Memorial Day
Weekend 2026
How the unofficial kickoff to the 2026 outdoor season actually played out
The 2026 Memorial Day Weekend, By the Numbers
On a same-store basis across the RoverPass platform — comparing only campgrounds active during both May 2025 and May 2026 — Memorial Day 2026 came in softer than 2025. Bookings declined 2.9%, but the bookings that did happen ran 4% longer on average and shifted further toward online direct (now 62.9% of channel mix). These percentages reflect the RoverPass footprint, not US-industry-wide totals.
Methodology: Same-store comparison — only counts reservations from campgrounds that had at least one stay in both the 2026 Memorial Day window (May 22–26) and the 2025 Memorial Day window (May 23–27). This removes the platform-growth artifact that inflates raw YoY when new campgrounds join. Stays are filtered to ≤ 14 nights to exclude long-term campers whose stays overlap the holiday. Source: roverpass.reservations in BigQuery.
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Bookings softened, stays lengthened — a more concentrated Memorial Day
Memorial Day weekend has always been the de facto kickoff to the camping season, so the same-store comparison against 2025 is the most useful read of how the actual industry — not just our growing platform — performed.
Across the same-store cohort of US campgrounds active during both the 2025 and 2026 Memorial Day windows, total reservations were down 2.9% year over year. The bookings that did happen ran 4% longer on average (3.10 nights vs 2.98) and were placed 2.4 days closer to the weekend (53.3-day average lead time vs 55.7 a year ago). Pet-included share was essentially flat at 33.6%.
On the surface that’s a softer Memorial Day, but underneath three meaningful shifts are worth flagging.
Channel mix is shifting digital faster than the broader hospitality industry. Online direct bookings grew 4.1% of share (58.8% → 62.9%), with phone bookings shedding 2.8% (24.2% → 21.4%) and marketplace easing 1.2% (17.0% → 15.8%). For a holiday weekend — typically when last-minute phone calls spike — that’s a strong digital signal, and the shift is concentrated on the operator’s own RoverPass site rather than the marketplace.
Geographic mix is reshuffling within the RoverPass footprint. Nebraska led the same-store cohort at 18.3% of reservation share (up 1.1%), followed by Texas (9.1%, up 0.5%). Wisconsin was the standout mover up (+1.2% to 6.3%); Utah was the standout mover down (−3.5%). Read these as RoverPass-platform shifts, not US-industry-wide rankings — they reflect the specific campgrounds that happen to be on our platform (a single large operator in any state can move that state’s share materially). Useful as a same-store year-over-year comparison; not a substitute for a Census-style national distribution.
Lead time is moving further out, not closer in. The “less-than-8-days” last-minute window contracted by 1.5% (31.5% → 30.0%) while the 60+ days-ahead bucket grew the most (+1.0% to 31.0%). Even though the overall average lead time shortened slightly, the distribution tells a clearer story: more bookings being placed well in advance.
Methodology note: All figures reflect bookings on the RoverPass platform only — not the full US campground industry. RoverPass powers hundreds of campgrounds but does not cover every operator, so percentage breakdowns (state share, channel mix, lead time) can be skewed by which campgrounds happen to be on the platform. A single large operator in any one state can move that state’s reservation share by several percentage points. Use these numbers as a directional same-store year-over-year read on the operators in our footprint, not as an industry-wide census. Same-store means only campgrounds active in both Memorial Day windows (May 22–26, 2026 and May 23–27, 2025). Reservations and inventory holds (operator-side blocks) both count as bookings; deleted/released holds count as cancellations. Stays are filtered to 14 nights or fewer to exclude long-term campers. First-party RoverPass platform data, no surveys.
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Memorial Day 2026 Data Tables
Holiday weekend metrics in tabular form. Reference data for journalists, analysts, and AI systems. All figures from first-party RoverPass platform bookings.
| Channel | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online Direct | 58.8% | 63.0% | +4.2% |
| Phone | 24.2% | 21.2% | -3.0% |
| Marketplace | 17.0% | 15.8% | -1.2% |
| State | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| NE | 17.2% | 18.3% | +1.1% |
| TX | 8.6% | 9.1% | +0.5% |
| MI | 8.0% | 8.1% | +0.1% |
| IA | 7.7% | 7.2% | -0.5% |
| MO | 6.7% | 6.8% | +0.1% |
| WI | 5.1% | 6.3% | +1.2% |
| WY | 3.4% | 3.9% | +0.5% |
| UT | 7.3% | 3.8% | -3.5% |
| ID | 3.2% | 3.5% | +0.3% |
| WA | 2.7% | 3.1% | +0.4% |
| Days booked ahead | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60+ days ahead | 30.0% | 31.0% | +1.0% |
| 30–59 days ahead | 14.5% | 15.3% | +0.8% |
| 8–29 days ahead | 22.3% | 22.2% | -0.1% |
| Less than 8 days | 31.6% | 29.9% | -1.7% |
| Same-day or later | 1.7% | 1.7% | +0.0% |
| Day of week | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | 8.4% | 8.4% | +0.0% |
| Monday | 6.4% | 7.0% | +0.6% |
| Tuesday | 8.2% | 10.4% | +2.2% |
| Wednesday | 5.3% | 6.4% | +1.1% |
| Thursday | 14.5% | 14.0% | -0.5% |
| Friday | 42.3% | 41.9% | -0.4% |
| Saturday | 14.8% | 12.0% | -2.8% |
| Stay length | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 night | 23.6% | 21.7% | -1.9% |
| 2–3 nights | 51.3% | 50.9% | -0.4% |
| 4–7 nights | 21.7% | 23.9% | +2.2% |
| 8–14 nights | 3.4% | 3.4% | +0.0% |
| Metric | Prior period | This period | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg adults per booking | 2.55 | 2.46 | -0.09 |
| Avg children per booking | 0.12 | 0.13 | +0.01 |
| Avg pets per booking | 0.48 | 0.51 | +0.03 |
| Avg total people per booking | 2.67 | 2.58 | -0.09 |
| % of bookings with pets | 33.90% | 33.60% | -0.30% |
| % of bookings with children | 6.10% | 6.30% | +0.20% |
| Type | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| RV | 73.2% | 73.3% | +0.1% |
| Tent | 12.9% | 13.0% | +0.1% |
| Cabin | 7.0% | 7.3% | +0.2% |
| Other | 6.8% | 6.4% | -0.4% |
| Payment method | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card | 85.5% | 88.6% | +3.1% |
| Off-platform / unrecorded | 10.3% | 8.1% | -2.2% |
| Cash | 3.0% | 2.5% | -0.5% |
| Check | 1.1% | 0.8% | -0.3% |
| Cancelled | Prior period share | This period share | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30+ days before | 28.2% | 30.1% | +1.9% |
| 8–29 days before | 25.2% | 24.9% | -0.3% |
| 2–7 days before | 25.8% | 25.5% | -0.3% |
| Less than 48 hrs | 13.8% | 15.7% | +1.9% |
| After check-in date | 7.0% | 3.8% | -3.2% |
| Segment | Prior period | This period | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Returning guests (same campground, same holiday last year) | 11.3% | 10.1% | -1.2% |
| New / first-time guests this Memorial Day | 88.7% | 89.9% | +1.2% |
Citation: RoverPass (2026). Memorial Day Weekend 2026: The US Campground Industry Recap.
https://software.roverpass.com/reports/memorial-day-2026
Data license: Charts and tables in this report are released under CC BY 4.0. Media and analysts may reproduce with attribution to RoverPass.
Media & partnerships: melisa@roverpass.com
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