Observation at the Detroit (Novi) Camper Show

For quite a few years, the trend has been towards bigger trailers and fifth wheel trailers. At the same time, smaller trailers have some really good designs and floorplans. I do wonder what will happen as the baby boomers (I'm one of them) start dissappearing from the RV scene and younger people move into the RV hobby. Seems to me with lower wages, fewer benefits and many having to finance their own retirement plan that many younger people will be looking at more affordable RVs that don't require costly large tow vehicles. But, it will be interesting to see what happens.

We had a 29' travel trailer for 10 years, but I can't say that I would ever want to have to deal with some of the bigger 34' trailers and larger that I see on the market now. Unless you're towing with a diesel and can do a day's driving on one tank of fuel, the problem of navigating fuel stops has got to be a pain in many parts of the country. We downsized to a 27' trailer that tows easily with our Tundra (purchased used and affordable) and it's big enough to naviagate around the gas pumps.

We travel about 25 miles of I-55 in N-Central Illinois on our daily commute and see a lot of Rv's of various descriptions being transported S-bound. Some evenings, when we are headed back north, we will see 10 or 12 headed south. We see all types, from small TT's loaded 2 or three on a flat-bed to HUGE 5th wheels. Lately, we see a lot of FR3 class A's, and Class B's on Mercedes chassis.

The RV market is in the TT, fiver lines. Way fewer MH's sold in comparison. Just another sign the parks are going to be more crowded. Makes room for more high end RV resorts