RVs are out, #vanlife is in

There was a time when I nearly succumbed to the siren song of #vanlife. My wife was working as a travel nurse—I tagged along as a writer/entrepreneur—which meant that, for two years, we moved to a new city every three months. I thought about purchasing an RV on numerous occasions. It would’ve made a ton of sense over short-term apartment rentals, but I couldn’t bring myself to put down the cash—or take showers under a bag with a hole poked in it.

Nevertheless, during my research of the RV industry, I couldn’t help but notice a trend: We’re smack dab in the middle of a one-hundred billion dollar industry undergoing a transformation.

According to a 2019 study by the RV Industry Association, the RV industry has an economic impact of $114B—that’s 2.2% of the entire US GDP. Nearly 25 million Americans—equal to the entire population of Australia—travel the open roads in an RV every year.