(Image: nate2b; an abandoned trailer by the shores of the Salton Sea)
Camping and caravanning is seemingly hardwired into the Anglosphere’s DNA. In the UK, astonishing amounts of people still spend their holidays under a sheet of canvas in a field. In the US, the sight of a vast campervan blocking half the highway is almost a cliché. Down Under, camping has been called “essential to the Australian experience.” It seems most of us simply love to camp.
And, as with everything we love to do, that leaves traces. We’ve previously covered abandoned amusement and theme parks, derelict sports grounds and other crumbling leisure sites here on Urban Ghosts. Now, here are ten abandoned trailers, caravans and campers of summers past.
Abandoned Airstream Trailer on Route 66 (USA)
(Image: Gabriel Millos)
Somewhere along the iconic sweep of America’s Route 66 lies this forlorn Airstream trailer. Its windows are long gone, its door removed and its insides gutted. Left out to face the elements, it now provides a minor distraction to drivers blinded by highway hypnosis. A space-age aluminium can warping under the sun’s ferocious desert heat.
The abandoned trailer sits alongside the Bagdad Café. Presumably, this remote desert diner was named for the popular 1980s film and, going by appearances, it doesn’t seem hospitable to life. Desert scrub stretches off to distant mountain ranges. Not a single cloud provides shade from the relentless heat. Out in this dry and dusty world, it’s easy to imagine a forgotten old trailer like this one lasting forever.
Abandoned Trailer in New Hampshire (USA)
(Images: Brad Perkins)
Although built with campers and vacationers in mind, many caravans wind up having an alternate life as housing units. Cheap to set-up and easy to move, trailers are America’s default home for many low income families. Such seems to be the fate of this abandoned trailer found in the woods in New Hampshire, outside Portsmouth. Now empty, it appears until recently to have been used as somebody’s home.
While we have no shots from inside the trailer, it’s interesting to note the obvious wear on the outside. The walls are battered and dented, the front door bowing inwards. The walls are stained green with damp and mould; the result of a few too many New England winters. The units on the roof are rusted. Despite all this, the abandoned trailer itself is in pretty good lick. So much so that’s it interesting to wonder if it is truly redundant… or if it merely sits empty, waiting for a lick of paint and a new owner.
Abandoned Pink Trailer by California’s Salton Sea (USA)
(Images: nate2b – top, middle, bottom – website: Open Jaw)
In the vast desert wilderness of California’s Coachella and Imperial valleys lies the Salton Sea, a shallow, salty rift lake that stretches over an area of land the size of the UK’s West Midlands. Nothing much grows there. The ground is dry, the skies a cold, crystal blue. It’s the sort of place you could spend all day without seeing much in the way of life. Unless, that is, you were to stumble across this old abandoned trailer.
A broken ruin not too far from the shoreline, the bright pink trailer seems to have been abandoned to its fate long ago. The paint is peeling, the wood cracked and warped, parts of the walls missing. It looks like it hasn’t been used in decades, possibly even longer. Was it someone’s home? A vehicle for vacations that somehow got left behind? The abandoned trailer has been well-documented by rural explorers, who discovered that even its inner fixtures and fittings are painted pink.
Another Abandoned Salton Sea Trailer, California (USA)
(Image: nate2b)
Elsewhere on the desert periphery of the Salton Sea lies another forgotten trailer. An angular dwelling with imposing, dirty-white walls, it’s the antithesis of the upbeat pink trailer lying nearby. With its metal cladding and its unusual shape, this abandoned trailer looks less like somewhere to live than a tank-like vehicle for conquering neighbouring countries.
Like so many other places in the Salton Sea area, this trailer now has a sense of utter desolation about it. You can almost see the years etched into the dust and grime coating its every surface. Forgotten chairs and other debris lie nearby, as if the owners were sat there only this morning, enjoying a beer in the harsh sun. Yet this is little more than an illusion. In such an advanced state of disrepair, it seems unlikely anyone will ever again call this particular trailer ‘home’.
Derelict Trailer in Goler Wash, California (USA)
(Image: el-toro)
Situated in Death Valley National Park, Goler Wash is so utterly inhospitable to life it makes the rest of California’s deserts look like the Champs-Élysées. In this baking, boiling world, temperatures can easily reach the mid-40Cs. Yet, not so long ago, people still chose to live here. When the old Keystone mine (also known as the Lotus mine) was in operation, people would hunker down under the nuclear sun. People like the former owner of this abandoned trailer.
