? Not so much.
A microcosm of glamping blunders
June 4: A glampground proposal heard this past week by the Rome-Floyd County Planning Commission, Georgia, inadvertently displayed a microcosm of the problems surrounding such projects, highlighting at least three common issues: a disconnect from real-world limitations, a widespread lack of meaningful zoning and land-use regulations, and a persistent refusal by developers to engage with local residents. The result is horrendous overreach and unnecessary conflict.
Whistling past the RV sales graveyard
May 31: Heading into the Memorial Day weekend, camping industry cheerleaders were cranking out comparisons and forecasts to support their contention that the industry’s best days still lie ahead. But coming on the heels of some truly astonishing declines in factory shipments of new RVs, the chorus had a distinctly plaintive tone—how many businesses can withstand half of their business evaporating in a year?—and produced some near-comical contortions by industry spokespeople.
Maine ponders dome glampground
May 28: The bastard child known as “glamping,” which embraces the dissonant conceit that we can get closer to “nature” by keeping it at arm’s length, continues to gather momentum. Latest case in point: Clear Sky Acadia, which is seeking to build what amounts to a subdivision of 105 domes in Maine, some covering several thousand square feet. The company’s only other such project, in Arizona, is so attuned to nature that its domes have “themes” such as “’80s Video Games” and “British Secret Agent.”
Time for KOA to step up in Montana
May 22: KOA, the company that advertises itself as “the world’s largest system of privately-owned campgrounds” but which generally eschews any of the political muscle-flexing this might enable, is headquartered in Montana. That’s ironic, because even as that state suffers under air quality alerts caused by Canadian forest fires, its legislature was passing one of the most aggressive anti-climate laws in the nation. Maybe KOA should be paying attention to its backyard?
Florida’s land rush still going strong
May 20: Few states—Arizona comes to mind—are as closely identified with land speculation as Florida. So it is in Citrus County, some 60 miles north of Tampa on U.S. 19, where Jennefer and Dimitri Magradze are seeking county approval for a 16-acre RV park—on land that averages two-to-three feet above sea level, surrounded on all sides by the St. Martins Marsh Aquatic Preserve and the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge.
How will you camp in the apocalypse?
May 12: We know of five mass extinction-level events in the history of the planet, the last occurring 65.5 million years ago, so maybe it’s time to get ready for the sixth? But how? No worries, bro’—Mammoth Overland has your back. The Washington-based company announced yesterday it is taking orders for the Overland ELE (yes, ELE—for Extinction Level Event—which the company says should be pronounced “Ellie”), “the first off-road trailer designed to survive the apocalypse or anything campers might encounter.”
Horses and RVs a volatile mix in S.C.
May 7: If a name determines destiny, Blue Sky—as in “creative or visionary and unconstrained by practicalities”—Associates should find a new identity. For more than two years it has has been trying to develop an RV campground in the middle of South Carolina’s horse country. And for more than two years it has been enmeshed in a running battle with the local equestrian set, which just doesn’t see itself rubbing elbows with—well, you know. With people who don’t know the difference between a hock and a stifle.
When the house is on fire, yell fire!
May 4: Just in time for hurricane season, which officially kicks off June 1, the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds today held a webinar/campfire session about disaster planning. Yet even as multiple studies predict that extreme weather is only getting worse, ARVC and its members continue in deep denial about about the natural disasters that confront their properties and not a word was said about possible insurance options and alternatives.
RVs as the Swiss Army knives of housing
April 30: As with Swiss Army knives, which “evolved” from basic tools to gussied-up toys, when it comes to RVs you can get anything from a minimalist model to one with as many extras as you care to underwrite. But as they morph from simple hard-sided tents to housing of last resort, RVs are distorting our natural and social landscapes to an extent last matched by the impact of the automobile, and camping is only the least of it.
KOA gives up on explaining itself
April 27: Following the public relations debacle KOA created for itself earlier this year, when it finally threw in the towel over its misbegotten idea for a glampground in New York’s Catskills, the campground juggernaut apparently has decided to zip its corporate lip. Whereas it once boldly proclaimed development plans for its Terramor brand of glamping resorts, currently still limited to a single facility in Maine, KOA is now saying nothing at all about two projects still in the hopper.
