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Survey Indicates 56 Million Americans Plan To RV This Summer

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By NPT Staff - May 20th, 2021
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RV travel is expected to surge again this year/NPS file

The RV boom that rolled across the United States last year, as Americans sought a way to get outdoors and protect themselves from Covid-19, will continue this year, with a survey indicating that 56 million will take an RV trip this year.

The survey, conducted for the RV Industry Association, involved 180 million leisure travelers. Thirty-one percent said they were planning to take an RV vacation this year.

“More and more Americans are ready to travel this summer and 56 million of them are planning to go RVing in an RV they rent, own, or borrow,” said RVIA President and CEO Craig Kirby. “Even with other forms of travel returning, the desire to use an RV to get outdoors and experience an active outdoor lifestyle is stronger than ever. RVing has been cemented as a mainstream travel option that is here to stay.”

Asked their reasons for considering RV travel, the respondents cited an interest in exploring the great outdoors, flexibility to work or attend school remotely, and a desire to travel with children and family members as their top three motivations. The least popular response was unreadiness to take other kinds of trips.

The survey data reveals 90 percent of leisure travelers plan to travel this summer and 60 percent of leisure travelers plan to travel more or the same amount in the next six months. The desire to travel is even stronger among RVers, 91 percent of whom said they plan on traveling more or the same amount in the next six months.

“Interestingly, a full 10 percent of current non-RVers plan to travel in an RV this summer,” said Kirby, who noted that a quarter of leisure travelers are considering the purchase of an RV in the coming months. “That’s great news for the RV industry as it strives to meet the record-breaking demand for RVs.”

The survey also showed that RVing is a year-round activity with 65 million Americans planning to take an RV trip in the next year and 34 percent of leisure travelers planning on renting an RV in the next year.


Commissioned by the RV Industry Association and conducted by Cairn Consulting, 1,276 surveys were completed by a statistically balanced cross section of U.S. leisure travelers. The survey results have an associated margin of error of +/- 2.74 percentage points. Leisure travelers are defined as any U.S. residents who has taken some type of leisure trip in the past 12 months.

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