RV There Yet?: For some, they’re home away from home. For others, they are home. From purchase to renovation to life on the road, campers offer the freedom to live on one’s own terms. Click here to read more articles from our camping issue.
For those who wonder what has become of the American Dream, it sits down the aisle from a food vendor that specializes in spiced pickles and is parked near the back of a rollicking expo hall at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. And it belongs to retired bagel king Bob Nurrito.
photograph by Matt Hulsman
The American Dream is the name of a magnificently blinged-out 45-foot, $450,000 motor coach that gleams alluringly in the August heat at the Raleigh Fall RV Show & Sale. For three wide-eyed days, the show draws around 6,000 browsers and buyers from throughout the state and as far away as Florida, New York, and Kansas. And everywhere they turn, they find around 200 rolling homes-away-from-home inviting them inside for a peek.
“I don’t get excited much — except about catching a fish,” says Nurrito, 67, as deadpan as a trout. But once settled into the plush driver’s seat, he adds with an unmistakable trickle of anticipation, “We’re taking this to Alaska. It’s on the bucket list. … ”
An unexpected explosion stops him short. Two aisles away, a sales team has fired a confetti cannon to celebrate another deal signed. Whoops and applause follow as a rain of glittering paper settles on the green aisle carpet.
The NuCamp TAB 320 Teardrop Camper is a compact travel trailer whose original design was dreamed up in 2004 by Joe Mullet, a former plumber who founded and became president of NuCamp. photograph by Bryan Regan
Everyone attending the wheeling-dealing, occasionally raucous RV show has a plan. To escape the ordinary, to amble and ramble, and to freely explore North Carolina and parts far beyond. Whether they are scoping out a luxury coach with quartz countertops or a bare-bones $9,000 hitch trailer, the shoppers ultimately have their eyes on a parcel of paradise just over a mountain, through a forest, around a dune.
Since 1990, the North Carolina RV Dealers Association has fueled these dreams with annual shows in Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greensboro. Attendance is not limited to retired folks like Nurrito, who sold his New York Bagels & Deli outpost in North Raleigh about a year ago. According to the RV Industry Association, the median age of owners has dipped from 53 to 49 in recent years, with 16 percent of all RV owners between 18 and 34 in 2025.
photograph by Matt Hulsman
Heidi Dains, 32, and Patrick Cullen, 27, work full time in software, but they can do it from wherever their laptops can cruise the Internet highway. With the lease on their Raleigh apartment ending soon, they aim to hit the old-fashioned highway. Why crack open a laptop from a balcony with a view of Walmart, they say, when they could overlook the Grand Canyon?
“All our friends hear what we’re thinking and go, ‘Oh, that’s our dream, too!’ ” Dains says. “But they don’t have the flexibility we do.”
Not all the dreamers will effectuate their plans today. But the urge is evident in the way their eyes linger over pull-out pantries and purple-burning digital fireplaces. Stoking the flame of desire are the prices, often tens of thousands of dollars lower at the show than on a dealer’s lot. For some, today’s finally the day.
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Salespeople at the RV show operate in a particularly jovial gear; a little looser, buoyed perhaps by the surrounding hot dog vendors and face-painting booth.
One mockingly talks up what he calls The Marriage Tester, a tiny trailer spartanly equipped with a double bed and a commode stashed behind a flimsy curtain. “It’s a great way to put your relationship to the test,” he says. “It has a 99 percent failure rate.”
photograph by Matt Hulsman
Among the most successful salespeople is a woman with silver hoop earrings that glint in the expo hall lights. She’s Amber Jones, better known as “Camper Amber.” “I was top seller for our team on our first day here,” she says, after notching four sales. “And I’ll do it again today. It’s showtime!”
“Camper Amber” excels at helping customers put together an escape plan, patiently asking questions that steer them to just the right RV. Among her buyers is Justin Worrell, 33, a trim and contemplative Marine. He’s seated at a folding table, signing the purchase papers on a 30-foot Forest River Flagstaff Classic trailer. After leaving active service, Worrell became a career counselor for people with mental health struggles. It was rewarding and also stressful.
Justin Worrell wants to cut loose and cruise, fly-fishing in “all the cool rivers.”
Two months ago, he quit while still in the good graces of his boss. Now, he wants to cut loose and cruise. He figures he’ll start with a test trip to Lake Gaston. Then, he’ll journey from his home in Rocky Mount all the way to Redwoods National and State Parks — just him, his new trailer, and his companion, a chocolate lab named Reed. His plan includes making camp at the picturesque ranches out West and hopefully earning a little money as a hired hand. And when he wants, fly-fishing in “all the cool rivers” they’ll cross.
photograph by Matt Hulsman
“The only thing I’m worried about is the waste removal,” he says. “I don’t want to get that wrong.”
