Caravan originally referred to a group travelling together. The first reference in English is by Willam Warner, a poet and contemporary of Shakespeare who writes about “merchants travelling by caravan, that is, great droves of laden camels”.
It was much later in the 1674 version of Glossographia, Thomas Blount’s early dictionary that there is a reference to a caravan as a vehicle for the first time, “a kind of waggon to carry passengers to and from London”. It was only in the early 1800s that caravans were built to live in, first in France and then in England for street vendors and circus performances.
By the 1930s, a list of 1,200 caravan sites in English shows that business is booming, although it appears that their reputation is very low. George Orwell writes about “dreadful caravan dwellings” that have become permanent residences.
And some caravans still are permanent homes, as its synonyms motor home or mobile home indicate. But they are also recreational vehicles, campers or trailers. This wide variety of uses is one reason why something close to half a million caravans are sold a year, the vast majority in Europe and North America.
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