Camping surge

Camping and outdoor visiting is booming during the pandemic.

The future.

Despite a global pandemic shutting down businesses and forcing americans to stay inside for months on end, record numbers of people flocked to tennessee state parks throughout 2020.

In fact, according to the tennessee department of environment and conservation, four of the top ten camping months ever for state parks happened in 2020.

However, the surge in camping isn't limited to just state parks.

Hugh morrow of ruby falls says that they're also seen a massive uptick.

"we have seen quite a bit of camping and trailer activity parked in our parking lot with people moving around.

I know that my friends at teedeck that manage our state parks have seen unprecedented numbers this year with camping.

I think, one of them told me the other day that june, july, and october are the top three camping months they've had in the history of the state parks."

With people stuck inside due the lockdowns last spring, the lookout mountain koa says that they've seen record numbers of outdoor camping as well as rv rentals.

"people want to get out.

After the lockdown kind of released some of the restrictions we saw a major increase of people who have probably never camped before or might have only camped when they were young with their dad or uncle or something like that.

So we saw a lot of new campers.

We had to teach a lot of people how to make a campfire."

Brian kacvinsky says that even saw increased demand in the winter months, something that he says is highly unusual.

"constant sellouts almost every night, which we've never seen before.

And we've even taken it all the way into the extended season,