The recreational vehicle turns 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational Vehicle Indust

The recreational vehicle turn 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational Vehicle Industry toronto luxury car rental Association, about 8.2 million households now own RVs. (Photograph from the collections of Al Hesselbart and the RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum)
Every December 15, Kevin Ewert and Angie Kaphan celebrate a nomadiversary, the anniversary of wedding their lives to their wanderlust. They sit down at home, wherever they are, and decide whether to spend another year motoring in their 40-foot recreational vehicle.
Their romance with the road began six years ago, when they bought an RV to go to Burning toronto luxury car rental Man, the annual temporary community toronto luxury car rental of alternative culture in the Nevada desert. They soon started taking weekend trips and, after trading up to a bigger RV, motored toronto luxury car rental from San Jose to Denver and then up to Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, Sturgis, Devil s Tower and through Yellowstone. They loved the adventure, and Ewert, who builds web applications, was able to maintain regular work hours, just as he d done at home in San Jose.
So they sold everything, including their home in San Jose, where they d met, bought an even bigger toronto luxury car rental RV, and hit the road full time, modern-day nomads in a high-tech covered wagon. What we re doing with the RV is blazing our own trail and getting out there and seeing all these places, Ewert says. I think it s a very iconic American toronto luxury car rental thing.
The recreational vehicle turns 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational toronto luxury car rental Vehicle Industry Association, about 8.2 million households now own RVs. They travel for 26 days and an average of 4,500 miles annually, according to a 2005 University of Michigan study. The institute estimates about 450,000 of them are full-time RVers like Ewert and Kaphan.
Drivers began making camping alterations to cars almost as soon as they were introduced. The first RV was Pierce-Arrow s Touring Landau, which debuted at Madison Square Garden in 1910. The Landau had a back seat that folded into a bed, a chamber pot toilet and a sink that folded down from the back of the seat of the chauffeur, who was connected to his passengers via telephone. Camping trailers toronto luxury car rental made by Los Angeles Trailer Works and Auto-Kamp Trailers also rolled off the assembly line beginning in 1910. Soon, dozens of manufacturers were producing what were then called auto campers, according to Al Hesselbart, the historian at the RV Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, a city that produces 60 percent of the RVs manufactured in the United States today.
As automobiles became more reliable, people traveled more and more. The rise in popularity of the national parks attracted travelers who demanded more campsites. David Woodworth a former Baptist preacher who once owned 50 RVs built between 1914 and 1937, but sold many of them to the RV Museum toronto luxury car rental says in 1922 you could visit a campground in Denver that had 800 campsites, a nine-hole golf course, a hair salon and a movie theater.
The Tin Can Tourists, named because they heated tin cans of food on gasoline stoves by the roadside, formed the first camping toronto luxury car rental club in the United States, holding their inaugural rally in Florida in 1919 and growing to 150,000 members by the mid-1930s. They had an initiation; an official song, The More We Get Together; and a secret handshake.
Another group of famous men, the self-styled Vagabonds Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs toronto luxury car rental caravaned toronto luxury car rental in cars for annual camping trips from 1913 to 1924, drawing national attention. Their trips were widely covered by the media and evoked a desire in others to go car camping (regular folks certainly didn t have their means). They brought with them a custom Lincoln truck outfitted as a camp kitchen. While they slept in tents, their widely chronicled adventures helped promote toronto luxury car rental car camping and the RV lifestyle. Later, CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt captured the romance of life on the road with reports that started in 1967, wearing out motor homes by covering more than a million miles over the next 25 years in his On the Road series. There s just something about taking your home with you, stopping wherever you want to and being in the comfort of your own home, being able to cook your own meals, that has really appealed to people, Woodworth says.
Every December 15, Kevin Ewert and Angie Kaphan celebrate a nomadiversary, the anniversary of wedding their lives to their wanderlust. They sit down at home, wherever they are, and decide whether to spend another year motoring in their 40-foot recreational vehicle.
Their romance with the road began six years ago, when they bought an RV to go to Burning Man, the annual temporary community of alternative culture in the Nevada desert. They soon started toronto luxury car rental taking weekend trips and, after trading up to a bigger RV, motored from San Jose to Denver and then up to Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, Sturgis, Devil s Tower and through Yellowstone. They loved the adventure, and Ewert, who builds web applications, was able to maintain regular work hours, just as he d done at home in San Jose.
