History of Caravaning

Below is a potted history of caravaning and caravan holidays in the UK....

Caravans as we know them evolved rather than were invented. It is known that they were used in Marco Polo’s time (13th century), by a character in Charles Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop (1841) and during the First (1914-18) World War. However, the caravan for leisure use seems to have taken off in the beginning of the 20th century (source W. M Whiteman in ‘The History of the Caravan’).

It was then a pursuit for the wealthy and leisured - Harrods and Fortnum and Mason used to hire them out!

The National Caravan Council was founded in 1939 and caravans were used during the Second World War.

Note: The word caravan does not come from Romany, where they are a relatively recent addition, but from the Persian (karwan). It is the origin of the word ‘van’.

There are nearly a million caravans in the UK. Of the three main types for leisure use, there are:


500,000 touring caravans
330,000 caravan holiday homes
120,000 motorhomes

… a couple of million British people take caravan holidays every year (the Caravan Club alone has 850,000 members). In 2004, nearly one in five (18.8%) of adults whose last holiday was in the UK took a caravan holiday.

And if all the touring caravans in Britain were put end to end, they would stretch from Land’s end to John O’Groats three times (3,000 miles).

Caravan parks vary from huge centres with on-site entertainment, leisure centres and multi-sports courts to tiny Certificated Locations (CLs) where there may only be running water and a stunning view. When you ask caravanners what they like about it, they say that it is the freedom and meeting similar minded people that attracts them.