2021 North American Camping Report Finds 2.6 Million New Camping Households

Above, my friend Mitch became a first-time RV owner last year. We traveled to Colorado last
September with his trailer. This was taken at the Cortez, Colorado KOA. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Regular readers of this blog are aware that there is a boom in RV sales (well, I've discussed it enough) and the following report should not come as a surprise. Most of them are first-time RVers.

Kampgrounds of America, Inc. (KOA Kampgrounds) released its report titled "2021 North American Camping Report" and it confirms what I and other have been reporting.

Its findings are now posted at RV Travel.

It starts with:

Kampgrounds of America Inc. just released its 2021 North American Camping Report, and it confirms what most recreational vehicle owners already knew – there are a lot more new RVers out there.

The North American Camping Report is a scientific survey of the trends and habits of campers in the U.S. and Canada. Kampgrounds of America Inc. has been commissioning the survey report every year since 2014. (Full disclosure: This writer was one of the authors of the report between 2014 and 2020 while the Vice President of Communications for KOA). Nearly 4,000 surveys were completed in January 2021 for the Report.

The 2021 edition of the North American Camping Report found that the proportion of first-time campers grew five-fold since 2019, and the number of households that now own an RV grew by 2.6 million. More than 86 million U.S. households now consider themselves campers, and 48 million of those households took at least one camping trip in 2020 – up more than 6 million over 2019.

To read more, go here.