AT A farewell party for my friend on the eve of his yearlong family caravanning adventure, I asked him whether he was concerned about taking his boys out of primary school for a year and hitting the road for a lap of Australia.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “They’ll learn more in the coming year than they will in the next five at primary school.”
Two weeks later while watching the news on TV, there they were, the entire family knee-deep in the ocean somewhere along the east coast helping to save a beached humpback whale.
It was a goosebumps kind of moment for me; something much more profound for them.
Another Aussie family who recently packed their life into a caravan for a year and hit the road are Nikki Harris and Matt Allan and their four children. Choosing to explore their “own backyard” rather than overseas was an easy decision, according to Nikki.
“We felt a road trip holiday around Australia was easier and safer,” Nikki says. “We allowed 12 months of travel on the same budget that would have achieved for us a quarter of the time overseas.
“For us, the experience was as much about the length of time together as a family as the destinations we took in. We definitely followed the old adage: It’s the journey, not the destination. We wanted our kids to know their own country.
“Matt’s father had planned to do the trip when he retired years earlier and died prior to doing it. That was a big motivator for us to seize the day.”
Seize the day, indeed, and the “Harris-Allans” are just one of a significantly growing number of families choosing the caravanning and camping lifestyle, according Australian Tourism Research findings.
“It’s about escapism, getting back to basics and family values,” says Stuart Lamont, chief executive officer of the Caravan Industry Association of Australia.
Lamont and his fellow industry leaders are rightly rubbing their hands together at a time when the global travel market hasn’t been without its
challenges in recent years, namely a global financial crisis.
Caravanning and camping has always stood the test of time and economic challenges, but now it’s surging.
“We’re time poor and this type of holiday experience gives us the opportunity to discover more of our beautiful country and get our hands dirty,” Lamont says. “It’s affordable. You take your family away to Disneyland or Bali and you come back home with a credit card debt. You choose to go caravanning, and you have an asset to either resell or re-use.”
Affordability aside, it’s the non-material aspect that stays with you as a caravanner or camper, good and bad alike.
“Some of my fondest memories as a kid were some of the disasters at the time, too. It’s that genuine, warts-and-all experience that can also make it so special.
“You know, going caravanning or camping and it’s pouring, you’re waterlogged and you think at the time ‘I’m never doing this again’, but they’re the memories you have that you look at most fondly. They’re bonding moments, lasting memories. Essentially, that’s what you get out of caravanning and camping.”
The stigma of grey nomads dominating the travel sector is gone as families continue to hit the road. “The serious growth in the registrations is the family van range,” Lamont explains.
“We’re seeing anecdotal evidence that there are a lot more families going to the caravan and camping shows, and a lot more sales are in that sector.”
The CIAA boss suggests another reason why it’s boom time is simply due to the fact the type of holiday experience is “built into our culture”.
“If you look back in time, a large percentage of the population of Australia has gone caravanning and or camping some time in their life, and many childhood memories are built on going away to stay in a park, in a caravan or on a riverbank somewhere with their family.
“For mums and dads, it’s about instilling in their children some of those hardcore values they learnt, and this is an inexpensive way of re-creating some of those memories and passing on a legacy to the next generation.”
In fact, the boom goes beyond the family market. While the typically popular grey nomad sector remains strong, “gramping” is the emerging trend as well as an increase in Asian visitor numbers.
“That inter-generational ‘gramping’ trend is certainly growing,” Lamont says. “Grandparents are taking the opportunity to take their grandchildren on holiday. There’s also a real opportunity now in the international market with Chinese visitors as we see them rapidly becoming our No.1 inbound.
“We haven’t caught the wave of that just yet, but we’re certainly starting to see it.”
Dennis Werthenbach, chairman of Family Parks (one of the big caravan park chains along with others like BIG4 and Top Tourist Parks) says he believes the appeal is a lot to do with the “quality and value” being offered by most parks throughout Australia.
“I’m enormously impressed with the improvements and value offered for everything from the larger resort-style parks – with eateries, bars, water parks, jumping pillows and so on – through to our smaller and more humble locations with tranquil settings, near lakes, rivers and beaches,” Werthenbach says.
“The value is really important, whether you have a tent, caravan or hire out a cabin. It’s terrific value. Throw in the fact we have fantastic Australian-made recreational vehicles and products, and a serious manufacturing work force, and everybody wins.”
Caravanning and camping has always been a big industry in Australia. But it’s now accounting for a staggering $7 billion of annual expenditure and representing more than 60 million visitor nights.
Caravan registrations have experienced a higher rate of increase than any other vehicle type in the past two years and research into the number of registered RVs or motorhomes in Australia shows a jump yearon-year of 5 per cent.
In 2013, the number of registered RVs in Australia was 528,869, rising from 502,025 the previous year. Of those registered vehicles, 474,783 are towed product (for example, caravans, camper trailers, tent trailers and other towed RVs) while more than 54,000 are motorhomes or campervans.
Lamont believes the love affair Australians have with caravanning and camping isn’t about to finish any time soon.
“I was talking to someone about this the other day, and I love my job because I get to go around Australia, but once upon a time I could never understand why people would choose to do the great lap around Australia six or seven times or go back to the same place over and over,” Lamont says.
“Part of that is habit and routine, but you can go to the same place at a different time or be in a park with a different neighbour, different weather conditions and you get a very different experience. So I see it now, and I personally love going back to places over and over again because it’s never exactly the same.
“It’s a really healthy time for caravanning and camping. The growth in the broader market is always going to be about what people desire - the creature comforts away from home, the raw experience of getting your hands dirty in the outdoors. People are craving that.”
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