Fueling Ingenuity

Economic forecasts are about as reliable as weather forecasts. In other words, there’s a lot of uncertainty, so anyone trying to forecast RV sales is unlikely to hit it on the nose.

Still, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) is in as good a position as anyone to forecast the future of the industry, and its experts think RV shipments will decline about 5 percent this year. RV shipments were off about 10 percent in 2007 from the record year of 2006. This year’s forecast is based on the belief that home and gas prices will stabilize in the middle of the year, leading to an economic recovery.

Meanwhile, the long-term outlook for the industry is rosy, the RVIA believes. Ownership of RVs is at its highest level ever, with 7.9 million RVs on the road today, and the number of RV-owning households is expected to reach 8.5 million by 2010.

One of the reasons that predicting RV sales or making other economic forecasts is so difficult is that the economy depends on so many individual decisions. How will consumers react, for example, if gas hits $4 a gallon?

One Michigan RV dealer said, “RVers are a different breed. They don’t come in worrying about the price of gas. If they’re worrying, it’s about what the weather will be like this weekend.” The dealer was quoted in a story in the Lansing State Journal that also quoted a potential RV buyer as saying he wouldn’t buy an RV unless it got good gas mileage. Clearly gas prices matter to some and not others.

The pinch of higher gas prices seems to be one explanation for the results of a poll conducted by RVtravel.com. The Internet site polled its readers in 2006 to find out how many planned to buy a new RV and 20 percent said they did. But when the question was asked again recently, only 7 percent said they intended to buy an RV in the coming year.

High gas prices cannot only affect RV sales, but also influence vacation plans. People may take shorter trips if gas prices and other expenses rise faster than their income. That’s the thought behind a feature in our magazine this month that is excerpted from Woodall’s 2008 North American Campground Directory. Woodall’s has compiled what it calls “One-Tank Trips,” which are trips that can be completed economically on one tank of gas. The trip we feature in this issue is in Arizona, but the Woodall’s directory includes other trips in regions throughout the country.

Of course, there are ways to save on travel besides limiting fuel costs. In this month’s issue, Dave Helgeson reports on a place in the California desert where you can live in your RV without cost—or amenities. It is an abandoned military training center that has been reborn as an RVing haven called Slab City. The rent may be free but you pay a price in the summer when the temperature hits 120 degrees.

The need to save money always engenders creativity, and that’s certainly reflected in Slab City. I don’t know if saving the cost of a boat was the motivation, but a couple of fishermen in Oregon have found a way to fish in the middle of the Columbia River by catapulting their line from shore. Holt Webb came across this oddity during his Vanishing America project, a journey across the country to photograph disappearing features of American life. You can read Holt’s report on this unusual fishing technique in this issue.

And speaking of ingenuity, we direct you to Kathy Stanger’s story on the oddly named Hole N” the Rock attraction in Utah. It began as an effort to create a restaurant inside a rock formation by blasting through sandstone, and it is now the site of a house and gift shop. You would think this place might be called the Hole ‘n the Rock, not Hole N” the rock, but it was built by miners, not English majors.

Clearly, there is a lot of ingenuity on display as you travel across the country, and finding it is worth the trip, even if gas costs too much.