Booking a Campsite Is Three Times Harder Than It Was Pre-Pandemic

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Apr 12, 2022, 08:42 ET

PORTLAND, Ore., April 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dyrt, the No. 1 app for camping with the most active online camping community, found that it was three times more difficult to find an available campsite to book in 2021 than it was in 2019. This information is part of the recently released 2022 Camping Report.

Percentage of campers who reported difficulty finding an available campsite.

"As the popularity of camping continues to rise — 8.3 million people went camping for the first time last year — campgrounds are increasingly booked up," says Kevin Long, CEO of The Dyrt. "The increase in the number of campers over the past few years has been very noticeable anecdotally. Now we have real numbers that support what we've been seeing and explain why people are having more difficulty making reservations."

According to the report, over 50 percent of RV and trailer campers book campsites at least a few months ahead. Despite high gas prices, availability at RV parks for this summer is already dwindling by the day. Overall, 53 percent of all campers reported booking at least a few weeks in advance.

The Dyrt looked at seven different types of camping — tent, RV, trailer, dispersed, cabin, backpacking and moto camping — and compared the difficulty of finding campsites from 2019 to 2021. Six of the seven more than doubled, led by trailer camping, which increased from 16 percent of campers reporting difficulty in 2019 to 55 percent last year.

Nearly half of all campers surveyed reported difficulty finding a campsite to book in 2021. Campers in the Mountain West reported the most difficulty (48 percent), followed by the West Coast (47 percent). New England was the least-difficult region in which to book camping, with just 37 percent of respondents encountering difficulty.

With campgrounds full, campers have had to get creative. The report found that winter is the fastest-growing camping season, up 40 percent since 2019, and that dispersed camping, or free camping on public lands, doubled in 2021. The Dyrt PRO provides dispersed camping maps.

The Dyrt introduced commission-free bookings for campgrounds last fall and is dedicated to expanding this new, more profitable model for private campgrounds in 2022. There are more than 44,000 campgrounds listed on The Dyrt.

About The Dyrt

The Dyrt's mission is to expand the camping community and help more people enjoy the outdoors. With over 30 million annual camper visits and 4 million user-generated reviews and photos for US campgrounds, The Dyrt is the No. 1 app for camping and the largest source of camping information. The Dyrt PRO enables campers to plan road trips, find free camping areas on public lands, use the app offline and more. www.thedyrt.com

Media Contact:

Maggie Fisher

860-526-1555

[email protected]

SOURCE The Dyrt