The Pioneers of American Glamping: Under Canvas
A look at the glamping industry and the first company to reach scale in American Glamping (and a review of our stay at the Great Smoky Mountains location in Pigeon Forge, TN).
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Estimated time to read: 7 minutes
TL;DR:
What is glamping? Glamorous camping.
An overview of the glamping industry: 300-500 professionally managed locations and 7 industry leaders operating the top ~100.
An overview of Under Canvas: 13 locations outside national parks featuring safari-style tents.
A review of my experience at Under Canvas Great Smoky Mountains: Not great.
Since I was in the Smokies with my family, visiting ROL’s Turkey Creek Campground in Almond, NC, we booked two nights at Under Canvas Great Smoky Mountains.
I had never been to one of their locations before, so it was a great opportunity to experience how the original American glamping company operates and to get out of the RV and spread out for a couple of days since we’re in the middle of a 19-day RV road trip.
What is glamping?
The word, “glamping,” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016, which is defined as:
“A form of camping that involves accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping.”
Glamping is a combination of the words “glamorous” and “camping,” and the word is believed to have first been published in 2005. Glamping has been popular in Europe longer than in the U.S.
Today, the term “glamping” is used to cover a wide array of outdoor-themed accommodations, including various types of tents, domes, park model RVs, tiny homes, cabins, and more.
When performing market research and industry analysis, I define glamping as accommodations with soft walls and tend to view properties that feature multiple hard-walled/permanent structure accommodations as landscape resorts/hotels.
An overview of the glamping industry
According to Sage Outdoor Advisory, a leading advisory firm specializing in outdoor hospitality, there are an estimated 300-500 professionally managed glamping businesses/locations in the United States.
Many more one-off or “mom-and-pop” locations are listed on platforms like Airbnb, Hipcamp, GlampingHub.com and others and are not included in the 300-500 count above.
The top 7 industry leaders account for nearly 100 locations, as follows:
1. Getaway House, Inc.
Founded in 2016, featuring 29 locations and ~1,215 cabins. Rates are in the $100-$500 per night range. Accommodations are tiny homes on wheels.
2. 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝘃𝗮𝘀
Founded in 2012, it has 13 locations and ~700 tents. Rates are in the $250-$600 per night range. Accommodations are canvas safari tents.
3. 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽
Founded in 2020, it features 10 locations (+ 3 coming soon) and ~400 tents. Rates are in the $100-$500 per night range. Accommodations are more basic bell tents.
4. 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀
Founded in 2015, it has 3 locations (+2 coming soon), and ~50 tents. Rates are in the $250-$600 per night range. Accommodations are canvas safari tents.
5. 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽
Founded in 2013, it has 7 locations (+2 opening soon), and 727 units. Rates are in the $130-$450 range. Accommodations are custom Airstreams, glamping tents, and tiny homes on wheels.
6. 𝗛𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗮
Founded in 1999, it has 5 locations in the U.S. (50+ in Europe/Canada) and ~500 sites. Rates are in the $100-$800 range. Accommodations are traditional campsites, RV sites, a range of glamping tents, and cabins.
7. 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗚𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼.
Founded in 2018, it has 21 locations and ~120 tents. Rates are in the $140-$200 range. Accommodations include basic canvas safari, bell tents, rental trailers, and domes.
An overview of Under Canvas
As noted above, Under Canvas was founded in 2012 by Sarah and Jacob Dusek. Sarah and Jacob are regarded as the pioneers of American glamping, and the company now features 13 locations near national parks with varying styles of safari tents as accommodations.
KSL Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in Under Canvas for more than $100MM in 2018. In 2022, KSL invested another $25MM to fund expansion at existing camps and acquisitions of new camps.
Under Canvas has locations near Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, Lake Powell - Grand Staircase, Moab, Mount Rushmore, North Yellowstone, West Yellowstone, and Zion.
A review of my experience at Under Canvas Great Smoky Mountains
Overall, it was a mediocre experience. We spent nearly $1,100 on lodging, food, and drinks across two nights (nearly $800 just for the room charge and taxes). The food and drinks from the onsite restaurant and bar were decent but expensive. For the $800 we spent on lodging, we could have rented an awesome cabin with better views in a more accessible location, so I would consider the value for the price to be poor. If I weren’t excited to be there to study their operation and offerings, I probably wouldn’t have been excited to be there at all.
Staying at Under Canvas felt like “roughing it” in various ways. These were the top inconveniences:
There is no Wi-Fi or cell service. Under Canvas seems to market this as a feature, but I don’t see it that way. I believe you should give guests the option to connect. If someone values being disconnected, they can choose that. If you want to discourage connecting, charge for the Wi-Fi. We had to drive 15 minutes into town to get some reception to plan our outings during the stay if we didn’t like the staff recommendations.
There is no air conditioning in the tent. Portable fans are provided but die after a few hours and take forever to fully charge. Even a ceiling fan in the tent would have been great.
There is no refrigeration in the tent, which made traveling with our 18-month-old, who drinks milk twice daily, inconvenient. We had to store his milk in an employee-only refrigerator and ask staff to retrieve it. Sometimes, it took them quite a while to locate/retrieve it.
There is limited access to electrical power in the tent, and there appears to be no real electrical infrastructure for the tents. Staff indicated that the tents were powered by a battery, and there was a tangled mess of USB cords that charged the fans and lanterns, plugged into a 12-volt apparatus (similar to a car charger/cigarette lighter) on the floor under the bed.
My takeaway from our stay is that Under Canvas is for people who enjoy primitive tent camping but also have the means and desire to pay a ~$250 per night premium to stay in a safari-style tent with a king-sized bed and private en suite bathroom.
Given the Under Canvas brand and reputation, my expectations were high, so a few other things were disappointing.
Our tent’s bathroom had thick black mold. Most of the tents and rainflies were stained with dirt and mildew. Our tent was ripped where you tie the flaps/doors back to keep them open. The power cords in the tent were a tangled mess, much like they were at the breaker boxes for each tent.
I am open to the fact that I am not the target customer for Under Canvas. Their locations appear to be well-regarded and well-occupied, but I don’t feel the need to go back.
That’s all for this week. Thank you so much for reading!
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