Cacapon RV park booted—for now
April 22: Just days after a court challenge successfully blocked a public hearing into a West Virginia proposal to build an RV campground at Cacapon State Park, the state has decided to shelve the idea altogether—for now. The about-face follows growing protests from area residents and park supporters, angered by the state’s announced goal of making the campground a profit center, and by the proposals it attracted, including one for a major facility of 350 RV sites and numerous recreational amenities
Rural dilemma: big hope or big hype?
April 20: The other shoe has dropped in New Hope, Tennessee: the mystery RV park that has prompted so much local angst over the past month is being planned by an Arizona-based company that is relatively new to RV campgrounds but has notably big plans—big enough that the 900 or so residents of New Hope, a wide spot on two-lane Route 156 that has one Dollar General, two beauty shops and a meat processing business, may be on the road to having their world turned upside down, for better and worse.
Mystery money behind 400-site park
April 15: When the mayor of New Hope, Tennessee, disclosed to town residents that he’s met with investors who wanted to build a 400+site RV park in the small town, those residents naturally wanted to know who was behind this audacious plan. The answer? The mayor couldn’t say. Nor could he provide the names of any other RV parks the investors had built, other than to say that the nearest one was in Arizona and that the developers were “moving west to east building campgrounds.”
Home sweet . . . shipping container?
April 9: In the ongoing push to come up with ever more unique glamping accommodations, presumably because The Great Outdoors is insufficiently enchanting, the “hospitality industry” is grasping at ever more exotic offerings. The latest on deck: something called a Bungalow Boat, which is scarcely more than a cabin on pontoons that couldn’t crest even a slight swell; and the Gateway Park Model RV, a 20-foot-long shipping container that has been reworked it into a habitable space. Now that’s luxury!
How many red flags can you ignore?
April 6: Enter “Whispering Oaks Luxury RV Park” in a Goggle search field, and the first entry to pop up will be for the home page for just such an establishment, together with a notice that you can secure your slot at this premiere facility with just a $500 deposit—or “lock in the full year for the low price of $3100.” Which right there should set off alarm bells. A full year of camping for just $3,100? At a “luxury RV” park? But wait—there’s more.
John Denver is rolling over in his grave
April 1: You might think that a state’s Division of Natural Resources would be devoted to clean air, clean water and sustainable outdoor recreation. But what do you suppose such an agency will emphasize when it’s an offshoot of that state’s Department of Commerce? West Virginia’s Division of Natural Resources won’t leave you guessing: it’s all about the money.
March madness, campground-style
March 28: There’s a different sort of March madness that has nothing to do with basketball: it’s the annual flood of numbers and statistics for the previous year, compiled from various year-end reports and surveys. Some are revealing, some are of dubious value and some hint at truths that may unfold over the next year or so. Almost all get trotted out on behalf of one agenda or another, and all are enough to make anyone’s head spin.
Reflect on this: glamping to die for
March 24: In the relentless pursuit of the next hip thing—the next glitzy, must-have, “wow” experience to foist on the camping public—it was only a matter of time before someone took the concept of “smoke and mirrors” to its inevitable conclusion. Cue the mirrors—as in buildings sheathed in reflective glass, highly polished steel and one-way mirrors that fool the human eye and flying birds alike. Oops.
RVers adopt a wait-and-see attitude
March 22: KOA today released its March monthly report, flagged with the optimistic headline “Rise in camping continues” and citing strong camping turnout at the start of the year. But as it has in the past, it again went a step too far, announcing in a press release that “we’re seeing more bookings made earlier”—even though its own figures show that only 27% of their survey respondents have booked some or all of their 2023 camping trip thus far this year. That compares with 50% at this time last year.
The park-model scam gains steam
March 15: There’s an outfit out West promoting something called the “Village Camp,” an oxymoron that should ring alarm bells—and as it turns out, that’s an appropriate response. Because while Village Camps are promoted as upscale campgrounds, they’re actually summer-home subdivisions that avoid regulatory and zoning restrictions by relying on park model RVs, some selling for nearly $450,000.
Glamp-zombie invades Joshua Tree
March 11: Lured ever onward by the siren song of rich returns, the bastard zombie known as “glamping” has reeled from one disastrous proposal to another. The latest case in point: a Beverly Hills developer’s proposal for a 75-site glampground in the environmentally fragile high desert north of Yucca Valley, including 35 domed tents, twenty 850-square-foot “chalets” and twenty “camping lofts,” each encompassing 1,230 square-feet—the size of a small house.
