The story
Camping World began in 1966 with a small store in Beech Bend Park, an amusement park outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky, which billed its campground as the world's largest. Campers at the park were requesting a store where they could buy supplies, so David Garvin—son of the park's owner—took out a loan and opened the store. Garvin amassed a large customer list as the years went by, which proved to be sagacious later when he added a mail-order division to the company. That division thrived, fueling the company's growth for years to come.
In 1997, Garvin sold the company to Affinity Group (now known as Good Sam Enterprises), of Ventura, California.
In 2005, Garvin announced plans for a huge development near Franklin, Kentucky called "Garvin's". The development, described by Garvin as "a combination of Disney World, Camping World and Bass Pro Shops", will feature a large Camping World store with RV 250 service bays; a five-story, 650,000 square foot (60,000 m2) permanent RV trade show and exhibition area; a "free-range" campground with dry-camping sites; camping museum; and much more. Due to the recession, however, the venture never got off the ground and much of the land proposed for development was sold at auction in October 2011.
In early October 2016 Camping World raised $251 million in an initial public offering. The 11.4 million shares sold for $22 each. Marcus Lemonis co-owns the company with private equity firm Crestview Partners and plans to retain "substantial control" through his ownership of ML Acquisition and ML R.V. Group.
On December 8, 2025, it was announced that current President Matthew Wagner would be succeeding Marcus Lemonis as CEO of Camping World starting January 1, 2026, and Lemonis will serve as Special Advisor to the company after he retires from his CEO position.
From Wikipedia’s article on Camping World, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7