A travel trailer is an extremely popular form of holidaying or travelling all over the world. Travel trailers keep gaining in popularity with people looking to travel and stay overnight or for a short holiday and stay in their own travel trailer, other uses include living away for a short or a long time which could include whilst working away. Frequent travellers can see a saving by staying in a travel trailer rather than booking a hotel or a bed and breakfast every occasion. People like the flexibility of travel trailers as they can add and remove features and really go where they want without restrictions. A travel trailer is usually attached and towed behind a vehicle. There are numerous different types of travel trailers, differing in style, size and forms. Many people don’t know when or where travel trailers originated, this is what we will explore in this article.
The origins of the Travel Trailer can be traced back to travelling gypsies and show men and women. Gypsies or Romany Gypsies as they are sometimes known is a culture where people live in a travel trailer, often as a congregation in a park, there were around 120,000 Gypsies in the UK in the 16th century, but they used a travel trailer from around 1850 and often housed the whole family. Travelling show men and women travelled all over their respective country performing or organising fairs and events for the masses often in different towns or cities every week, obviously they needed somewhere to live and sleep so the early form of the travel trailer was used. They were extremely simple, no toilet, heating or cooking instruments, probably only a bed was included, it was a far cry from the luxury available in travel trailers today, they were all horse drawn and they lived on the road for most of their lives, in the case of the Gypsies this would be for all of their lives.
The change of attitude and use of travel trailers started in 1880 when the Bristol Carriage Company built the first travel trailer built purposely for leisure; it was the first one of its kind in the world. Although more and more of these leisure travel trailers were being built they were still very basic and didn’t become the instant success that the founding company hoped it would be. But at around 1900 it did start to pick up popularity, especially in the UK and Europe, this new found popularity was reflected by the formation of the Caravan Club in 1907, their early values which still ring true today was to provide an information and insurance service for travel trailers. By 1909 they only had just over 100 members, now the membership stands at a huge 370,000.
So next time you’re sitting in your five berth travel trailer fully equipped with a gas kitchen, heating, bunk beds and the latest flat screen TV, take a moment to think about where it all started and who brought these extremely popular vehicles to the masses.