Everyone Wants to Camp. Almost Nobody Is Building Campgrounds.

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  Recreational vehicles on serviced sites along a campground internal road

Fifty-two million American and Canadian households went camping last year. The private industry that houses them added new sites at roughly two tenths of one percent. The reason is buried about four feet under the parking pad.

Between 2024 and the early months of 2026, trade press documented 31 new campgrounds opening across the United States and Canada, carrying 4,146 sites, plus another 1,570 sites added to 36 existing parks. Call it 5,716 new campsites in something over two years.

Set that against a private inventory of roughly 1.3 million campsites at more than 16,200 parks.

That is net supply growth of about two tenths of one percent per year. Even the fuller forward pipeline, which counts roughly 90 new campgrounds and 18,115 sites announced for delivery between 2023 and 2027, would add under one percent annually if every single project actually gets built. Many will not.

Now hold that against demand. Kampgrounds of America's 2026 camping report, released in April, found just over 52 million North American households camped during 2025. Chief executive Toby O'Rourke described participation as sitting at nearly identical levels year over year and most key data points as having stabilized. Local community spending tied to camping reached about 66 billion dollars, up roughly 5 billion from the prior year.

So this is not a boom story. Participation peaked above 58 million households in 2022 and has drifted down since. What it is instead is a market where demand has settled at a structurally elevated plateau while supply has effectively stopped moving.

The obvious explanation would be capital. It is not capital. Small Business Administration 7(a) and 504 lending both serve this asset class, 504 with down payments as low as ten percent, and Department of Agriculture Business and Industry guarantees reach 85 percent on loans under five million dollars in eligible rural areas. Money is available.

The actual explanation is that a campground is not a hospitality project. It is a utility project wearing a hospitality project's clothes, and the number that determines whether it works is a wastewater flow calculation performed by an engineer long before anyone prices a shower house.

What the plateau actually looks like

It is worth being precise about demand, because most writing in this space still uses 2021 vocabulary.

The 2026 KOA report drew on 4,088 completed surveys, 2,834 in the United States and 1,254 in Canada. It found household participation flat, spending up, and one clear structural shift: glamping accounted for 29 percent of camping trips in 2025. Thirty-one percent of campers said they intend to spend more nights camping in 2026 than they did in 2025.

Flat households and rising spending means the same number of people paying more per trip, which is a mix shift toward higher-priced accommodation rather than a participation surge.

The recreational vehicle side tells a compatible story. Wholesale shipments bottomed at 313,174 units in 2023, recovered to 333,733 in 2024, and reached 342,220 in 2025, a 2.5 percent gain and the second consecutive annual increase. Towables dominated at 306,191 units against 36,029 motorhomes and 4,305 park models. That is a modest recovery off a real trough, not a second pandemic wave.

Glamping itself is genuinely growing, though the market sizing is a mess. One US-specific estimate puts the domestic glamping market at 746.75 million dollars in 2025 growing to 1.43 billion by 2031. Global estimates from different publishers range from 2.6 billion to 4.22 billion dollars for the same year, which tells you more about methodology than about the market. The more reliable signal is institutional behavior: Marriott acquired Postcard Cabins in December 2024, Hyatt entered an alliance with Under Canvas in July 2024, and Hilton partnered with AutoCamp in February 2024. Three global hotel brands took positions in outdoor lodging inside thirteen months.

The public system is the reason flat demand feels like scarcity

Here is the mechanism that explains why campers experience a shortage even though participation has not grown.

American camping capacity is majority public by campground count and majority private by campsite count. Research for the RV Industry Association found the split running roughly 45 percent private and 55 percent public by number of campgrounds, but about 72 percent private and 28 percent public by number of sites, because private campgrounds average around 124 sites while public parks average around 40. Only 8 percent of public campsites offer full hookups. Fifty-one percent of private sites do.

That public inventory is under visible strain.

