It’s not your imagination if you found it harder to find a campsite last year than in the past. It was, indeed, more difficult, or so says a recent study by The Dyrt, a popular app for camping information and booking which has released its in-depth 2023 Camping Report. The study was compiled from a survey of The Dyrt camper community, which receives 30 million visits a year, as well as a survey of camping property managers across all 50 states.
“It was five times harder to book an available campsite in 2022 compared to just three years earlier.”
“We’re still in the midst of a camping boom that began in 2020, but the big story now is how campers and property managers are adjusting,” said The Dyrt CEO Kevin Long. “It was five times harder to book an available campsite in 2022 compared to just three years earlier, and campers are looking for new experiences. Property managers are getting very creative by adapting, expanding and creating a wider variety of options.”
Twice as hard to find a site in just one year
The report found that 80 million Americans went camping last year and that campsites were nearly twice as scarce as they were in 2021. Glamping increased 10 percent in 2022 and campers continued to work remotely from the campsite at the same rate — just under 25 percent — despite many companies returning to the office.
“Through the process of gathering information for this report we spoke to a wide variety of property managers who have bookable inventory on The Dyrt, and included quotes from them throughout the report,” says The Dyrt founder Sarah Smith. “We also identified trends among segments of the increasingly diverse camping community such as race, sexual orientation, age and household income.”
For example, survey respondents who self-identified as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) went glamping for the first time last year 50 percent more than survey average. Survey respondents who self-identified as LGBTQ+ listed tent as their primary camping type 23 percent more than survey average.
“The Dyrt’s users may comprise the country’s broadest demographic profile of the camping public. So when The Dyrt’s users have their temperature taken, it pays for other industry participants to take notice,” writes RVtravel.com, describing The Dyrt’s annual report on the camping landscape as “the statistically most meaningful picture of what it’s like to go camping in America that the industry has produced to date.”
Some other findings from the 2023 Camping Report: Wednesday is the best day for camping availability; camping alone is up 28 percent; RVing is the most common type of camping; and 57.1 percent of campers took pets along for the trip.
Another study, released this month by the RV Industry Association (RVIA) has found that 37% of American leisure travelers, 67 million, plan on taking an RV trip in 2023.
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I take your articles on Tiffin and campsite booking difficulties with several grains of salt. As a Tiffin owner we too heard of the lay off and also talked with “people in the know” about it. We were told it was the “annual get rid of the deadwood” event. As for the lack of activity that was reported, we’ll be in Red Bay in May and confirm or disprove it.
We’re in Florida for the winter and found it easier to book campsites this year than last. We have 45ft class A and change RV parks every two-three weeks.
Many years ago the campground in the National Forest where we camp at and still camp at enforced the first come first serve. The rangers were always in the campground making sure people paid for there sites. Then when there were empty sites people started putting lawn chairs in empty sites or coolers on picnic tables and nobody would come in until late in the afternoon or the next day. When new rangers were hired the new rangers would not enforce the first come first serve campsites. With so many people saving sites and the National Forest had to do something due to the lack of rangers. So the National Forest went to the reservation system. Now you hardly see the rangers come in anymore. It used to be the rangers would collect the money and clean the toilets. Now you have campground hosts cleaning the bathrooms and making sure the campground is running smoothly. This campground is having a hard time finding campground hosts because the host only gets there sites.
Kinda takes the “joy” out of this RV thing, eh?
The quickest way to ruin anything is to make it “popular”. That goes for cities, states, and activities like camping, etc…
Brevard County in FL is moving to permit it’s residents to reserve campsites in county campgrounds up to 1 month before non-residents, changing stay length limits and raising prices. Next up….FL State parks! Yay, for FL residents, whose taxes pay for these facilities and who SHOULD benefit more than non-residents!
Just finished making plans for several trips this year, including 2 months in May/June. I had no trouble making reservations in popular national park areas (we dry camp as much as possible) but the prices are noticeably higher than they used to be.