Average age of TM users and campers

I've been into camping for quite some time now, mostly offroad mountain trips with a tent in Tian Shan Mountains. I'm 35 years old now, have been in the US for 6 years and never gone out since arrival. Now I'm thinking getting back to having outings... and on a TM.

Reading different topics I mostly notice that the majority of campers pre-retire/retire age couples, but what about the rest of the population? I'm just wondering, who would I meet at a campground when pull in.

I'm 35, wife 31, two girls 7 and 5; mother-in-law fifty something (usually with us)

[B_and_D]

It probably depends on where you go. Around here, you'll find all ages. Certain types of RV parks and certain areas in the US draw an older crowd (snowbirds).

I agree, unless you are in a certain type of RV park or area, the Walmart answer is a good one. Before getting into RVing last Fall, I was thinking most persons would be retired or close to it. However, I've since found that all ages enjoy camping and RVing, including some of my friends that I didn't know had RVs. As you would expect, there are more younger couples and children on week-ends and holidays. It's probably safe to generalize that most motorhomes are owned by older couples and most tents and pop-ups are owned by younger adults.

Yee, that's scary.

[tucsoncarol]

Originally Posted by voluhziA

Yee, that's scary.

You are right. That's what I thought when I first read it. Texas Camper, however, doesn't know my local Walmart. I gather that he is saying a wide variety of people and he is right. In the most recent campground we visited we met a young couple from Alaska who were visiting relatives, an older couple who never forgave us for having a nicer spot than they (the wife I should say, the husband was nice-ish), a former biker (long hair, beard, wallet chained to his pants and all) in a motor-home with at least a half-dozen miniature pinschers whom he adored, a very young couple with two small girls (under five) that were being taught to fish by "daddy" (brave man) and a middle aged man who seemed nice enough but refused to speak to anyone, for any reason (Yes, he did hear. He just didn't want to speak.). Not all trips are that exotic, but it does go to show that all sorts of people love to camp.

It's not about economic class, I just imagined that only campers and trailers are going to be different on the campground (so many different manufacturer as I found out), everything else is the same, same cloth, shose, chairs, grills, because the majority of campers just shopped at the same discount superstore. I just did not want to start discussions and arguments about Wal-Mart as a merchant.

By the way, the question was about age. I can guess only that by 55-60 a household get off of most of the mortgages, loans, kids' colledge loans etc... and start kinda more enjoing themselves without worrying about payments and stuff....

On the other hand, I looked at some Class A Motorhomes prices, damn...

By the way nowadays you'd probably have more chances find english speaking people on opera or ballet parking lot where you can borrow a cellphone and call AAA (gotta press one to continue in Enflish though)

[B_and_D]

Originally Posted by voluhziA

By the way, the question was about age. I can guess only that by 55-60 a household get off of most of the mortgages, loans, kids' colledge loans etc... and start kinda more enjoing themselves without worrying about payments and stuff....

We find that camping in our TM makes for a very economical family vacation, even with the depreciation on the unit (we bought ours used). We can spend our annual summer vacation, in our wonderful TM, in a beautiful lakeshore campsite for about $20 per night, with free boat docking for our brother in law. If we had to rent a house it would be probably $150 or more a night, plus we can bring our cat along, and it's almost impossible to find a vacation rental that allows this. Since we were in our late 20's, we've had a cabover camper (bought used), and also a small, older trailer (free, just needed a lot of elbow grease), and now our TM. Our kids have camped in all of them and are still going camping with us at ages 16 and 19. For us, it doesn't have to be new, it just has to be functional and clean. We had a lot of great family times together in our (free) 12' Aloha trailer with our kids when they were small that we will never forget, and a lot of good times in our TM, too (plus in the cabover). We've also had some great times in our tents over the years, before we had the cabover camper, and in between times when we had an RV.

It's (VERY) nice to have the TM, but even if we couldn't afford it, we'd still be camping in something.

I'd like to soften the ongoing off-topic communication by this (something bilingual):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOTpIVxji8

...and come back to the topic

[B_and_D]

I posted a poll, I hope you can see the results as a trial member.