Camping + Electric Scooters: The Dynamic Duo You Never Thought Of
Probably never thought of this dynamic duo? 🚐 🛴— Now you'll never not think of them.
Coronavirus has changed the way we travel, and we like to think this will be for the better in the future. While flying off to your favorite international destination may have seemed like a great idea before travel restrictions and border closures made it impossible, all that air travel wasn’t doing the planet any favors. As a BBC climate guide points out,
“mile for mile, flying is the most damaging way to travel.”
But it took a global pandemic to slow things down. According to a New York Times travel report, air travel fell 95 percent in 2020, with hotel occupancy down to 25 percent. That doesn’t mean people aren’t traveling. “RVing is the new-found travel favorite” in the pandemic, writes Travel Awaits, “and it’s expected to be even more popular in 2021 for long-distance travel, staying at state and national parks, and adventurous family trips.”
This has been bad news for the travel and hospitality industries, and a boom for RVs rentals, campsites, outdoor companies, and the millions of people just discovering the open road or the trail for the first time. While vacationing far from home, many of us have been missing what was right under our noses -- sunlit, scenic getaways we might have taken for granted in the past, but no more. Last year, the trend of “extreme social distancing” exploded as people traveled by van or RV to remote natural landscapes to camp (or glamp) under the stars, away from the anxiety of being crammed in tight spaces with strangers.
2021 promises to be even more of an outdoorsy year for U.S. travellers. Campsite bookings are up 500% in some places, Forbes reports, and bookings in isolated cabins, hours away from major cities, are up 260%.
According to a new survey from Abacus Data, interest in road trips is up, and over 50% of Americans say that travel by RV is one of the “only safe travel options” while the threat of COVID persists. What does any of this have to do with electric scooters? More than you think!
While e-scooters have rapidly become the obvious choice for short trips in major cities, they are also ideal for stowing away in a van or RV when you hit the open road.
It’s especially easy to stow away the lightweight Unagi Model One. With its easy, one-click folding mechanism and low profile, it can slide in a cargo area or compartment easily, ready when you need it to ride around a new destination. While RVs are great ways to see the country, they aren’t particularly great for touring around town. The combination, however, of RV and electric scooters can make it easy to park and spend the afternoon sightseeing in a new town. Using electric scooters for short trips can keep fuel costs down and give you the extra speed and power to see what you came to see.
Cover more ground in a day and save up your walking energy for the big hike down the road. Taking Unagi with you on a road trip gives you versatile options for getting around -- and for parking if you’re touring a new city. Lightweight electric scooters are great ways to travel on greenways, bike paths, and paved trails of all kinds; an e-scooter can turn a footsore afternoon into a thrill ride. It’s a study in self-sufficient contrasts -- the cargo space and coziness of an RV and the freedom of movement of your own e-scooter -- the ideal combination of van (or RV) life and scooter life. You probably didn't think of this dynamic duo -- try it, and you’ll be pretty glad we told you.
Author
Daniel Foley
Camping + Electric Scooters: The Dynamic Duo You Never Thought Of
Coronavirus has changed the way we travel, and we like to think this will be for the better in the future. While flying off to your favorite international destination may have seemed like a great idea before ... and border closures made it impossible, all that air travel wasn’t doing the planet any favors
Who Invented the Scooter?
Scooters didn't just start as an alternative ride for popping tricks in the skatepark, in fact, they've been around for a really long time. These days it's quite common for people to own all manner of electric scooters and even electric mopeds, but who invented the scooter?
Scooter Rental vs Scooter Subscription: Which is Better?
For a few years, it seemed as if city streets would soon belong to shared electric scooters and bikes. The prospect seemed to enrage as many people as it excited, and there was much wrangling over the new micromobility transportation…
Rideshare, Subway, or Scooter: The Fastest Way to Commute
Commuting is terrible, and not only in the ordinary sense of frustrating and annoying. The problem has reached the level of a public health crisis. It wastes an “astonishing” amount of “human potential,” claims The Washington Post, drains our energy…
Electric Scooters: Range vs Weight
Advances in battery technology have led to a market filled with high-quality electric scooters for everything from tooling around the neighborhood to competitive off-road racing. It’s an exciting time to buy a scooter, but also a confusing time, given the…
Electric Bikes vs Electric Scooters: Which One Should You Choose?
Micromobility has arrived. Personal electric vehicles are solving last mile problems and replacing car trips as major cities move away from car-centric infrastructure. Increasingly, commuters are realizing how much faster and easier it is to get to work on an…
Is It Worth Buying an Electric Scooter?
As cities become more crowded and traffic worsens by the year, the old way of commuting becomes increasingly unsustainable. Commuters have recognized this fact and embraced new ride-share models that reduce their carbon footprint, cut transportation costs, and cut down…
Getting Scooters to Covid-19 First Responders
The Covid-19 crisis has ushered in a period of sickness, fear, confusion, and fatigue across the planet. Naturally, we're all looking for a little hope. At Unagi, we're trying to carve out a humble corner of optimism by helping the…
Unagi, Deconstructed: How An E-Scooter Works
It’s not magic. It might look like a bespelled work of Byzantine machinery unearthed, reformed, and refitted for a new age, but the electrical chariots of modernity are powered by ions, not alchemy. To satisfy the voracious cravings of our…
Why owning an Unagi beats using Rideshare Scooters
It’s been eight years since Uber’s historic beta launch in San Francisco, and, despite a deluge of complaints levied by traditional transportation competitors, governments, and customers, the Uber model – and ridesharing at large – has become ubiquitous. Ease of…
A Case For Electric Scooter Ownership: The Unagi Manifesto
The Rapid Growth of the E-Scooter Ownership Market A study created jointly by Unagi Scooters and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business has found that elect estimate that 35% of scooter riders will prefer to own rather than rent,...
Micro-Mobility Reconnects Us by Supporting Local Culture and Sustainable Development
“Nice neighborhood you’ve got there. Sure would be a shame if someone put a highway through it.” So says the text over the face of Robert Moses in a meme that launched the Facebook group “New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented…
The Scooter, A History
Two wheels and a plank. It would be a modest beginning for a mode of transportation characterized by peaks and troughs in use and popularity unrivaled by any other contemporary human propellant. Although difficult to pinpoint, it is generally accepted…
Micro Mobility & Local Culture
“Nice neighborhood you’ve got there. Sure would be a shame if someone put a highway through it.” So says the text over the face of Robert Moses in a meme that launched the Facebook group “New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented…