Forum Discussion

lawnspecialties's avatar
Oct 06, 2021

Tampa RV Show

It's been a long time since that family from Va. Beach bought my F450, toy hauler, and even the golf cart. That was early 2019. Seems like decades ago. But now my youngest will be moving out soon and we're in the early early stages of looking for our next truck and camper.

With demand still pretty high, it sure seems like prices ain't what they used to be. Not to mention finding a new F450 is like finding a rare gem. We'll have to just wait and see how 2022 starts out but it doesn't hurt to just look and get ideas.

I saw the Tampa RV Show is January 19-23. I have a few questions for those who know.

1. Is this show what it's hyped up to be? We're only looking for toy hauler fifth wheels. No Class As or Cs. I can't do the Hershey Pa show because being a landscaper, I'm just too busy in September. My wife and I will drive down from NC on Thursday and head back home that Sunday. That's a long way for a disappointment of a show.

2. We'll only have two days to look at campers. At the Raleigh RV Show, two hours is more than enough. But I remember someone saying one time you need three days to check out all the stuff at Hershey. Just curious if two days is adequate for Tampa. I'm even hoping Luxe does their thing where they set up somewhere off site.
  • I've been to both, and in my opinion, the Tampa show has more stuff to look at. I just visited the Hershey show, and seems like they only had about 2/3 of the non-dealer vendors as the Tampa show. I didn't look at all the RV dealer areas, but seemed like the class A areas at Hershey was about the same as Tampa. I do know that Tampa has a large selection of pull behinds. They don't have trucks to pull 5ers with much representation, if any.
  • JoeH wrote:
    georgelesley wrote:
    Do they have travel trailers at the Tampa show?


    They have everything from popups to Newells and everything in between.


    Ditto on that and many show specials if you are ready to make the jump right then. If so do your reaserch first. The show does last three days so you could look on day one and do internet searches that night on what you liked at the show that night.

    I think there may be camping in the parking lot but I'm not sure.
  • JoeH's avatar
    JoeH
    Explorer III
    georgelesley wrote:
    Do they have travel trailers at the Tampa show?


    They have everything from popups to Newells and everything in between.
  • You should go, it's the real deal. It's at the Florida State Fairgrounds and huge. Hershey and Tampa always say that they are the largest but they are both right. My opinion tips to Tampa as they have much more inside space, both for units and products.
  • We have been to the Tampa show multiple times, maybe last year. Don't recall for sure, hopefully will be in Quartzite this year. No big truck display tho, but Ford had a RV chassis tent/display IIRC.