The National Park Service deferred maintenance backlog stood at 24.237 billion dollars at the end of fiscal 2025, according to Congressional Research Service analysis, up 108 percent in nominal terms from 11.607 billion in fiscal 2017. The Great American Outdoors Act had been supplying 1.330 billion dollars a year toward that backlog through its Legacy Restoration Fund. That authorization expired at the end of fiscal 2025 with no replacement enacted. Combined deferred maintenance across the federal land agencies exceeds 35 billion dollars.

Staffing moved the same direction. In early 2025 roughly 1,000 Park Service employees and about 3,400 Forest Service workers were cut. By July, the National Parks Conservation Association counted about 90 national parks reporting staffing impacts, with nearly 70 reducing visitor center hours or services, 22 postponing maintenance and 11 closing or delaying the opening of facilities. A Forest Service memo reported in March 2025 indicated that nearly 4,000 campsites across California's 18 national forests could close for part or all of that summer. A 43-day federal shutdown in October and November 2025 closed hundreds of remote recreation sites outright.

The camper-side data matches. The Dyrt's 2025 camping report found that 56.1 percent of campers had difficulty booking a site in 2024 because campgrounds were full. The 2022 figure was 58.4 percent. In 2019, before any of this, it was 10.6 percent.

So the scarcity is real, and it is not primarily a demand story. Public capacity is shrinking at the margin, private capacity is not growing, and the overflow lands on private operators. Pennsylvania reported state campground reservations up 37 percent in one 2025 season, attributed partly to federal closures.

Treat that as a well-supported inference rather than a measured elasticity. Nobody has published a pass-through number. But the direction is not in doubt.

The finding: flow, not zoning, sets your density

Now to the part that changes how a site should be underwritten.

Ask a developer how many sites fit on a parcel and they will quote the zoning ordinance. Reasonable enough. Local codes cap campground density explicitly, and the caps cluster in a narrow band. Garrett County, Maryland allows an average of 10 sites per net acre with a maximum of 15 on any single acre. Eloy, Arizona permits 10 sites per gross acre on a minimum five-acre parcel. Alamosa County, Colorado caps average density at 8 per acre. Virginia's state code sets 20 sites per acre inclusive of roads and buildings, with a minimum 1,600 square feet per site. Maurice River Township in New Jersey allows 6 sites per gross acre, and just one per acre inside the Pinelands Forest Area.

Those numbers are real and they are binding. They are also, on most parcels, not the constraint that actually decides the site plan.

The constraint is the wastewater flow calculation, and it is set by a completely different agency using a completely different logic.

State health and environmental codes size onsite wastewater systems by projected daily flow per site, and the flow figure varies by hookup level. Michigan's campground rules are typical and unusually legible: 75 gallons per day for a site with water and sewer, 150 gallons per day for a site serving a single-section park model unit, and 30 gallons per day for a primitive site. Service buildings carry their own allocation.

Run that arithmetic on a 100-site park.

Site type	Flow allowance per site	100 sites	What that requires
Primitive, no hookups	30 gallons per day	3,000 gpd	Conventional septic, multiple tanks and drainfields
Full hookup, water and sewer	75 gallons per day	7,500 gpd	Engineered system or package treatment plant
Park model units	150 gallons per day	15,000 gpd	Package treatment plant, effectively a small utility

The decision to offer full hookups instead of primitive sites, which reads on a pro forma as a rate premium and a marketing choice, multiplies required treatment capacity by two and a half times. Going to park models multiplies it by five.

And treatment capacity is where cost stops being linear. Individual septic tanks with minimal drainfield run on the order of ten to fifteen thousand dollars installed. Engineered systems price well above that: aerobic treatment units at twelve to twenty-five thousand, mound systems at fifteen to thirty, sand filters at fifteen to thirty-five, constructed wetlands at eight to twenty. A park needing 15,000 gallons a day is not buying tanks. It is building a small municipal utility on a retail site, with an operator, a permit and a monitoring regime.

Which means the practical density on a given parcel is whatever the soil will accept, and the soil does not read the zoning ordinance.