A wooden-slatted thing that began to disintegrate long ago, the trailer is now little more than a wreck. Doubtless preserved somewhat by the dry desert air, it still manages to look as if it met its end many decades ago. Some of the original colouring still survives, giving it an oddly jaunty look at odds with the barren wasteland all around it. Almost as if that yellow streak of paint is a beacon of hope, shining in the brutal desert.
Recovering an Abandoned Camping Trailer in Nevada (USA)
(Image: The Greater Southwestern Exploration Company)
Here at Urban Ghosts, we’re keen fans of adaptive reuse, regeneration (when handled sensitively) and recycling old and derelict dwellings. So it’s heartening to stumble across photos like this when examining abandoned trailers. Taken in Nevada a few years ago, they show the ultimate fate awaiting many of the US’s abandoned trailers: to be ‘rescued’ and – with any luck – repurposed.
The story of this particular trailer is unknown to us. It was found lying in a sheep-grazing meadow, but who put it there, or for what purpose, is unknown. It could be that it was simply somewhere for modern day shepherds to rest while watching their flock. Or it could be that it was placed there for some other purpose entirely, before finally being forgotten about. Though it may have been off to the junkyard, we like to think it was poised for a new lease of life.
Abandoned Caravan in Sidlesham, West Sussex (UK)
(Images: Sparkly Kate)
There is something strangely, perfectly British about a mouldy old caravan decaying in a corner of a garden. Perhaps this is due to the massive caravanning craze that took off in the 1960s and 1970s, then crashed back to Earth spectacularly with the rise of affordable city breaks and Mediterranean cruises. All those old caravans had to go somewhere. And at least one of them wound up in Sidlesham in West Sussex.
As these photos show, this particular caravan has clearly been there for a long time. The windows are gone. The panelling has been stripped away. Parts of the abandoned caravan have collapsed, while others seem to have been violently torn off. Mould blights the white paint, turning it a lurid, poisonous green. Yet despite all this, there’s still something vaguely romantic about this battered old caravan. Looking at it, you almost find yourself wanting to know all the places it’s been, all the holidays it went on.
Abandoned VW Camper in Tofino Botanical Gardens (Canada)
(Image: Ruth Hartnup)
Never before has a brand of car been associated so closely with a social movement as the VW Camper was with the hippies. The cliché of a brightly-coloured flower power bus still has currency in popular culture, although it seems unlikely there were ever really that many to begin with. Yet plenty still survive, such as this semi-famous one at Tofino Botanical Gardens on Vancouver Island.
A wrecked old VW pushed right into the treeline, the abandoned camper is like a stereotype brought to life. Its freak-out colours, peace symbols and giant magic eye are everything we consider shorthand for the hippie movement. In a way, that only makes its placing all the more-perfect. Turning to rust on the edges of the path, this old VW now looks like a metaphor for the sixties.
Abandoned Campervan in Oregon (USA)
(Images: 211 Meadow Oaks)
Somewhere in wild Oregon lies this forgotten campervan home, nestled among the trees of an anonymous trailer park. Seemingly abandoned when a tenant moved out at short notice, the vehicle is now a squat, grubby, wheel-less mess. Streaked with mould, battered and looking exceptionally forlorn, it now seemingly waits, watching out for an owner who will never return.
As is the case with many on our list, we do not know this campervan’s full story. Our best guess would be that it was used as someone’s primary residence for several years, then left without a second thought. Nonetheless, it makes an interesting counterpoint to the wild and wooded forest all around it. It’s easy to imagine this one van is the last remnant of our civilization, waiting peacefully in the ruins of America for the world to finally end.
Abandoned VW Camper in Volkswagen Graveyard (Sweden)
(Images: belowodje – Flickr stream)
The Bastnas car cemetery in Sweden is a remarkable VW graveyard, teeming with the rusting hulks of dozens of forgotten Beetles. Long since stripped of their useful parts, the vehicles now slowly decay beneath an ever-growing blanket of vegetation. Trees grow through gearboxes. Axles are entwined with creepers. An astonishing number of cars have met their ends here, including the spectacular wrecks of many old VW campers.
Unlike the cutesy, painted version in our Canada entry, these abandoned campers are the real deal. Smashed up piles of rust that are teetering on the verge of collapse, they were once vehicles owned and driven by real people, touring across Europe many decades ago. Today, they’re comprehensive wrecks. Everything’s been gutted. Moss grows thick and green on the roofs. While some of the old cars in this Volkswagen graveyard may be almost salvageable, most will almost certainly never go on vacation again.
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