Caravan (trailer)

A caravan, travel trailer, camper, tourer or camper trailer is a trailer towed behind a road vehicle to provide a place to sleep which is more comfortable and protected than a tent (although there are fold-down trailer tents).^[1][2] It provides the means for people to have their own home on a journey or a vacation, without relying on a motel or hotel, and enables them to stay in places where none is available. However, in some countries campers are restricted to designated sites for which fees are payable.

Caravans vary from basic models which may be little more than a tent on wheels to those containing several rooms with all the furniture and furnishings and equipment of a home. Construction of the solid-wall trailers can be made of metal or fiberglass. Travel trailers are used principally in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.^[3][4]

The word caravan (sometimes trailer caravan in distinction to motor caravan) is regional to Great Britain, while in North America they are called travel trailers or camper trailer;^[5] different parts of the anglosphere may use further variations on either of these.^[5] This has led to further variations, such as in New Zealand a motor caravan is typically called a motorhome in North America. In North America, caravans are included under the umbrella term recreational vehicle, or RV for short - though they do not have to be for recreation, and the term includes travel trailers and many other types.^[6][7] Types of travel trailers in the US include teardrop trailer, fifth-wheel, hybrid, and pop-up.^[6] To further clarify, in North America mobile home and trailer parks are generally not caravans or caravan park, those are actually pre-constructed homes fixed in place, though sometimes they can be. In general, a caravan park there is more like an RV park, which might have temporary hookups for sewage, power, and/water for a caravan (RV home) but usually allows other types such as motorhomes or campervans. Australian English calls both RV parks and trailer parks, caravan parks. Tiny homes that are mobile can have much in common with a caravan; however, going RVing and the tiny home movement are different trends. One is more about living mobile and/or vacationing, and the other is more about living in a small house mostly in one location. In North America a fifth-wheel is like a bigger caravan that mounts into the bed of a truck rather than a trailer hitch.^[6]

A caravan fits in the range of vehicles in that has more fixed structures then a camper trailer, but lack an engine like a campervan or motorhome. In the United States and Canada, most caravans would be called an RV of the subtype, travel trailer.^[5]