Danish RVers have US-type problem
March 8: It’s always disconcerting for Americans to learn that not everyone in the world thinks highly of our leisure culture. But what are we to make of Denmark’s current debate about full-timing RVers, which some Danes contend are afflicting the tidy Danish landscape with “trailer parks and American conditions” that could “damage the image of an entire industry and thus damage Danish tourism”?
Let ’em eat cake: gentrifying trailers
March 5: The gentrification of the American economy, given a powerful push by the pandemic, has filtered down to affect even the lowest classes. Consider, for example, the recent sale of a West Coast house trailer described as a “bungalow in Novato’s coveted Marin Valley Mobile Country Club”—snatched up after being on the market for just one day, for $346,750. Or how about an 800-square-foot house trailer on Long Island that went for a breath-taking $3.75 million?
An early spring comes before the fall
March 2: The weather has become enormously intrusive from one end of the country to the other. It’s no longer a background phenomenon, punctuated by the occasional hysteria of a tornado: it’s very much in the foreground almost all the time, throwing one curve ball after another. It shouldn’t be a surprise—we’ve been getting warned about this for at least a couple of decades—but still there’s astonishment and disbelief. And, it should be noted, a stubborn refusal to make significant changes in response.
Growing identity crisis for RV parks
Feb. 26: RVs, park models, tiny homes and house trailers increasingly have become an undifferentiated mass of last-resort shelter, jostling each other for a place to chock their wheels in a mad campground game of musical sites—single-wides moving into RV parks, travel trailers finding room in trailer courts, park models and tiny homes springing into any chinks that can be found. So what’s it going to take for us to recognize reality and start ensuring that all these forms of shelter are equally safe as year-round residences?
Camping steak: a lot of sizzle, but . . .
Feb. 23: The camping PR machine is kicking into high gear, beating the drums for another blockbuster year and working hard to energize the camping public. But a close look at KOA’s February 2023 survey suggests that campers are keeping their powder dry: 26% of campers have already booked all or some of their trips for the season, but that’s less than half of the 54% who had done so a year earlier, according to that year’s February report.
What hunters and skiers can teach us
Feb. 21: To better understand what’s happening within a relatively small industry, such as commercial campgrounds and RV parks, it can be helpful to look at “adjacent” businesses and associations. In that regard, recent complaints by hunters and skiers suggest the difficulties—driven by public policy changes and climate change— that await campers trying to enjoy an increasingly diminished great outdoors. Meanwhile, a 2022 survey of the “attractions industry” has found that travelers and tourists of all sorts are becoming measurably less satisfied because of understaffing and overpricing.
In a lockstep march to higher prices
Feb. 17: The ongoing consolidation of online reservation systems is creating an opportunity—already widely common in the apartment rental business—for cartelization, with Campspot best positioned to take advantage. While that raises the specter of still higher rates for RVers down the road, the move is being greeted with the ready compliance of campground owners who see nothing but more profit for themselves, and it’s happening with the ironic cooperation of ARVC.
Climate refugees add to camp crush
Feb. 13: The growing prevalence of battered RVs and tents as housing of last resort, crowding city streets, public lands and commercial campgrounds, has been recognized for some time as the inevitable byproduct of soaring rents and gentrifying real estate. But it’s not just higher costs that are contributing to America’s housing immiseration. A growing horde of climate refugees—a phenomenon long associated with Third World countries—also is becoming an inescapable part of the landscape, driven by extreme weather events that are growing in number and intensity.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
Feb. 10: There is great jubilation in New York’s Catskills region this week, on the news that KOA is walking away from a proposed 75-site glamping resort that faced growing local opposition. But as it turns out, KOA/Terramor has bigger fish to fry. Even as it was plunging into the Catskills morass, it simultaneously was looking to develop a far more ambitious project in the foothills of the High Sierra: two resorts capable of hosting up to 1,000 guests a day on a 993-acre property straddling a major access route to Yosemite National Park.