He needn’t fret. Trevor Owen, a 36-year-old longtime RVer who frequents North Carolina’s bevy of beach destinations, offers advice he got from his dad: If anything goes wrong at a campground, take a good long look at whatever part is acting up. Then, step back and continue puzzling. “It doesn’t take long for people to come up and help you figure it out,” Owen says.
But while the world still counts on plenty of gregarious RVers grilling hamburgers and assisting other campers, a different model is on the rise. And it’s more intense.
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Although Travis and Meredith Veilleux, both 49, seem perfectly well adjusted as they mill around the RV show, don’t be fooled — they’ve had enough of civilization. With their kids almost out of the house, they’re preparing to leave the ’burbs behind.
But not for the comfy confines of an RV camp. Or the neighborly socializing of the long-running club, NC Family Campers and RVers. As younger buyers like the Veilleuxes have taken the wheel, many are going solo as they push toward new horizons — daring and adventurous.
photograph by Matt Hulsman
“I’ve spent my whole life around people,” says Travis, a strong, bearded man with an armful of tattoos who works as a project engineer in the power industry. “Now, I want to go where there won’t be any.”
No water supply. No electric plug-in posts. No one to care — except the buzzards.
Such a radical escape is a job for the Storyteller Overland: Beast Mode, one of the more petite vehicles on the lot, with one of the heftiest price tags — a whisker shy of $240,000.
From the outside, Beast Mode looks like a taller-than-average van, as if outfitted in shoe lifts. Inside, it’s a masterclass in efficiency, tucking a small shower alongside a kitchenette and a fold-away bed. And under the hood, it packs the muscle needed to conquer mountains that don’t want to be climbed.
The design of the Westfalia Wave Pop Top dates back to 1951, when the company turned a transit van into a traveling home to fulfill a request from a British Forces officer. photograph by Bryan Regan
The Veilleuxes are not buying, though. Their three-year plan is to secure a decommissioned Army vehicle — one of those armored monsters — and strip it, rebuild it, and transform it into an unstoppable adventure machine. At the RV show, they’re shopping for inspiration.
Yet everyone here faces a common challenge: the race against time. “I’ve had enough accidents that almost ended it all to know I don’t want to wait for retirement,” says Shelly Jacobs, 61, wearing a smart blue blazer and tan shorts. “Because you might not make it to retirement.”
photograph by Matt Hulsman
Jacobs is an interior designer. Years ago, she moved moved from New Jersey to the South to get away from “wall-to-wall people and bumper-to-bumper cars.” She sees the woods near where she lives in Pittsboro coming down to make room for more cars and more people. So she’s eyeing an elegant little teardrop trailer. She’ll leave the encroaching development in her rearview mirror, head to various wooded spots, each within 20 miles of a client, take care of a little business, and then enjoy the surrounding peace and quiet.
Each plan is a little different — but the dream is the same. And it is perhaps still uniquely American, powered by visions of Smoky Mountain forests and desert moons, trout leaping from silver streams and dogs chasing the scents of wild things, the freedom to work from where you want or to not work at all. Here, each road feels wide open, every gas tank full. — Billy Warden
2026 Progressive NCRVDA
Raleigh Fall RV Show & Sale
August 21-23
North Carolina State Fairgrounds
4285 Trinity Road, Raleigh, NC 27607
northcarolinarvda.com
photograph by Matt Hulsman
Trailering is all fun and games until it’s time to back it into the driveway — or anywhere else. The dark art of reversing seems to demand a deal with the devil, but there’s no need for drastic measures. We asked Karen Root, a seasoned trailer backer-upper with the North Carolina Equestrian Center in Reidsville, for her top tips, so you can park it without a hitch — or, in this case, with a hitch.
When you turn the steering wheel, the trailer goes in the opposite direction. It’s downright diabolical. And that’s before you factor in how, at North Carolina’s boat ramps and campgrounds, someone always seems to be watching as you creep forward and back for the 397th time. “My father always taught me that, in a pinch, place one hand at the very bottom of the steering wheel and whichever direction you want the back of the trailer to go, move the hand on the wheel to that direction,” Root says. “So if your hand is at the bottom of the steering wheel and you move it right to the 3 o’clock position, the back of the trailer will move to the right.”
Trailers, like fishing triumphs, always seem bigger in retrospect. Whether you’re tugging a teardrop camper, boat trailer, or mega RV, get intimate with your trailer’s dimensions. “Understanding that,” Root says, “will prevent accidents.”
Going backward in a straight line is one thing, but navigating turns or tight spots? Yikes. You don’t realize how important it is to be able to see where you’re going until you can’t. Root recommends side-mirror extensions: “When it comes to mirrors, bigger is better.” Backup cameras can also be a lifesaver.
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast; practice often; and don’t be afraid to call for, ahem, backup. A partner can help you avoid any hidden obstacle. “Take your time, slow down, and always give yourself as much space as possible,” Root says. “Nothing beats failure like a try!” Before long, the only stares you’ll get will be in awestruck admiration. Go ahead — knock ’em dead. Or rather, go backward and don’t. — Allison Braden
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