Seven Hard Truths About RVing in 2026
RV Podcast - Stories From The Road
Mike Wendland
4.5 • 704 Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Good morning, and welcome to the RV Lifestyle Podcast Monday News Edition. I'm Mike Wendland - journalist, multi-Emmy Award-winning reporter, and a guy who's been living the RV lifestyle for more than 15 years.
This week, something a little different.
Over the past few months, we've been getting a steady stream of listener questions and feedback about some bigger, harder topics. Not just "where should I camp next" stuff. Real questions about the state of the RV industry, about prices, about quality, about the future of our National Parks, and about whether social media is selling people a fantasy version of this lifestyle that doesn't match reality.
So today, I'm going to tackle seven of the biggest ones head-on.
No spin. No cheerleading. Just straight talk - the same way I tried to do things in a thirty-plus year journalism career.
This is the Monday News Edition of the RV Lifestyle Podcast, dropping every Monday morning at 6 AM with news, industry developments, campground updates, and National Park happenings that matter to RV owners and travelers. It's one of two episodes we do each week. Jennifer joins me every Wednesday on Stories from the Road, with destinations, interviews, and your questions.
► If you want help planning and organizing your own RV trips, we have put all our guides, tools, RV travel apps and checklists together in one place.
You will find it all https://rvlifestyle.com/plan
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning, good morning, and welcome to the RV Lifestyle podcast Monday News Edition. I'm Mike Wedd, a guy who's been living in the RV lifestyle for more than 15 years now. This week, we're going to do something a little bit different with our Monday podcast. Over the past few months, we have been getting a steady stream of listener questions and feedback about some of the |
| 0:22.9 | bigger and the harder topics we've addressed in this Monday podcast. Not just where should I camp next |
| 0:29.3 | stuff, but real questions about the state of the RV industry, about prices, about quality, |
| 0:35.6 | about the future of our national parks, and about whether social media is selling |
| 0:40.1 | people a fantasy version of this lifestyle that doesn't match reality. So today I'm going to tackle |
| 0:47.3 | seven of the biggest ones head on. No spin here. There's going to be no cheerleading. I'm just going to give you straight talk. |
| 0:56.3 | The same way I tried to do things in a 30-plus year journalism career. |
| 1:01.6 | So this is the Monday news edition of the RV Lifestyle podcast, and we drop this every Monday morning at 6 a.m. |
| 1:08.6 | And normally we fill it up with news and industry developments and |
| 1:12.4 | campground updates, national park happenings, that sort of stuff. Things that matter to |
| 1:17.2 | RV owners and travelers. And it's one of two episodes of the podcast that we do every week. |
| 1:23.3 | Jennifer joins me on Wednesdays for our stories from the Road edition, and that has destinations |
| 1:30.1 | and interviews and answers a lot more of your questions. And you can find complete show notes, |
| 1:35.4 | by the way, for everything we're going to talk about today, and all of our links at RVpodcast.com. |
| 1:41.2 | All right, let's get to it. Question number one, is the RV industry officially in trouble? |
| 1:49.0 | Absolutely. |
| 1:50.1 | And the numbers prove it, no matter how much the RV media and the industry tries to |
| 1:56.8 | gloss it over. |
| 1:58.0 | The RV Industry Association reports that wholesale RV shipments are now down |
| 2:01.3 | more than 12% through the first quarter of 26. March alone dropped nearly 14% compared to a year ago. |
| 2:08.8 | January and February were bad too. Folks, this isn't a little slowdown. This is a sustained downturn. |
| 2:15.7 | And honestly, none of this should surprise anybody. |
... |
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