Data Center Workers Park Their Per Diems in RVs, Rescuing a Slumping Industry

US wholesale RV shipments fell 13.7% through September year over year — and the sector's best counterweight is a workforce most dealers never targeted before: data center construction crews.

At Amana RV Park & Event Center near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, manager Jamie Wolter found 70 Amazon packages piled up at the office. They weren't for tourists heading to an antique show or the nearby historic German villages. They belonged to the hundreds of data center workers now living at the 450-campsite park, drawn by Google and QTS building facilities in the area.

The park normally hosts up to 60 long-term campers. Workers have arrived from as far away as Oregon and Washington, some with spouses and homeschooled children. The job has changed. "It's like you're a landlord now, and you never used to be," Wolter says. Still, she credits the crews with offsetting an RV-tourism decline driven by gas prices: "Without these long-term guests, it would have been terrible."

Why are workers buying trailers?

Construction crews chasing one of the biggest infrastructure buildouts in US history can stay at a site for months to years, often where hotels and short-term rentals are scarce or pricey. A travel trailer stretches the housing allowance, shortens commutes, fits family and pets — and moves with them to the next job, per diem in hand.

The math works. Shannon Calkins, marketing director at Clear Creek RVs in Abilene, Texas, says per diems run about $100 to $300 a day. A smaller travel trailer costs around $20,000, with loan payments of $400 a month or less. Pair a $400 trailer payment with a $600 campsite and total housing runs $1,000 a month before electricity, insurance, or food.

Calkins estimates about half her dealership's business now comes from data center workers, up from 15% to 20% before the buildout, when buyers were pipeline and solar workers. Some buyers have thin credit histories, which makes loans harder and costlier. But the worker ends up owning an asset when the job ends.

At ATC RV Center in Cedar Rapids, manager Joel Philipp says data center workers kept unit sales roughly flat from a year earlier. "Without them, it would have been really slow for us," he says. His dealership used geofenced ads targeting phones around construction sites — workers browsing Facebook or ESPN on breaks — and buyers showed up. Larger fifth-wheel RVs at $60,000 to $70,000 sold to cowork groups wanting shared bunkhouse models or tradespeople bringing families.

In Louisiana, Bayou Outdoor Supercenter hands workers on Meta's Hyperion project a calculator comparing hotel costs against buying an RV they can take to the next job.

How are campgrounds coping?

At Abilene RV Park, every weekly and monthly space and long-term cabin was full when I spoke with manager Debbie Coffey. Data center workers dominate her long-term guests, and a waitlist of 20 to 30 people runs continually. She feels "like a mail lady about half the day every day." The park raised its monthly rate by $50, to $600 plus electricity, to cover higher property taxes and upkeep. She keeps about five of 66 spaces open for passers-through she's counting on once construction winds down.

Near Meta's Richland Parish campus, Corporate Mobile Housing's Dunn Village offers rooms in mobile homes plus 170 RV spaces. Founded after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the business pivoted from oil and gas workers to data center crews. Before Meta's late-2024 Louisiana announcement, it provided 300 beds. It's now at 1,500, and director of strategic growth Heather Kleinpeter expects that to double next year. "People are just taking advantage of the opportunity on every level," she says.

What happens when construction ends?

Meta says the expanded Richland Parish campus will support more than 7,500 jobs at peak construction but only 1,000 once operating. Kleinpeter is planning five to seven years out; after that, the company could relocate modular homes or repurpose land already equipped with water, sewer, and power. "It's going to be a collective like, 'What does the municipality want?'" she says.

Politics adds risk. In this month's midterms, Texas elected Gina Hinojosa, who backs a statewide moratorium on new data center approvals, as governor — and Texas holds about one in five planned or under-construction US data center buildings, per industry tracker Cleanview. Michigan elected Abdul El-Sayed, who has called for a development pause, to the Senate. Voters in several towns approved bans or restrictions on new data centers.

Around Abilene, Calkins has watched new RV parks sprout in fields — some little more than crushed gravel and hookups — even as established parks turn away monthly renters. When work dries up, crews will hitch up and leave. The parks they abandon, she figures, will sell for "pennies on the dollar."