Kitsch caravans the new cool of travel

Perhaps it's a desire to return to the simple days of childhood, but I've noticed that vintage caravans are suddenly very cool.

There have always been people who love their caravans, whether they are permanently on site in a caravan park or brought out of mothballs annually for the summer holidays. Caravans have historically provided cheap and accessible accommodation for the temporarily homeless, such as Londoners whose houses were bombed during the air raids of the Blitz.

The Roma have for centuries preferred the life of the vagabond, turning their caravans into plush works of art. In the late 19th century the British upper class fantasised about having the life of a gypsy and the first mobile home, The Wanderer, was produced. The first towable caravan as we know it was the Streamlite Rover, released in the United Kingdom in 1948 for what was then an expensive £575.

Since then, people everywhere have taken to caravans enthusiastically. For those who can't afford bricks and mortar, they provide an opportunity to make a low-cost home. Perhaps they're not the safest accommodation in a hurricane, but their mobility makes them more appealing than a house for many. People who permanently dwell in caravan parks sometimes do this because that's all that's available, but there are many who love the spirit of this kind of communal life and living by the beach for the fraction of a cost of a house.

For families on a budget, caravans are the way to have an inexpensive holiday. Caravan parks are traditionally better bargains than hotels, although these days some well-equipped parks, more like resorts, can charge upwards of $60 a night. In Australia, with lots of vacant land, there are plenty of options for pulling off the road for free. And you don't have to pitch a tent.

The "Grey Nomads" in their souped-up Recreational Vehicles have long known about the freedom of taking their home with them. For those into high-tech, there's a TV program called Extreme RV, which is pornography for rev-heads, where vehicles as lavish as mansions and worth more than $2 million are regularly featured.

The classic Airstream caravan, prized for its quaint bullet-like aluminium exterior, is so highly regarded that groovy Airstream hotels, where you sleep in the trailers, have sprung up from France to the United States. Kate Pierson, founder of the band The B52s, operates Kate's Lazy Desert near Joshua Tree, California, with six Airstreams decorated by artists Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker whose house was used in the video for Love Shack. You can buy a new Airstream for $79,900 from Airstream Australia. That's cheaper than most Sydney car parking spaces.

But it's the vintage van that is so fashionable right now. Those cute little caravans made of ply, aluminium or fibreglass, and dating from the 1950s, are featuring in coffee table books like My Cool Caravan and Vintage Caravan Style and it's a younger generation, who enjoy kitsch and hip design, but also the beauty of smaller spaces, who are really taking their homes on the road.

Authors Tara Moss and Berndt Sellheim are passionate about their two vintage Australian-made Viscount vans, which they have named Lady Lamour, for Dorothy Lamour, and Bettie for pin-up Bettie Page. "We love to travel, particularly to small towns, and over the years we found that we wanted more freedom than we could have driving from motel to motel - particularly with a small child and the accompanying supplies," Moss says. Those supplies include vintage frocks for dressing up when the retro mood strikes.