The Biggest RV Show of the Year Says Smaller, Again

The Hershey show is where next year's RVs are shown to buyers, and the 2027 model debuts landed there last week. The one worth noting for anyone who tows with an ordinary vehicle is the return of the Aliner Alite after nearly a decade away: an eleven-foot folding camper at a reported 672 pounds, with a 58-by-76-inch sleeping area, reaching dealers this winter.

Six hundred and seventy-two pounds is the whole argument. That is towable behind vehicles that cannot legally pull a conventional travel trailer, and it is light enough that tongue weight and braking stop being the deciding factors in what you can own.

Ember showed a larger no-slide Overland trailer alongside touring models, which is the same instinct from the other direction: buyers who want the space without the mechanical complexity and failure points of a slide-out. Forest River brought two new camper van lines on Ford Transit and RAM ProMaster chassis, giving Class B shoppers more twin-bed and rear-lounge layouts to compare.

On the truck camper side, modular has become the pitch. New slide-in pop-ups are being sold as a frame you add modules to — seating, power, kitchen — with the ability to add or remove them later. That is a direct answer to the complaint that a camper is a fixed floorplan you either fit into or do not.

Read it alongside what the overland shows have been saying all year about payload and roof weight. Two different industries have independently arrived at the same conclusion, which is that the last decade sold people more vehicle than they needed.