What 2022 looks like for RVers

2022 is shaping up to be another strong year for camping

The RV market exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic. While travel restrictions remained in place, many craved any opportunity to get out of the house.

Camping at Alamo Lake State Park, Arizona © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

As a result, recreational vehicles provided a glimmer of relief for those seeking safer travel. The demand for self-sustaining travel kicked the RV market into high gear in 2020 with record numbers of travelers buying or renting an RV.

But what about 2022? Will the trend continue?

Camping at Meaher State Park, Alabama © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Despite relaxations in COVID regulations for airlines and international travel, one phenomenon of the pandemic appears here to stay—campers are staying dedicated to the great outdoors. A new study from Kampgrounds of America (KOA) shows that camping and its many variations, particularly glamping and RVing, is quickly being embraced by the new leisure-seeking traveler and is becoming a part of travel culture faster than ever.

Camping at Potwisha Campground, Sequoia National Park, California © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Over the past two years, the camping industry witnessed a growth of 36 percent with over 9.1 million first-time campers joining the scene just last year, the KOA survey showed.

While one-third of the newcomers said that COVID was their main catalyst to try camping, these numbers also come in tandem with the increased interest in leisure and wellness travel since the start of the pandemic. People are increasingly searching for quieter getaways, outdoor wellness retreats, and escapes into the wilderness.

Camping at Laura S. Walker State Park, Georgia © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Among all survey respondents, two-thirds reported regularly participating in some type of leisure travel whether it’s camping or other types of travel. In 2021, camping accounted for 40 percent of all leisure travel.

Related Article: Why are RVs So Popular?

Camping at My Kentucky Home State Park, Kentucky © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

The urban camper

Among regular and new campers, the urban resident is proving to be a rising star in the camping scene. In 2021, this type of camper emerged as “one of the most avid camping segments in terms of both trips and number of nights spent camping”, according to the KOA report. 

Camping at Poches RV Park, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Camping provides city residents a chance to find local or domestic activities that still offer a change of pace. The urban residents who intend to continue camping reported interests in a variety of camping categories starting from RVing and road trips to backpack camping and glamping.

Camping at Buccaneer State Park, Mississippi © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

While music festivals continue to be one of the urban resident’s most popular reasons to go outside they are still developing a new curiosity to the offerings of camping. In 2022, 44 percent of this group reported plans to replace a traditional leisure trip with a camping trip due to economic reasons and avoidance of crowds.

Camping at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Glamping as leisure

Similar to the year prior, close to half of new campers said they tried glamping in their 2021 camping experiences. This interest is expected to grow in 2022 with 50 percent of respondents saying that they are also seeking a glamping experience.

Related Article: RV Sales Continue to Soar and Here Are the Reasons Why

Camping at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

While 40 percent of leisure trips result in camping, 80 percent of all leisure travelers chose camping or glamping for at least some of their trips. Due to the high level of interest in camping and glamping amongst the leisure traveler, many industry leaders are recognizing the importance of camping in the hospitality industry. 

Camping at Seven Feathers Casino RV Resort, Canyonville, Oregon © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

“Our research shows that camping is one of the primary ways households prefer to travel and spend their leisure time because 75 percent of campers say it reduces stress and contributes to their emotional well-being,” said Whitney Scott, chief marketing officer of KOA. “Camping is driving leisure travel’s recovery and its benefits will fuel future market share.”

Camping at Hunting Island State Park, South Carolina © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Work life balance in the Great Outdoors

But, it’s not just leisure that new campers are seeking. 

Related Article: How to Choose the Perfect RV Park and Campsite?

Remote work is flipping the traditional ideals of workplace culture on its head inducing both support and concerns about the new normal. Many people aren’t exactly longing for a complete cut-off from work when they travel nor do they view it as completely realistic or possible. The distinction between leisure travel and remote work is being obscured and when it comes to camping behavior, 46 percent of campers said they worked remotely during at least some of their trips which an increase of 5 percent from 2020. 

Camping at Cedar Pass Campground, Badlands National Park, South Dakota © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

As a result, close to half (48 percent) of campers list having Wi-Fi as a critical element to their camping experience impacting their ability to stay outdoors so they can stay connected to their work life. Providing connections to the digital world even when out of doors is becoming an important part of customer satisfaction with campgrounds.

Camping at Holiday Travel Park of Chattanooga, Tennessee © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

RV boom continues, but will it last?

In addition to glamorous camping, RVing is also recording an all-time peak with almost two million new RV renters in 2021 and 15 million households RVing at least once to explore the outdoors. In a profile of 2021’s New Camper in the KOA survey, RVing was the most popular form of camping that people wanted to try with a 57 percent response rate. It was quickly followed by tenting at 56 percent and glamping at 51 percent.

Camping at Goose Island State Park, Texas © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

In the past, most RVers rented or borrowed RVs for their vacations but the results of the recent survey showed that they are displaying more permanent commitments to these mobile homes with 77 percent of RVers now owning their recreational vehicle. Interest in owning an RV is still present among the remaining non-RV owners with 32 percent saying they have intention to purchase an RV in 2022.  

Camping at Arches National Park, Utah © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

However, this spike in RV interest may soon hit a cap as soaring gas prices are prompting RVers to make a change of travel plans in 2022. Some are seeking to either change their RV or even consider selling or listing the RV. About half of new RVers say they are considering selling their RV this year while a fifth are downgrading their RV to lower payments and operating costs.

