Recreational travel spans park visits, overnight stays, camping, RV shipments, domestic trips, and international travel. The measures below use different populations and definitions, so visits, trips, arrivals, shipments, and economic estimates should not be treated as one count of travelers.
Key Recreational Travel Statistics
The following figures summarize the most useful measures across the available recreational travel data:
- In 2025, U.S. national parks recorded 323,014,305 recreation visits across the National Park System.
- In 2025, U.S. national parks recorded 1,386,749,187 recreation visitor hours.
- In 2025, Great Smoky Mountains National Park recorded 11,527,939 visits, the highest park-specific total.
- In 2025, the National Park System recorded 13,016,586 overnight stays.
- In 2025, recreation-vehicle overnights totaled 2,535,130 in the National Park System.
- In 2025, tent-camper overnights totaled 3,119,939 in the National Park System.
- In 2024, U.S. RV wholesale shipments reached 333,733 units, up 6.6% year over year.
- In 2024, all towable RV shipments reached 298,842 units, up 11.8% year to date.
- In 2024, travel-trailer shipments reached 237,631 units, up 15.7% from 2023.
- In 2024, all motorhome shipments totaled 34,891 units, down 23.9% from 2023.
- In 2024, outdoor recreation value added was $696.7 billion, equal to 2.4% of U.S. current-dollar GDP.
- In 2024, outdoor recreation’s share of state GDP ranged from 6.1% in Hawaii to 1.0% in the District of Columbia.
- In Q4 2024, Canadian residents took 80.3 million trips in Canada and abroad, up 7.7% year over year.
- In Q4 2024, Canadian domestic travel spending reached $16.2 billion, up 11.0% year over year.
- In Q4 2024, holiday, leisure, or recreation was the main purpose for 64.1% of Canadian overseas trips.
- In 2024, international visitors made 72,390,321 arrivals to the United States, up 9.1% from 2023.
- In 2024, U.S. citizens made 107,713,681 international departures, a record total.
- The U.S. Travel forecast indexes 2026 domestic leisure spending at 105% of its 2019 inflation-adjusted level.
Contents
- Key Recreational Travel Statistics
- National Park Recreational Travel Statistics: Visits and Visitor Hours
- Camping and Overnight Recreational Travel Data by Park Use
- RV Travel Statistics: Shipments, Categories, and Recent Trends
- Outdoor Recreation Travel Statistics and Economic Contribution
- Canadian Recreational Travel Statistics: Trips, Purpose, and Spending
- International Recreational Travel Statistics and the U.S. Spending Outlook
National Park Recreational Travel Statistics: Visits and Visitor Hours
The National Park Service recorded 323,014,305 recreation visits in 2025 across the U.S. National Park System. These are use counts rather than unique people, meaning repeat visits can appear more than once; the same release recorded 1,386,749,187 recreation visitor hours.
The NPS also recorded 168,871,656 non-recreation visits in 2025. The annual visitor-use release covered 406 of 433 units, so the reporting series is based on participating reporting units rather than a survey of every recreational traveler.
Source: Annual Visitation Summary Report for: 2025); Visitor Use Data – Social Science.
The largest park-specific totals in 2025 were:
| National park | 2025 recreation visits |
|---|---|
| Great Smoky Mountains | 11,527,939 |
| Zion | 4,984,525 |
| Yellowstone | 4,762,988 |
| Grand Canyon | 4,430,653 |
| Yosemite | 4,278,413 |
Park totals describe visits, not unique visitors. They are therefore best used to measure site-use scale and relative demand, not the number of individual people taking recreational trips.
Camping and Overnight Recreational Travel Data by Park Use
The NPS recorded 13,016,586 total overnight stays in 2025. An overnight stay is a use count, not a count of unique overnight travelers, and the categories cover different forms of accommodation and camping.
| NPS overnight category | 2025 overnight stays |
|---|---|
| Tent-camper overnights | 3,119,939 |
| Concessioner lodging overnights | 3,129,209 |
| Recreation-vehicle overnights | 2,535,130 |
| Backcountry overnights | 1,604,578 |
| Concessioner camping overnights | 1,502,650 |
These figures describe National Park System use and do not measure all U.S. camping or RV travel. In particular, the RV overnight category is an NPS campground-use measure rather than a national estimate of every night spent traveling in an RV.
Park designation totals show how recreational demand is distributed across the system. In 2025, national parks accounted for 93,892,121 visits, national recreation areas for 48,964,586, national memorials for 36,624,007, national historical parks for 27,869,103, and national seashores for 22,647,257.
Source: Annual Visitation Summary Report for: 2025).