Percolation testing and soil investigation have to happen before a drainfield can be sited at all. Poor soils force the expensive engineered systems, and can cap density well below the zoning maximum or make a parcel infeasible outright. Diligence checklists in this sector name the failure modes plainly, and the two that recur are septic capacity and electrical capacity.

The consequence for anyone modeling a campground is straightforward and widely ignored. Do not calculate site count from acreage and the density cap. Calculate it from percolation results and the state flow allowance for the hookup level you intend to sell, then check that number against the zoning cap. The lower of the two governs, and it is usually the first one.

Where the money actually goes

That insight reorders the budget, because it explains why the largest line item in a campground development is invisible from the road.

The per-site construction cost of the visible product is modest. A tent site runs roughly three to fifteen thousand dollars once cleared, leveled and equipped. A full-hookup recreational vehicle site runs roughly fifteen to fifty thousand dollars including grading, roads and utility connections, with premium utility-ready pads modeled as high as forty to seventy thousand in 2026 pricing. Cabins start around twenty-five thousand for the structure. Glamping units vary enormously by type: safari tents from roughly thirty-six hundred to sixty thousand dollars depending on size and finish, yurts and geodesic domes commonly fifteen to thirty thousand for a quality shell, tiny homes from twenty-five thousand. Add roughly five hundred to three thousand per site for prep and one to three thousand per unit for furnishings.

Now the infrastructure underneath.

Electrical hookups run roughly two to five thousand dollars per site. Water and sewer connections run roughly three to seven thousand per site. On a 100-site park that alone reaches five hundred thousand to 1.2 million dollars before a single cabin is delivered. Internal roads cost four to ten dollars per square foot in gravel, which works out to eighty thousand to two hundred thousand for a twenty-acre park, or seven to fifteen dollars per square foot in asphalt, which doubles it. Clearing and grading runs eight to twelve thousand dollars per acre. Bathhouses and comfort stations cost 150 to 350 dollars per square foot, and their size is set by code rather than by preference.

One published development model for a mid-size park put total capital expenditure at 1,245,000 dollars, with utility infrastructure installation the single largest line at 450,000 and site grading and preparation at 150,000. Industry ranges for a new park cluster at 500,000 dollars to over 2 million, with 2026 modeling for a competitive mid-size park landing at 1.2 to 2.5 million and above.

Two structural facts follow from those numbers.

The first is that infrastructure and shared facilities consume 25 to 40 percent of the land area. The acreage that appears on the deed is not the acreage that generates revenue, and the gap is larger than in almost any other commercial format.

The second is that the most variable and least predictable line in the budget is the one determined by soil, water table and distance to three-phase power. Two adjacent parcels with identical zoning and identical acreage can differ by several hundred thousand dollars in development cost based on percolation results and utility proximity. That variance is not diversifiable and it is not visible from a site visit.

On the revenue side, the benchmarks are steadier. Standard sites command roughly thirty to eighty dollars a night, premium sites fifty to 150, and glamping units 150 to 300. Blended annual occupancy typically runs 50 to 70 percent, with strong operators above 70. Ancillary revenue from stores, laundry and services contributes 15 to 25 percent of the top line at well-run parks. Operating expenses generally consume 50 to 70 percent of revenue. Stabilized parks commonly trade at fifteen to forty thousand dollars per site.

Compare that last figure to the fifteen to fifty thousand dollar cost of building a site and the development math becomes clear. There is real margin in a well-sited park and almost none in a badly sited one, and the difference is decided by the engineer, not the operator.

Two permits, two agencies, two clocks

The other reason supply moves slowly is that campgrounds are permitted twice, by different bodies, on different timelines.

Most developers know the local track. Campgrounds rarely fit standard zoning categories and are most often approved by conditional use permit or special use permit rather than by right. The recurring levers are minimum acreage, the density caps discussed above, setbacks and buffers, and length-of-stay limits. Eloy caps stays at 180 days per calendar year and prohibits permanent residency. Garrett County requires sites at least 75 feet from an abutting road right of way and 100 feet from any other boundary, with a minimum 25 feet between a site and any internal road or common area. Our earlier fifty-state regulatory matrix covers this territory in detail.