Camping at Cave Creek Regional Park, Arizona © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Increasing Fuel Efficiency

Currently the harsh reality is that fuel prices are higher than usual. So, whether you camp close to home or plan to travel farther away, you can avoid paying high gas prices by simply doing a few things that will make your RV more fuel efficient.

Camping at Roosevelt State Park, Mississippi © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Keep your RV and tow vehicle tires inflated to their recommended tire pressure. Every five pounds per square inch (psi) of tire pressure you lose can translate into a 2 percent loss of fuel economy.

Related Article: Is This The Summer Of The RV?

Keep up with vehicle maintenance. Oil changes and tune-ups on your motorhome or tow vehicle can result in between 4 percent and 40 percent increase in fuel economy.

Camping at Lackawanna State Park, Pennsylvania © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Don’t be a lead foot. Rapid accelerations and fast driving can quickly drain your tank. Keep your speed constant. Going slow and easy coming out of stops will really help decrease fuel use too. Speeding and rapid acceleration can decrease fuel economy by a whopping 15-30 percent. To avoid having to fill up as often be sure to maintain your speed a constant 55-60 miles per hour.

Use the air conditioner sparingly or not at all. Using the air conditioner in your RV or tow vehicle will reduce fuel economy as drastically as 5-25 percent. That’s a big drop. Traveling in the cooler early morning hours will help you avoid the heat of the day.

Worth Pondering…

It’s a beautiful day for it.

—Wilbur Cross

Most Famous Small Town in the World: Woodstock, New York

Where the 1969 music festival famously didn’t take place

Say “Woodstock” and the legendary Summer of Love concert immediately springs to mind. It’s an often-repeated joke that Woodstock is made up of people who don’t realize the concert is over but the truth is it’s filled with all kinds of people. It was a haven for artists long before the festival that wore its name.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

From India to Germany, Japan to Canada, Australia to the South Seas, mention Woodstock, New York, and invariably someone will smile, flash a peace sign, and say Rock and Roll. The very name “Woodstock” congers images of tie-dye, hippies, music, mud, and lots and lots of young people with or without clothes dancing in the rain during the most famous three-day music concert ever produced on planet earth.

That was 1969, and it never happened in Woodstock! The infamous concert took place on Max Yasgers farm in Bethel, New York, about a two-hour drive from Woodstock.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

So then, what is so special about Woodstock? Well, for one, it has been a haven for artists, writers, thinkers, and musicians since the early 1900s. The town was founded in 1787 as the population that followed the pristine streams moved up from the cities and populated the bucolic mountains and valleys of the beautiful Catskill Mountains.

A glass factory was built in Bristol (now Shady, a hamlet of Woodstock) in 1803. In the 1830s the demand for leather footwear sparked the explosion of the leather tanning business in the Catskills. The supply of plentiful water along its streams and a seemingly endless supply of hemlock trees used for tannic acid made this area perfect for tanning leather.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

After the war of 1812 cities along the east coast began paving their streets and laying stone sidewalks. Bluestone made the perfect stone for sidewalks as it was not slippery when wet. Quarries sprang up all over the southern Catskills including the California Quarry in Woodstock where newly immigrated Irish families came up the Hudson to live in Lewis Hollow and work.

As the populations in the cities increased, the need for escaping the hot summers also grew. Thus began the Mountain house era. One such famous Mountain House was Overlook Mountain House built-in 1875. Once a grand house it played host to the General Grant. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground in 1925 but the historical and intriguing remnants can still be seen today on one of the many fantastic hikes in and around Woodstock.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

A transforming chapter in Woodstock’s history began in 1902 when a man by the name of Bolton Brown emerged from the thicket near the summit of Overlook Mountain and first viewed Woodstock and the expanse below him. Along with Hervey White, Brown was hired by Ralph Whitehead to search for a location that would match Whitehead’s vision for a utopian art colony.

Upon beholding the vista before him, Brown later wrote of that moment, “Exactly here the story of modern Woodstock really begins.”

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

With the founding of Whitehead’s Byrdcliffe colony in 1903, the arts had arrived in Woodstock. In addition to Byrdcliffe, Hervey White would go on to establish the Maverick art colony in 1905 while the Art Students League led by Birge Harrison would begin operation in Woodstock a year later.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

In the decades that followed other institutions would continue to add to Woodstock’s cultural landscape including, in 1920, the Woodstock Artists Association—now known as the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, the Historical Society of Woodstock (1929), The Woodstock Guild of Craftsmen (1939), now a part of the Byrdcliffe Guild, the Woodstock School of Art (1968) which currently occupies a complex of bluestone and timber studios built by the Federal Government as a crafts training center before World War II, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock (1977) housed in a building that Bob Dylan once called home.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Thus began the artistic endeavors that can still be experienced in the most famous small town in the world.

Visit Woodstock and you’ll be able to enjoy not only remnants of the late-’60s hippie era, but also a thriving arts scene, a culinary revival, and access to outdoor activities from hiking and biking to kayaking. And browse the eclectic shops and galleries along Tinker Street and Mill Hill Road in the most famous small town in the world.

Woodstock © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

Worth Pondering…

Don’t bother Max’s cows. Let them moo in peace.

—Sign in the town of Wallkill protesting the festival held on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, as reported in the New York Times, August 16, 1969