RV Travel Statistics: Shipments, Categories, and Recent Trends
RVIA reported 333,733 U.S. wholesale RV shipments in 2024, up 6.6% year over year. These are manufacturer-survey shipment figures, not retail registrations, ownership totals, trips, or nights spent traveling.
| RV category | 2024 shipments | Change from 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| All towable RVs | 298,842 | +11.8% |
| Travel trailers | 237,631 | +15.7% |
| Fifth-wheels | 53,958 | +0.5% |
| Folding camping trailers | 3,991 | −14.6% |
| Truck campers | 3,262 | −7.2% |
| All motorhomes | 34,891 | −23.9% |
The category pattern shows growth concentrated in towable products while motorhome shipments declined. Within motorhomes, conventional Type A shipments totaled 6,706, van camper Type B shipments 8,349, and mini Type C shipments 19,836 in 2024; their year-over-year changes were −31.6%, −30.0%, and −17.8%, respectively.
Park-model RV shipments totaled 3,927 in 2024, down 22.3% from 2023. In December 2024, total RV shipments were 23,153, up 7.6% from December 2023, while conventional travel-trailer shipments were 16,419, up 17.0%.
Source: 2024 RV Shipments up 6%.
Outdoor Recreation Travel Statistics and Economic Contribution
The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated that outdoor recreation value added reached $696.7 billion in 2024, equal to 2.4% of U.S. current-dollar GDP. Value added is not the same as gross sales, and the BEA satellite account has its own scope and definitions.
Across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, outdoor recreation’s share of state GDP ranged from 6.1% in Hawaii to 1.0% in the District of Columbia in 2024. These state estimates describe economic contribution, not participation rates or the number of recreational travelers.
Source: Outdoor Recreation Economic Statistics, U.S. and States, 2024.
RVIA’s separate impact study estimated an annual RV industry impact of $159 billion, support for 643,238 jobs, more than $46.4 billion in wages, and $19.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. The study’s scope includes manufacture, sales, rentals, service, financing, insurance, and trip and campground spending, so it should not be directly compared with BEA value added.
The RVIA study allocated its estimated impact across $70 billion from manufacturers and suppliers, $50 billion from RV campgrounds and related travel, and $38 billion from RV sales and service activities. These are modeled industry-impact components rather than direct employment or sales counts from a single industry.
Source: RVs Move America Economic Impact Study.
Canadian Recreational Travel Statistics: Trips, Purpose, and Spending
Statistics Canada estimated that Canadian residents took 80.3 million trips in Canada and abroad in Q4 2024, up 7.7% year over year. Domestic trips represented 88.4% of the total, U.S. trips 8.2%, and overseas trips 3.4%; these shares describe trips, not unique travelers.
| Canadian resident travel measure | Q4 2024 result |
|---|---|
| Domestic trips | 71.0 million, +7.8% year over year |
| Domestic overnight trips | 26.0 million |
| Domestic same-day trips | 45.1 million |
| Domestic travel spending | $16.2 billion, +11.0% year over year |
| Average domestic-trip spending | $228 overall; $106 same-day; $440 overnight |
Holiday, leisure, or recreation was the main purpose for 30.3% of Canadian domestic trips in Q4 2024. Accommodations represented 18.6% of Canadian domestic travel spending, while the average spending figures distinguish same-day and overnight trip populations.
Canadian residents took 6.6 million trips to the United States in Q4 2024, up 4.2% year over year, and spent $5.6 billion on those trips, down 7.0%. Holiday, leisure, or recreation was the main purpose for 42.6% of these U.S. trips.
Overseas travel totaled 2.7 million Canadian-resident trips in Q4 2024, up 12.6% year over year. Holiday, leisure, or recreation was the main purpose for 64.1% of overseas trips.
Source: The Daily — National Travel Survey, fourth quarter 2024.
International Recreational Travel Statistics and the U.S. Spending Outlook
The National Travel and Tourism Office reported 72,390,321 international visitor arrivals to the United States in 2024, up 9.1% from 2023 and equal to 91.1% of 2019 arrivals. Arrivals include business and other purposes and are not unique recreational visitors.
U.S. citizens made a record 107,713,681 international departures in 2024, up 9.2% from 2023 and equal to 108% of 2019 departures. Western Europe was the largest world region for U.S. visitor arrivals, with 13,067,365 visitors, while Asia recorded the largest regional percentage increase from 2023 to 2024 at 21.6%.
New York City was the largest U.S. port of entry for overseas visitors in 2024, with 6,111,777 arrivals. A port-of-entry count is not the same as a destination count or a count of unique visitors.
Source: December and Annual 2024 Total International Travel Volume to and from the United States.
The U.S. Travel forecast indexes 2025 total travel spending at 96% of its 2019 inflation-adjusted level and forecasts 2026 at 97%. Within the 2026 forecast, domestic leisure spending is indexed at 105% of its 2019 inflation-adjusted level, while international leisure spending is indexed at 83%.
The same forecast series reports a Travel Price Index of 354 in 2025 and forecasts 369 in 2026. The spending figures are adjusted for inflation in 2025 dollars, and 2026 values are forecasts rather than observed outcomes.
Source: U.S. Travel Forecast — Spending, Spring 2026.