The Dyrt has released its 2024 Camping Report Presented by The All-New Toyota Tacoma, which it says is the most in-depth and comprehensive look at the camping industry to date.
This year, Toyota partnered with The Dyrt to help drive the discovery of the trends and patterns that are shaping the future of camping. The report is compiled from the results of surveys conducted with three groups – 7,000 members of The Dyrt camper community, a representative sample of 1,000 U.S. residents and camping property managers across all 50 states. It found that an estimated 84.8 million Americans went camping in 2023, and 5.5 million of those were first-time campers. This brings the total number of new campers since 2021 to more than 20 million.
Such dramatic growth in camping has increased demand. In 2023, 45.5% of campers reported difficulty booking a site because a campground was sold out. It was four-times harder to find an available campsite to book than it was in 2019, when just 10.6% of campers reported difficulty. Yet, this number is down from a peak of 58.4% in 2022, likely because campgrounds are responding to that demand: Half of camping properties surveyed reported adding sites last year.
“We are in the new golden age of camping,” said The Dyrt CEO Kevin Long. “The demand for camping has never been greater, but technology is making it easier to find camping and property owners are rapidly expanding. As a result, campers have more options than ever before.”
Interest in RV camping continued to grow with 46.8% of respondents indicating that RV or trailer was their primary type of camping, an increase of 10.9% over 2022. Overland and truck camping also saw a surge in interest with 7.3% of respondents saying they preferred to four-wheel their way into the outdoors.
“Free camping” is another trend that continues to grow. The report found that nearly two thirds of campers camped for free in 2023, up from just one third in 2019. The Dyrt launched multiple features last year to help campers find free camping, including maps of 19,000 overnight parking, dump station and water station locations and a curated collection of 5,000 car-accessible free camping locations.
“It’s so fascinating to see dramatic increases in free camping, RVing and overlanding all in the same year,” said The Dyrt founder Sarah Smith. “It goes to show that there are so many ways to camp, and that campers continue to explore new ways to enjoy the great outdoors.”
The Dyrt’s 2024 Camping Report presented by the new Toyota Tacoma includes new findings on camping vehicles. Campers listed “truck” as the most ideal vehicle type for camping, though trucks ranked second behind SUVs for the type of vehicle most campers own. That may change, however, because a majority of campers said they plan to purchase a vehicle in the next five years.
“Camping is such a rapidly evolving space,” said Angie White, senior manager of media for Toyota Motor North America. “We’re looking forward to seeing media and organizations across the outdoors, travel, automotive and other industries dig into this data and share how Americans camp.”
Read the full 2024 report here.