The track most developers discover late runs through the state health or environmental agency, and it is a separate license with its own submission requirements.

Indiana requires that construction or major alteration plans be drawn to scale, certified by a registered engineer or architect, and submitted at least 90 days before construction begins. Sites must be designated and numbered. Sewage must connect to public sewer where reasonably available, and individual sewer risers must be at least four inches and capped when not in use.

Michigan requires an annual operating license, imposes the flow figures cited above, and prescribes physical separation between sewer and water lines of ten feet horizontally and twelve inches vertically.

Pennsylvania requires plan submission to the Department of Health, with water supply and sewage disposal approval running under separate chapters of state environmental law.

Virginia requires pre-construction plans through the local health department showing sewage method and location, water source, and the number, location and dimensions of every site, plus at least one dump station per 200 sites unless every site has a direct sewer connection.

Massachusetts requires potable water piped to each campsite from an approved source, with partial exemptions for tent-only and backpacking campgrounds.

Colorado sets fixture ratios directly: one toilet and one lavatory per sex for every 15 campsites or fraction thereof, and one shower per sex per 30 campsites where dependent units are accommodated. Ohio requires toilet facilities within 1,000 feet walking distance of any site and requires state environmental approval for gray-water stations placed in a 100-year floodplain.

Read those together and a pattern appears. The state license is triggered by construction or expansion. It requires engineer-certified plans. It sets minimum standards on site area, water, sewage and fixtures. And it runs on a clock that in at least one state begins 90 days before ground is broken.

Neither permit substitutes for the other. A project can satisfy every element of the zoning ordinance and still be unbuildable because the health department will not accept the wastewater design, and the sequence matters, because the fixture ratios and flow allowances the state imposes change the site plan the zoning board reviewed.

A glamping tent is usually a building

One more code question, and it is the one where this asset class is changing fastest.

The relevant national standard is NFPA 1194, the Standard for Recreational Vehicle Parks and Campgrounds, which references the National Electrical Code and covers general design criteria, fire safety, environmental sanitation and wildland-urban interface areas. Its 2021 edition added provisions for grouped utility connection assemblies, pull-through sites and accessible camping unit sites, and it recognizes camping units broadly, including recreational vehicles, park trailers, camping cabins, housekeeping cabins, tents, teepees and yurts.

So a yurt is a camping unit under the applicable national standard.

Under local building code, however, a yurt on a permanent platform with electrical service, plumbing and a heating appliance starts to look like a structure. It raises foundation questions, egress questions, anchoring questions and inspection questions that a recreational vehicle parked on a gravel pad does not. The same is true of safari tents on decks and geodesic domes on piers.

This matters commercially because glamping is where the rate premium lives. Units renting at 150 to 300 dollars a night against thirty to eighty for a standard site are the reason a park's revenue per acre improves. But they carry permanent-structure review risk that the pro forma rarely prices, and they may push the property's classification away from campground and toward something else entirely.

The classification question is not academic. Federal industry classification separates recreational vehicle parks and campgrounds from recreational and vacation camps, and a property is coded by its primary revenue activity. A park whose core business is renting overnight sites sits in the first category. A property whose core business is an organized camp with cabins and programmed activities sits in the second. A park that drifts toward long-term residential lots drifts toward a third category entirely, and roughly 38 percent of tracked private parks already operate at least partly as long-term or residential communities.

Design the glamping component as potential permanent structures from the first plan set. Retrofitting foundations and egress after a plan check is expensive and slow.

The geometry, briefly

The physical standards are well established and our earlier design piece covers pad dimensions and road widths in depth, so only the load-bearing numbers appear here.

Back-in sites need roughly 20 by 40 feet at minimum. Standard pull-through sites run about 20 by 70. A full-size pull-through accommodating a Class A motorhome with a tow vehicle, or a large fifth wheel with its truck, wants about 24 by 100. Premium sites run 30 to 40 feet wide by 80 to 100 long. Maximum legal trailer width on the interstate system is 102 inches, which sets the floor for everything else.

