Renting Dirt

The average length of time before an RV campground is put up for sale is just seven years--and as it turns out, there's a good reason for that. While campers are out to experience fresh air, bucolic surroundings and the easy-going camaraderie of fellow travelers, the people who create that environment are often over-worked, under-paid and stressed out. And to make matters worse, their efforts are too readily dismissed as just "renting dirt." This frank, first-hand narrative describes one couple's journey from wide-eyed occasional campers to full-time owners and operators of a medium-sized campground and RV park in the Shenandoah Valley. Buying in early 2013, as the campground industry was just regaining its feet after the Great Recession, the Zipser family soon realized that managing the property was not their biggest challenge--it was managing the people: campers with diverse and often unrealistic expectations, a franchise system led by a brain trust without much operational experience, a transient workforce with employees stuck on the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Each of these challenges was addressed by the Zipsers over the next eight years, most notably by exiting the KOA system and using the savings to improve pay and working conditions. At the same time, however, larger developments were reshaping the entire campground experience. A trend toward more creature comforts--including significant inroads by the digital world--and less tolerance for nature's discomforts gathered strength. Corporate buyers became more active in consolidating the industry. Climate change and extreme weather became more pronounced, battering campgrounds from coast to coast and causing many owners to question the long-term viability of their operations. And then the pandemic hit, turning what had been shaping up as a record-breaking 2020 into a roller-coaster ride of government orders, RVers clamoring for a place to stay and a severely curtailed workforce that never increased enough to adequately meet demand. By late fall, the Zipsers were wide-eyed no longer and ready to call it quits--and when a buyer unexpectedly showed up they did just that, selling yet another family-owned business to a corporate buyer.