So they sold everything, including their home in San Jose, where they d met, bought an even bigger RV, and hit the road full time, modern-day nomads in a high-tech covered wagon. What we re doing with the RV is blazing our own trail and getting out there and seeing all these places, Ewert says. I think it s a very iconic American thing.
The recreational vehicle turns 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, about 8.2 million households now own RVs. They travel for 26 days and an average of 4,500 miles annually, according to a 2005 University of Michigan toronto luxury car rental study. toronto luxury car rental The institute estimates about 450,000 of them are full-time toronto luxury car rental RVers like Ewert and Kaphan.
Drivers began making camping alterations toronto luxury car rental to cars almost as soon as they were introduced. The first RV was Pierce-Arrow s Touring Landau, which debuted toronto luxury car rental at Madison Square Garden in 1910. The Landau had a back seat that folded into a bed, a chamber pot toilet and a sink that folded down from the back of the seat of the chauffeur, who was connected to his passengers via telephone. Camping trailers made by Los Angeles Trailer Works and Auto-Kamp Trailers also rolled off the assembly line beginning in 1910. Soon, dozens of manufacturers were producing what were then called auto campers, according to Al Hesselbart, the historian at the RV Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, a city that produces 60 percent of the RVs manufactured in the United States today.
As automobiles became more reliable, people traveled toronto luxury car rental more and more. The rise in popularity toronto luxury car rental of the national parks attracted travelers who demanded more campsites. David Woodworth a former Baptist preacher who once owned 50 RVs built between toronto luxury car rental 1914 and 1937, but sold many of them to the RV Museum says in 1922 you could visit a campground in Denver that had 800 campsites, a nine-hole golf course, a hair salon and a movie theater.
The Tin Can Tourists, named because they heated tin cans of food on gasoline stoves by the roadside, formed the first camping club in the United States, holding their inaugural rally in Florida in 1919 and growing to 150,000 members by the mid-1930s. They had an initiation; an official song, The More We Get Together; and a secret handshake.
Another group of famous men, the self-styled Vagabonds Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and naturalist toronto luxury car rental John Burroughs caravaned in cars for annual camping trips from 1913 to 1924, drawing national attention. Their trips were widely covered by the media and evoked a desire in others to go car camping (regular folks certainly didn t have their means). They brought toronto luxury car rental with them a custom Lincoln truck outfitted as a camp kitchen. While they slept in tents, their widely chronicled adventures helped toronto luxury car rental promote car camping and the RV lifestyle. Later, CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt captured toronto luxury car rental the romance toronto luxury car rental of life on the road with reports that started in 1967, wearing out motor homes by covering more than a million miles over the next 25 years in his On the Road series. There s just something about taking your home with you, stopping wherever you want to and being in the comfort of your own home, being able to cook your own meals, that has really appealed to people, Woodworth says.
The crash of 1929 and the Depression dampened the popularity of RVs, although some people toronto luxury car rental used travel trailers, toronto luxury car rental which could be purchased for $500 to $1,000, as inexpensive homes. Rationing during World War II stopped production of RVs for consumer use, although some companies converted to wartime manufacturing, making units that served as mobile hospitals, prisoner transports and morgues.
After the war, the returning GIs and their young families craved inexpensive ways to vacation. The burgeoning interstate highway system offered a way to go far fast and that combination spurred a second RV boom that lasted through the 1960s.
Motorized RVs started to become popular in the late 1950s, but they were expensive luxury items that were far less popular than trailers. That changed in 1967 when Winnebago began mass-producing what it advertised as America s first family of motor homes, five models from 16 to 27 feet long, which sold for as little as $5,000. By then, refrigeration was a staple of RVs, according to Hesselbart, who wrote The Dumb Things Sold Just Like That , a history of the RV industry.
As RVs became more sophisticated, Hesselbart says, they attracted toronto luxury car rental a new breed of enthusiasts interested less in camping and more in destinations, toronto luxury car rental like Disney World and Branson, Missouri. Today, it seems that only your budget toronto luxury car rental limits the comforts of an RV. Modern motor homes have convection ovens, microwaves, garbage disposals, washers and dryers, king-size beds, heated baths and showers and, of course, satellite dishes.
Ewert chose an RV that features an office. It s a simple life, he says. Everything they own travels with them. They consume less and use fewer resources than they did living in a hou