Most of us have memories of staying in a caravan park. Whether it was as kids, parents, schoolies or backpackers, the caravan park is something that we share as a common piece of our past. Some of the memories are fantastic, like your first kiss on a summer holiday to the coast, in the dim and cool confines of the canvas annexe beside your parents’ van. Some memories are dreadful, like tents collapsing in the rain, algae in the pool, or worst of all, getting tinea from the amenities block on that one time you forgot to wear your thongs in the shower. It’s rare to find someone who grew up in Australia who doesn’t have at least one story about staying in a caravan park.

Caravan parks are undergoing a renaissance as a growing number of Baby Boomers take to the road in an assortment of vans and motorhomes, while their kids begin the cycle with their own families, in tents and camper trailers. Unlike hotels or holiday units, where holiday makers carry on the same isolation typical of our normal lives, in a caravan park everyone lives partially in public, sharing their space with strangers and in turn, observing and being observed by those around them. There are some lessons that we could learn from caravan parks as we look to build a more equitable and sustainable future for our society.

Caravan parks are excellent at resource allocation. Even with the advent of bathrooms in caravans and the ‘ensuite sites’ where your van can be parked beside your own toilet and shower, in the caravan park it’s the amenities block where most people will be taking care of business. Unlike our homes where the bathroom is empty for most of the day, at the caravan park it’s unusual to be the sole person using the shower block. Similarly, the laundry at a caravan park is utilised at a level that not even the most demented of clean freaks could match at home. While it’s unlikely that many of us would have much interest in sharing our bathrooms with our neighbours, it’s undeniable that there’s merit in the idea of sharing stuff rather than having it sit idle. Car pooling and public transport are obvious examples, but there’s no doubt that there are plenty of other ways in which we could be better utilising resources rather than locking them up in pockets of privilege, where they help very few and are rarely used by those who do have access.

Another useful lesson is the egalitarianism of the caravan park. There is definitely a hierarchy of sites. It might be the view, the amount of shade, the distance to the amenities block or the beach, but it’s true that not all sites are created equal. What’s equally true is that you can’t get the best site just because you have the best van. While your mammoth motorhome might be the envy of everyone at the truck-stop, you may find that when you reach the beachside park you’re stuck up the back because you’re too big to where you can have a shoreline view. You can scream “Don’t you know who I am?” until you’re hoarse at a caravan park, ostentatious possessions won’t get anyone else to deferentially hand over their choice location to you. If you want to get the best spots you have to follow the rules - you can’t circumvent them.

There’s also a great deal of trust required amongst the people who choose to stay in a caravan park. Two zips on a tent aren’t much of a security feature, and most vans wouldn’t put up any meaningful resistance to anyone determined to break in. Hence, you are left with the options of trusting your fellow park visitors, or worrying yourself sick. Obviously most of us choose the former but do our bit to ensure that our neighbours’ things are left alone too. This is such a change from our normal lives where we encumber ourselves with deadbolts, padlocks and chains to ensure that no-one can mess with our stuff. We consume panic-stricken media stories which encourage divisiveness and fear about the ever present ‘other’ coming to destroy our way of life. How much more relaxed we would be if we trusted the strangers in our neighbourhood as easily as we did the people at the caravan park?

A further aspect of caravan parks that would enhance our everyday lives is the amazing diversity they bestow. In our conventional lives we pick the suburb in which we live, the places we shop and eat and the social circles in which we move. When we get to a caravan park, we have no choice over the people who surround us. CEOs end up rubbing shoulders with assembly line workers, hunters get greenies on their doorstep. You may be confronted by the Catholic couple whose tent seems to hold more noisy kids than a clown car, or the German backpackers who seem to have nothing to wear except overly tight denim shorts. The inability to select who you’ll be exposed to means that you meet people you would otherwise never have taken the time to get to know. You’ll have people of other races, beliefs or sexual orientations sharing your space resulting in an increase in tolerance, acceptance and understanding.

But perhaps the most important thing that the caravan park can teach us is how much we can do without. Big screen televisions, game consoles, elaborate wardrobe choices, piles of kids’ toys and obscure kitchen appliances get left behind when you’re spending a week in a tent. Without these things we not only survive, but flourish and relax. When we get home how many of the things that we surround ourselves with feel like clutter? The caravan park gives us a great reminder of how little we truly need.

The caravan park offers a life where, more often than not, we are all at our best and where we live outside of the usually accepted constraints. It’s a part of our shared story as Australians that enables us to perhaps bring more back from our holidays than just sunburn and sand.

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Dave Gaukroger provides a cautionary example for others. He continues to believe in quaint ideas like social equality, personal accountability and the power of indie pop music. Dave writes regular media commentary for Crikey’s Pure Poison blog. Follow him on twitter @dfg77

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