Good job numbers, but not for RVers
Feb. 4: The jobs numbers out on Friday resulted in great giddiness in some quarters and foreboding in others. Giddiness because January’s 3.4% unemployment rate is the lowest the U.S. has seen since 1969; foreboding because of the fear that low unemployment will push up wages, increasing inflationary pressures and possibly prompting more interest rate increases. But you know what? All of that is irrelevant for the campground industry, which continues to suffer from a three-year-long labor shortage.
Now you, too, can buy a campground!
Jan. 31: One sign of a market top is when people with no relevant experience start hitting up strangers for money to fund a new venture—and getting it. Another is when that sales pitch is so arcane it requires pages of explanatory text just to describe its underlying premise. Yet another is when the goal of all that fundraising transforms a quotidian quest into an epic venture, as with the announcement issued Jan. 23 on the PRNewswire to let RVers know they could become part of a “member-led community unlike any other.”
KOA amps up the camping con game
Jan. 25: When KOA announced it wanted to build a 75-site glamping resort in Saugerties, N.Y., there were lots of local objections—but the most fundamental may have been a complaint that all this talk about “glamping” is deceitful. That to describe a project as having “campsites” occupied by “temporary structures” is at best disingenuous when those “temporary structures” have 600-square-foot footprints erected on wooden platforms with plumbing and electricity, with wooden interior walls and ceramic-floored showers with twin shower heads.
Giddy times at the Tampa supershow
Jan. 20: There is a lot of excitement at the Tampa RV SuperShow this week—as is a certain fin de siecle feeling, as though too many people were rushing for too limited a supply of lifeboats. A surprising number of news accounts about the show include interviews with potential buyers looking to become full-timers. As one noted, even an upscale motorcoach “is still cheaper than a house,” which is a remarkable comparison to make on behalf of a depreciating asset.
RV chickens coming home to roost
Jan. 14: This may sound harsh, but the campground industry has an enormously uncomfortable relationship with Mother Nature: like the victim of an abusive spouse, it prefers not to acknowledge that there is a dark and sometimes violent side to its partner. Yes, there are problems, but we’ll keep those to ourselves—regardless of how unsustainable that may be—while presenting only a sunny face to the public. Anything else might be bad for business.
We’re not ready for the new normal
Jan. 12: As California reels from a two-week series of storms that have claimed at least 18 lives, forced tens of thousands to evacuate and permanently altered the landscape, the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (ARVC) finally took notice yesterday with an email blast requesting donations to help battered campgrounds. Expect more of the same, because unless ARVC has a come-to-Jesus moment about climate change, this kind of limited tin-cup response will be its default position—again and again, changing nothing.
Lions, coyotes and wolves, oh my!
Jan. 8: While the intrusion of human dwellings into wildland areas increases fire risks, as documented in a U.S. Fire Administration report last year about the wildland urban interface, “wildlands” don’t consist solely of vegetation: there’s fauna associated with that flora. And while wildfires can cause destruction on an epic scale—the Marshall fire consumed more than 1,000 homes—wild animals can be just as lethal in the number of human lives they claim, with obvious implications for every campground owner, boondocker, backpacker and other outdoor enthusiast.
Part III: RV parks and campgrounds are NOT part of a ‘hospitality industry’
Jan. 4: ARVC’s leadership has been so seduced by the idea of being part of the “hospitality industry” that it has lost its way—and in doing so has lost sight of the many existential threats now confronting its core constituency. Which, if anyone needs reminding, is RV parks and campgrounds.
Part II: ARVC’s name is misleading, because it’s hardly an ‘association’
Jan. 3: Just as ARVC has replaced the earthiness of “camping” with corporate jargon about “outdoor hospitality,” so too has it jettisoned the fraternal trappings of an association in favor of a service organization’s efficiencies. Members are asked for little more than their annual dues, in exchange for which they get a strongly hyped menu of vendor discounts, various educational opportunities and a steadily more expensive annual convention. But efforts to promote “association”? Not so much.
Part I: ARVC’s misleading name, to whit, it’s not really a ‘national’ org
Jan. 2: There’s only one national organization that non-franchised campground owners can turn to when they need help with their business, and that’s the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (ARVC). It’s unfortunate, therefore, that ARVC is “national” more in name than fact, with half of the states as non-members and several—including the four most populous states—having their own, competing organizations.
Renting Dirt 