Circulation is where layouts fail. A loop entry needs a minimum 40-foot outer turning radius, with 50 preferred, for a 45-foot motorhome. A dead-end hammerhead turnaround needs roughly a 90-foot turning diameter for that same motorhome pulling a vehicle. A cul-de-sac wants about 80 feet of diameter. One-way loop roads run 12 to 18 feet wide, wider where traffic runs both directions. Every dead end needs either a second egress or a turnaround sized for a fire apparatus, which is a wildland-urban interface requirement as much as a convenience one.

Density in practice lands between six and fifteen sites per gross acre for most formats, before the flow calculation is applied.

Who owns this and what it is worth

The ownership picture divides sharply, and the two halves should be underwritten differently.

At the institutional end, Equity LifeStyle Properties reported 455 properties across 35 states and British Columbia with 173,341 sites as of the third quarter of 2025, across all its property types, and operates more than 220 recreational vehicle resorts and campgrounds under its Thousand Trails and Encore brands. Sun Communities closed the 5.65 billion dollar sale of Safe Harbor Marinas to Blackstone Infrastructure during 2025 and repositioned as a pure-play manufactured housing and recreational vehicle owner, with those two segments expected to represent roughly 90 percent of net operating income. Kampgrounds of America operates the largest franchise network at more than 500 owned and franchised campgrounds, roughly 90 percent of them franchisee-operated.

At the other end sit the independents, which by most counts represent between 78 and 88 percent of American parks. Family-owned, operationally intensive, and priced accordingly.

Capitalization rates reflect that split. Stable, well-located parks cluster around 8 to 10 percent, with premium assets in strong secondary markets trading as tight as roughly 6.25 percent and smaller or higher-risk parks reaching 12. The institutional resort segment prices meaningfully tighter than the independent segment for the same nominal asset class.

Transaction volume softened. James Cook of Yale Realty and Capital Advisors told trade press that sales of recreational vehicle parks were down 80 percent and that most parks were down 3 to 5 percent in occupancy that year. Brokers expected 2025 volume to improve on 2024 as rates stabilized, with private equity backed buyers taking a larger share.

None of which changes the development conclusion. In a market where existing parks trade at fifteen to forty thousand dollars per site and new sites cost fifteen to fifty thousand to build, acquisition and expansion of an already-permitted property with proven utility capacity beats greenfield development on most parcels. The scarce asset is not the campground. It is the entitled, percolation-tested, power-served piece of ground.

What would change this

Three things, and none has happened.

If county-level business data or a directory census showed private site growth accelerating above roughly one percent a year, the scarcity thesis weakens materially. If camping households fell below about 50 million or spending contracted, this becomes a declining-demand story rather than a constrained-supply story. And if the Great American Outdoors Act restoration fund is reauthorized and federal recreation staffing is restored, the public-capacity mechanism that currently pushes overflow toward private operators loses force.

Watch the first one hardest, because it is the only one the industry controls.

For now the situation is stable in an uncomfortable way. Demand sits at a level the country has not built for. Public capacity is shrinking under a maintenance backlog that just lost its dedicated funding stream. Private supply grows at two tenths of a percent because every new park has to clear a wastewater design, a state license, a conditional use permit and a utility extension, in roughly that order of difficulty.

None of those is a marketing problem. All of them are decided on a plan set. Which is where anyone serious about this asset class should be spending their pre-development budget, well before they price the shower house.

Sources:

• Demand and participationKampgrounds of America North American Camping and Outdoor Hospitality Report, 2026 edition.

• RV Industry Association wholesale shipment data.

• The Dyrt annual camping report for booking difficulty.

• RV Industry Association campground market analysis for the public and private inventory split.

• Public capacityCongressional Research Service analysis of National Park Service deferred maintenance.

• Great American Outdoors Act Legacy Restoration Fund authorization and expiry. National Parks Conservation Association staffing impact tracking.

• SupplyWoodall's Campground Magazine and RV Business for new park openings and pipeline.

• RVParkIQ for private park and campsite counts.