This may not be good news for full timers

As a member of a private invite page I see several 2020 top of the line 5ers up for sale already. These are rigs from "didn't have a clue" newbies that thought RV life was for them.
It's amazing the total lack of knowledge they had yet were getting into RVing.
It would be like me that saw oceans of amber waves of grain but never saw the ocean blue, going out purchasing a yacht to sailaround the world.

We fulltime travel the US and have definitely seen the increase in people camping. On one hand I think it is great to see more families and couples enjoy the adventures of camping. But all of us who have camped for years know it's a lot of work to get everything ready and packed for a weekend especially when u work. All of these people will soon get back to work and I imagine half of all the new campers will not think its so much fun getting everything ready just for a weekend. You seriously have to love it to continue thru working years. We have camped for 45 years and never ever get tired of it.

FWIW, my daughter has needed to look for airline flights recently. On one occasion about 2-3 weeks ago she simply could not find an open seat on any flight, they were all full, so she had to drive instead. Last week she needed to fly and was able to get a seat, but there weren't many choices.

Maybe they are flying less planes right now, but the ones they are flying seem to be pretty full.

thomasmnile wrote:
Well, that article is labeled as an opinion piece; and maybe not factual. The pictures of dismantled cruise ships looks more than a little photo shopped. Air travel? I have a nephew that's a first officer for Delta. He came back from a 5 month air national guard deployment to the Middle East wondering if he'd still have a job. He's flying his maximum hours monthly now. And cruise travel? My wife and I booked a Western Caribbean cruise (bucket list thing for me) in April 2023. Wanted to go in 2022 but the suites (and most of the ship) was booked on the line/vessel we chose.

Maybe he's just pumping the RV industry?

Delta announced the hiring of 1,000 new pilots.

I stopped at a local RV place for some parts and stopped to see a salesman. When I asked him if he sold any campers that will be back in for sale next year. He said they sold some that he was sure would be back in less then a year.

RV Park Upgrades and New builds are at an all time high.....

rlw999 wrote:

Meanwhile, RVs are selling faster than manufacturers can build them and there is no end in sight

There will be an end, and it won't be too far away - RV's are expensive depreciating assets and not only do they depreciate fast, but a lot of us have to pay to park them, and they're expensive to operate (whether you drive or tow, gas is not cheap) and require a lot of ongoing maintenance.

A lot of people are going to realize that with COVID restrictions lifting, they don't use it enough to justify that $600/month payment + $200 month storage fee for an RV that's developed a leak and now they have to pay someone to fix it.

My guess is that by next year there's going to start to be a lot of used inventory on the market.

Very well said.

Meanwhile, RVs are selling faster than manufacturers can build them and there is no end in sight

There will be an end, and it won't be too far away - RV's are expensive depreciating assets and not only do they depreciate fast, but a lot of us have to pay to park them, and they're expensive to operate (whether you drive or tow, gas is not cheap) and require a lot of ongoing maintenance.

A lot of people are going to realize that with COVID restrictions lifting, they don't use it enough to justify that $600/month payment + $200 month storage fee for an RV that's developed a leak and now they have to pay someone to fix it.

My guess is that by next year there's going to start to be a lot of used inventory on the market.

Well, that article is labeled as an opinion piece; and maybe not factual. The pictures of dismantled cruise ships looks more than a little photo shopped. Air travel? I have a nephew that's a first officer for Delta. He came back from a 5 month air national guard deployment to the Middle East wondering if he'd still have a job. He's flying his maximum hours monthly now. And cruise travel? My wife and I booked a Western Caribbean cruise (bucket list thing for me) in April 2023. Wanted to go in 2022 but the suites (and most of the ship) was booked on the line/vessel we chose.

Maybe he's just pumping the RV industry?

The article is from last October and quite a bit has changed since then obviously. Cruise ships are starting to sail again, air travel has picked back up, and vacation venues that closed are opening back up. The summer RV'ing peak is approaching as usual, and fulltimers do need to work a bit harder to find longer term stays of a few weeks or months, but overnights while traveling are seldom much of a problem. In the long run, I really expect as the COVID-19 dust settles that we'll see a glut in the used RV market as many "newbies" revert back to their previous vacation modes.