Record Rv Sales again ... are the # of campsites expanding?

We normally travel during the shoulder seasons and much prefer the Fall, in the last few years we have noticed that it is harder and harder to find spots within say a four hour drive of Los Angeles. It doesn't matter whether it is weekends or mid week, as mentioned, you have to work the system to find a time and place. The days of deciding on Thursday at dinner to take off work early on Friday and going to Gaviota or El Capitan or even Death Valley(pretty far for a two day trip), it seems that it is now "lets try for reservations at X CG for next March" when the notion hits us in September.

I'm sure there are new campgrounds opening somewhere, but here in CA and from what I read here on the forums and in other sources, the restrictions caused by environmental concerns and the cost of open space and construction, makes the thought of opening a moderate or even very rustic campground very daunting.

You may not have noticed it but even "Q" has changed a lot and more and more improvements are being asked for. Will it be lucrative is now the mantra of the government as well as private investors.

This subject has been discussed quite a bit recently in the RVtravel.com newsletter.

3oaks wrote:

SidecarFlip wrote:
.....................................Having said that, I don't think the number of sites versus the number of units is critical....yet.

Depends upon the season and time of the year.

That is why we do all our camping in the Spring time before Memorial Day and then again after Labor Day in the Fall. Both wonderful times of the year. ;)

We leave the Summer, when parks are usually filled to capacity, for families and kids to enjoy. :)

Commercial campgrounds and resorts are not for us.

And those of us with families do appreciate that. :)

We make one 5000 mi trip halfway across the country every summer. Biggest issue we have had in finding campgrounds it that it seems any commercial campgrounds not near a tourist destination are almost all seasonal sites. Some nights we just want a spot to shower, dump tanks, etc then move on the next day. Depending where you are it can be a challenge.

Out here in ND many of the small towns have a municipal campground with ~10 sites. I can safely say most of those sites are vacant 100% of the year.

SidecarFlip wrote:
.....................................Having said that, I don't think the number of sites versus the number of units is critical....yet.

Depends upon the season and time of the year.

That is why we do all our camping in the Spring time before Memorial Day and then again after Labor Day in the Fall. Both wonderful times of the year. ;)

We leave the Summer, when parks are usually filled to capacity, for families and kids to enjoy. :)

Commercial campgrounds and resorts are not for us.

Huntington Beach State Park is opening up a new addition in the near future. That is in SC just south of Myrtle Beach.

Well as fulltimers in 7 1/2 years we couldn't get and overnight where we wanted once. As far as long term we volunteer and lock in a space a year in advnce. We spend 6-7 months volunteering with the weather north in the summer and south in the winter. Most of our travel is in the shoulder seasons. True too late or too early will effect hookups but who cares we're self contained. We can go a week with electric only.

The sky is not falling.

It's always been tough to get a site on a weekend in season at the popular places. Occasional campers trying to get their yearly dose of nature and full timers are vying for a limited number of spaces in these places, even more limited if you need SWECWiFi.

As someone said, a lot of these new rigs sit somewhere for 50 weeks a year. A large majority are taken fewer than a thousand miles a year. Looking at our storage yard, I can attest to that. Right now it's full because some of the seasonals who are in the local campground over the summer store their rigs in our yard. These rigs travel a total of 4 miles `every year. They live at the campground over the summer and rent out their houses to vacationers trying to get their yearly dose of the beach.

StephJohn2010 wrote:
Thor Industries reported record sales again. Let me know if you are aware of any campgrounds expanding its number of sites or any new Rv parks to soak up this new inventory of Rvs. Increased demand and low supply makes fuolltiming very hard.

Well I did my part, I totaled my mh, and bought another used unit,one less on the road.

It makes fulltiming hard and it makes weekending hard. It makes the occasional vacation hard. Folks have become experts at booking sites right after the new season opens up for reservations. Tactics like overbooking are now becoming commonplace. Just part of the game now.

SidecarFlip wrote:
Don't forget, the old units are falling by the wayside, being converted into hunting cabins or dismantled and landfilled.

Ala Greg Gerber @ RV daily report......


"According to the RV Industry Association’s market data and trends, there are 9 million RV-owning households in America today.

Funny thing is that a 1997 report from Dr. Richard Curtain claimed there were nearly 9 million RV owning households. By 2001, that number dropped to 7 million. But, in 2011, Curtain claimed there were again 8.9 million RV-owning households – which he described as “the largest number of U.S. households ever recorded that owned an RV.”

So, there were 9 million RV owning households in 1997, and 9 million in 2011 and 9 million today. This despite the fact that, using RVIAs own shipment numbers, there were 5.7 million new RVs built between 1997 and 2015.

Yes, a whole bunch of RVers upgraded their units during that time, and some more than once. But the used RVs didn’t evaporate, did they? One would assume that people bought the previously owned RVs and added to the number of RV-owning households.

But, if there are just as many RV-owning households today as there were in 1997 — despite the flood of 5.7 million new RVs into the market during that time — then there were a heck of a lot of RVs junked in 18 years."



Selling 40 or 50 thousand more RV's than were sold in 2006 or 1978 in 2016/17 is hardly a boom IMO. Especially when you take into account the years in between and the cyclic nature of the RV Industry or the fact that US population increased by at least 54 million in the last 20 years.

430,691 in 2016 and the RVIA is projecting 438000 for 2017. As of end of September the numbers were at 378000. Hitting the top of the curve possibly?

IMO it's all a drummed up load of BS from the RVIA like their GoRving campaign. They fail to mention the RV Industry's make the money while times are good and to hell with everything else attitude / business model. It looks real good on that Going RV television show however lol. They also need to have smoke to blow when the annual meeting takes place regarding BKW, THO, WGO, etc. That is until the house of cards comes crashing down and it will.