Outdoorsy RV travel booking recently hosted a panel titled the “Future of Camping,” and this week shared details from the expert discussion.
Future of Camping panel predictions
- Traffic to national and state parks will skyrocket. People are itching to get back out there — out of their house and into the world. In fact, virtual park tours and webcams of wildlife are seeing the highest level of foot traffic on content-driven sites like Adventure Journal. And although out-of-state license plates are already appearing at reopened national parks like Yellowstone, the majority of people will be seeking out less crowded destinations to get their outdoor travel fix. Recent survey results published by KOA found that 70% of people felt that they would be camping closer to home than previously had been, with the majority of travelers not traveling more than 200 miles away from home.
- Park resources will be limited. Even as national and state parks begin to open up, crowd-control restrictions will most likely be put in place and prioritized above all else. This could look like a park requiring a time slot reservation to enter, prohibiting overnight camping entirely, or preventing access to visitor’s centers, bathrooms and certain highly trafficked trailheads. Due to a lack of time and resources needed to hire enough seasonal park rangers, important safety measures like social distancing will be difficult to monitor and enforce.
- Campground amenities will change and campers will need to be more self-reliant. Pools, playgrounds, camp stores, and even bathrooms at many campgrounds (whether located inside or outside of the park) remain closed to the public. These indefinite closures only serve to enhance the appeal of RV travel, the one form of travel where you can bring all the amenities of home — bathroom, shower, kitchen, etc. — with you wherever you go.
- Fresh faces will disrupt the RV travel world. And that’s a good thing. More than 88 percent of Outdoorsy’s bookings for the month of May came from first time renters, with first-time renters outpacing the growth of our repeat renters. As new connections made in quarantine with family and friends continue to flourish outside the four walls of home, we can’t think of a safer and more economically affordable way to experience new moments of connection and make new memories than by taking an Outdoorsy road trip.
- Responsible travel practices will be of utmost importance. Packing the proper supplies – masks, hand sanitizers, gloves — and being cautious of your footprint in smaller towns and gateway communities that lie on the rim of these national parks will be pivotal as parks start to reopen. Try to stock up on groceries or any other items you’ll need ahead of time so you minimize your interaction with smaller communities you may be traveling through; they may not have the same supplies in their stores or the same healthcare infrastructure as big cities. And when you’re outside the RV, make sure you take the same precautions you would when you’re venturing out of your house – wash your hands after touching things like a gas nozzle and RV hookups, maintain your distance from park rangers and campground attendants to protect both you and them, and don’t crowd others when you’re visiting a trailhead or waiting in line to get to an entrance.
