Everything Old is New Again: Caravans, Caravan Parks and Nostalgia

Abstract

This paper uses nostalgia, and especially 'social nostalgia', as a key to exploring the impacts of changes in the caravanning landscape since the early part of the twentieth century, using the Gold Coast as a case study. It shows that whilst the caravanning landscape has changed there is a resurgence of nostalgia for the simplicity and communality of the past, which is threatened by both land development pressures and changes within the industry. An expression of this new nostalgia is attempt to recapture the past through a growth in vintage caravanning.