Wall Street Took Over Your Campground. And Your RV Brand. And Your Dealership.
RV Podcast - Stories From The Road
Mike Wendland
4.5 • 704 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Campground prices have exploded - and the experience hasn't kept up. In this week's RV Podcast News Edition, we're calling it what it is: the Campground Quality Collapse. A brand-new analysis of 609,000 pricing data points across 2,100+ private campgrounds shows the national median nightly RV site rate is now $62.10, up dramatically from pre-pandemic prices of $35 to $45. We'll tell you who's behind it, what corporate consolidation and dynamic pricing mean for your travel budget, and what you can actually do about it.
We also dig into the biggest RV industry story of the week: Thor Industries is reorganizing its brands, and Tiffin Motorhomes is now under Jayco's authority. What does that mean for Tiffin owners and buyers? We have the details - including the untold story of Leigh Tiffin's quiet 20-month exit plan.
Plus: RV shipments dropped nearly 11% to start 2026, Camping World posted $6.4 billion in sales but saw its stock crater, and Love's Travel Stops just made their rewards program available to all drivers with real fuel savings for RVers.
Every story is fully sourced. Show notes and links at RVPodcast.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everybody. I'm Mike Wendland, and welcome to this week's edition of the RV podcast news edition, |
| 0:09.2 | five stories today and a lot of ground to cover. But a quick note on how we do things here. |
| 0:14.4 | We're journalists. Every story is sourced. No press releases, no campfire rumors, and when we make a claim, |
| 0:20.7 | there's a document, a filing, a news reportfire rumors. And when we make a claim, there's a document, |
| 0:21.9 | a filing, a news report behind it. And every source is listed in the show notes that you'll find |
| 0:27.9 | for this episode at RVpodcast.com. So if something sparks a question today, you want to dig deeper, |
| 0:34.2 | that's where you go. That's the journalism difference in this podcast. I spent almost |
| 0:38.6 | 40 years as a journalist. So I want you to understand that this is sourced for you to see where we're |
| 0:46.8 | getting our information from. Now, before we get in today's stories, a quick word about something |
| 0:51.9 | coming up fast that I don't want you to miss. |
| 0:54.9 | March 12th, 7 p.m. Eastern, that's two weeks away. We're doing a live interactive online |
| 1:00.6 | workshop. We're calling it the RV Lifestyle Spring Prep Workshop. And if you're planning any kind |
| 1:06.9 | of travel this spring or this summer, this one is for you. We're going to walk you through |
| 1:11.1 | maintenance preparation and a lot more. It's going to be live. It's interactive. You can ask |
| 1:16.5 | questions in real time. And here's the thing. We're giving away a special spring maintenance guide |
| 1:23.0 | ebook free to everybody who registers just for signing up. |
| 1:28.0 | As soon as you sign up, you get the book. |
| 1:30.4 | And then you can come back March 12th for the workshop. |
| 1:33.5 | Spots are limited, and they're going fast. |
| 1:35.7 | Cost is just $10.00. |
| 1:37.1 | It's free to RVcommunity.com members, but $10 for non-members. |
| 1:41.8 | Go to RV Lifestyle.com slash workshop. |
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