Walking the lot with sales manager Brad Barnett at Moix RV Supercenter in Conway — voted winner in the “Best RV/Camper” category of our annual Best of Arkansas poll — it’s pretty easy to get swept up in the dream. The thought of the wide open road before you in the front windshield, the feeling of self-sufficiency and freedom, the impossibly adorable teardrop trailers. On a Friday morning with the heat index hovering around 100 degrees, the Moix lot had the air conditioning on full blast in a $150,000 big rig fifth wheel, decadent and intoxicating. “Gives my guys a place to cool off,” Barnett said, “and customers can come and sit.” Not only could you make a three-layer cake in the posh stainless steel residential oven with loads of Corian countertop space to frost it, it feels like the bake time would barely make a dent in the room temperature. Barnett, who is 6 feet tall, can turn around comfortably in the bathroom shower, which is outfitted with a fold-down teak wood seat and a gridded rainfall-style shower head. There’s another half bath off the kitchen, by the way, an entertainment center with multiple couches and twin recliners, an electric fireplace, earth-tone paneling and a four-burner gas stove. (Think: coastal grandmother, vacation version.) Oh, to be free of stops in grimy public bathrooms! To never again find yourself stripping the comforter from a hotel bed, knowing good and well that a perfect stranger (or five) wallowed in it only a few hours ago! To be blissfully exempt from inflated Airbnb fees forever! How swiftly would such an investment pay off, one wonders — say, that $21,900 pre-owned Cherokee travel trailer over there with the Grey Wolf nightscape etched above the hitch?  

Moix RV Supercenter “sells fun,” to put it in Barnett’s words. Maybe that’s why he’s stuck around a whole 23 years, nearly half of the 47 years the RV seller has been in business. And yet, it’s only been in the recent years of his tenure that he’s seen sales skyrocket, clamoring to meet unprecedented demand. 

#RVlife, #vanlife, #campervan, #airstream — these are all hashtags that, while they had dedicated followings before the pandemic, have skyrocketed in popularity, along with the vehicles and lifestyle they portray. Opulent on-the-road amenities once reserved for celebrity trailers (Simon Cowell’s had a spiral staircase) have sparked interest in recreational vehicles far beyond the retirement-age set. Music festivals are buying Airstreams from which to broadcast cozy concerts. Tiny home mania? There’s a completely mobile version of that! Horse trailers, too, lest your equine companions have acquired a taste for the finer things in life. And the 75-ish employees at Moix, with an outpost in Springdale and two more in Conway augmenting its sizable lot off U.S. Highway 64, have seen the industry boom firsthand. 

“The last two years have been something we never thought we would ever see,” Barnett said. “Not a lot of sleep went on. We tripled the amount of units, then quadrupled the amount of units we’d sold in previous years. It’s absolutely amazing how many people are doing this right now.” He attributes the demand to the pandemic curbing international travel, and the abundance of parks in Arkansas ready to fill the gap. There’s also a healthy dose of defiance fueling the boom. (See: the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag rippling in the wind behind a Toyota Tacoma on Moix’s website.) “People don’t like to be told that they can’t do something. If you tell somebody, ‘Hey, you can’t go see your buddy over here’ … ? People figured out that they could go camping and be away from everyone and do what they want to do.” Moix’s business demographics used to skew older, Barnett said, “but in the last 10 years or so we’ve seen the age shift to younger generations getting out and doing this.”  

Gas prices and economic turbulence have slowed business a little; it costs around $250-$300 to fill the 50-gallon tank of a motorhome these days. “Folks are still going,” Barnett said, “but they’re taking shorter trips.” You don’t necessarily have to have a massive truck to haul one, either. Smaller teardrop trailers can be pulled by a Subaru, and a Honda Pilot can pull a 5,000-pound travel trailer. 

And what about the customers who come in looking to invest in their “bug out” plan, looking for the rugged wilderness-ready vehicle of their doomsday dreams? Options abound. “A lot of folks are looking for what they call ‘boondock’ rigs that you can take out in the middle of nowhere, away from anybody, and pretty much have a bug-out shelter.” For around $200K, you can nab yourself a Storyteller Overland’s “Beast Mode,” a meticulously designed Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van with four-wheel drive, solar panels, hydraulic lifts, high-performance headlamps, two convertible sleeping beds and dimmable LEDs galore. No throwing a brick through the window of these things; the windows are made of unbreakable polycarbonate. 

Further out on the lot, survivalist types can swoon over an Australian-made, California-assembled Black Series travel trailer, a rough-and-ready off-road travel rig with an all-aluminum frame, a full indoor kitchen and pull-out outdoor kitchen, an off-grid lithium battery, power awning, a master bed and two bunk beds. “They’ve got a video of one of these rock climbing behind a rock climber,” Barnett said. “Pretty amazing to watch.” 

Only about 10% of the customers buying at Moix live in their recreational vehicles full-time, Barnett said. But all of them go through an extensive tutorial on how to operate the vehicle — toilet output and all — and make minor repairs, like taking off the thermostat and resetting it. If you forget how to do something and call the dealer, you’re going to get a representative at Moix, not a robot, and if you’re looking to immerse yourself in the camper van subculture, Moix hosts quarterly “Camp Moix” outings with live music (“mostly ’50s, ’60s, ’70s music,” Barnett said) and food at base camp. They’re headed to Hutchinson, Kansas, in July.

There’s also an enormous service center being constructed on the lot right now, which will increase Moix’s service bays from eight to 20, and dramatically expand the center’s sales offices and delivery area — the place where customers pick up their new rigs. “Mike puts almost every penny he makes back into the company,” Barnett said. “He’s in it for the long haul.” Seems like Barnett is, too. With nearly a quarter-century selling Moix RVs in his rearview mirror, he’s not going anywhere, and has even let the marketing folks talk him into doing some TV commercials with a puppet dubbed “George,” despite the fact that puppetry is apparently not Barnett’s passion. He sold cars for a while before his stint at Moix, he told us, a culture that tends to make a sale and then hope they never see the buyer again. “That’s not who we are. Folks call up and they ask for you by name. They’ve gone on our campouts and had dinner with us. They know who we are.”  

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