Meet some happy campers.
Sales professional Bennett Prescott, 36, and his family usually spend summers adventuring far from their home in Wallingford, Conn. His job keeps him traveling more than half the year anyway, while his 38-year-old science-teacher wife, Selena Gell, gets time off. Last year, the couple, with toddler Jacob, made stops in Fire Island, N.Y.; Oregon; Italy; and Norway.
But as coronavirus risks loom for the third month and protests crop up across the country, a mobile retreat in rural America seems like the ideal escape. So, in May, Prescott and Gell booked a 32-foot-long RV through rent-from-owner listings site RVShare. On Saturday, they packed camping gear, cooking supplies, their bikes and pup Edison into their new house-on-wheels – a Class A 2015 THOR Motor Coach Ace 30.2 – and headed west.
Click here to read the full story in the New York Post by Shayne Benowitz
“I’m a lot happier on this trip, where we have a lot of distractions and goals to look forward to and beautiful places to stay,” said Prescott, who is avoiding stops in major cities as riots ripple through them in response to George Floyd’s death last week at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The family, wearing masks and staying far from others to prevent virus transmission, has a flexible itinerary. “We’re going to plan as we go. It’s thrilling.”
Akin to protected bubbles, RVs allow for easy movement while maintaining social-distancing and quarantine-like conditions. Their allure during the pandemic and civil unrest is undeniable: RV rentals have increased 1,000 percent since April, while RV sales jumped 600 percent in the same time period, according to the RV Industry Association and Kampgrounds of America (KOA). More than 25 million Americans will go RVing this summer, estimates the association, which also found that 80 percent of recent buyers are first-time owners.
