Camping Sentiment High As Memorial Day Projections Surpass 2022

The Kampgrounds of America, Inc. Monthly Research Report – April 2023 Edition finds that more households plan to camp over Memorial Day Weekend. With 22.6 million households saying they want to venture into the great outdoors during the May holiday, camping sentiment has returned to on-season numbers – the highest mark since October last year. Following a strong off-season, camping is expected to continue to be popular among leisure travelers.

Almost a quarter of campers have booked all their camping trips for the year, a percentage that doubled month-over-month. Further pointing to the popularity of spring as a planning period for camping, another 20% of camping households have booked at least one trip with more planned. Notably, campers are deeper into the planning and booking phases than general leisure travelers. Only 9% of non-camping travelers have booked their trips for the year.

“Campers are an especially fervent group of travel enthusiasts, and we can especially see this in how they plan,” said Whitney Scott, senior vice president of strategy at Kampgrounds of America, Inc. “This group looks forward to time spent in nature and plans accordingly to secure their favorite campgrounds and campsites.”

The report also gave an overview of a robust camping off-season that saw more campers than ever before. Winter camping, which does not include snowbirding, saw an additional 1.3 million households bringing the 2023 end-of-season total to over 8.2 million who camped during the colder months. Impressively, the totality of off-season camping brought an estimated 6.15 million new campers to the activity.

“Our research shows that campers look forward to new experiences and adventures,” Scott said. “The changing seasons offer new ways to experience nature that directly affect the growth of winter and off-season camping. We expect to see even more growth during this half of the year in the future.”

The April report also shared that March camping increased by more than 3 million households year-over-year. This continues a multi-month growth trend in the camping market that is expected to continue.

To view the full findings of the KOA Monthly Research Report – April 2023 Edition, past and future editions, and review the research methodology, visit the KOA Press Room.