A Boomer Road Trip
Queen-size beds, showers, and kitchenettes: A grown-up generation finds RVs are today's version of the VW bus
Nick DiBlasi was never much for pitching tents. "If I wanted to go camping, I'd have joined the Marines," says the 52-year-old former Navy officer.
Not that the alternative was any better. Longtime Harley-Davidson enthusiasts, DiBlasi and his wife, Sheila, had grown weary of sleeping in hotels every time they hit the road. So three years ago, they tried something they never thought they'd be caught dead doing: They bought an RV.
"My wife used to call them snow-cone machines," DiBlasi says of the tacky land yachts they'd pass on the road, "because all the people driving them had white hair."
But the DiBlasis quickly found the view from behind the wheel of their 32-foot TropiCal motor home-which they picked up used for $20,000-wasn't all that bad. Nor was the queen-size bed, the onboard shower, or the kitchenette. In fact, they were so taken with the idea of camping in style that they soon traded up-not once but twice-most recently to a plush, $150,000 model.
"It's massive," DiBlasi boasts of the couple's 38-foot Newmar Kountry Star, which features four slide-out sections that accommodate dual facing sofas and a spacious master bedroom suite. "And it rides sweet, too."
Truckin'. With their kids out of the house and retirement on the horizon, baby boomers like the DiBlasis are taking to the RV lifestyle in a big way, plunking down big bucks for the latest middle-age status symbol: the pied-à-terre on wheels. Buyers ages 35 to 54 now represent the largest and fastest-growing segment of the $14 billion-a-year industry, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan, making up more than half of the 8 million RV-ing households in the United States, up about 15 percent since 2001.
Their collective wanderlust owes more to Willie Nelson than Jack Kerouac, who might well be shocked by the modern road trippers' far-from-simple lifestyle. Just like everything else their fat demographic touches, "they're completely reinventing what it means to go RV-ing," says Michigan researcher Richard Curtin. The never-so-healthy-or-so-wealthy generation shows a growing interest in upscale RV resorts and new condo parks featuring everything from day-spa treatments to WiFi Internet connections.
Not quite ready to utter the "R" word, some take full advantage of new technology to free themselves from their desks. "It was so easy," Ranae Salem says of a recent lakeside stopover in upstate New York, where her husband, Mark, positioned a satellite dish and transmitted the talk show he hosts on a Phoenix radio station from his onboard studio. "We just enjoyed the view while he did his show. Then we went for a walk."
Many start out the way the DiBlasis did, buying low-end models but quickly upgrading as they discover just how cushy life on the road can be. Manufacturers have rushed to up the ante, churning out a growing array of feature-laden models-some so tricked out that they rival the swank tour buses of their buyers' rock-star idols. Prices for some top-of-the-line 2007 models can surpass $500,000 and include everything from high-torque diesel truck engines to home theaters and central vacuuming systems. Even the once lowly travel trailer has been reinvented as towable country house complete with fireplace and grandfather clock.
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