Posted on 06/15/2013 9:44:47 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
Though often associated with the unworldly, travel trailers of the mid 20th century were for cosmopolitan wanderers who wanted to see Earth in its entirety. During the 1950s, Wally Byam, the founder of Airstream, Inc., brought caravans of his silver trailers to astonishingly remote places.
After a few trips, the Wally Byam Caravan Club International (WBCCI) formed and trailerites were soon rolling their way across six continents on goodwill missions.
A snaking line of silver toasters created quite a stir wherever it went, generating buzz for the company and eventually a television miniseries narrated by Vincent Price. The trailer's arrival in foreign lands was compared to a spaceship landing and always accompanied by Wally's brand of person-to-person diplomacy, creating, in his words, "more honest-to-goodness, down-to-earth goodwill in the countries we've visited than all the striped-pants diplomats put together."
The first caravan was in 1951 and lasted three months. Inspired by an article on the new Pan American Highway, Byam decided to check it out despite it being incomplete. The expedition was so ambitious that by the time the trailers reached the halfway point, Mexico City, about a third of the trailerites had given up and gone home. The diehards continued south all the way to Nicaragua.
The trip was rough – roads were unpaved, grades were steep, and turns were of the hairpin variety. Byam offered up parts of his own trailer to help other adventurers in need and finally left his cannibalized Airstream on the side of the road. At one point the trailers were piggybacked on a flatbed train, secured only with ropes.
After returning home, many of the parti cipants said they'd never do anything like that again. They went back on their word and the world tours began.
The caravans that followed were each larger and more inspired than the last, as rows of chrome bullets wriggled shot through Central America to Canada to Europe to Africa. The "Capetown to Cairo" trip, in which Wally and his wife traveled in a gold anodized Airstream trailer, was Wally's final caravan. He wasn't there to witness his biggest dream, the Around the World Caravan, when it was finally realized.
The ultimate trailer trip followed a path mapped by Marco Polo in the late 13th century, this 403-day trek covered 31,000 miles and wound its way through Singapore, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Portugal, Syria, Thailand, and Russia. Legend has it the trailerites baked an apple pie in an Airstream oven for the locals Afghans. Wally would have liked that.
Tara Cox, Managing Editor of 'Men's Journal,' is the author of Airstream: The Silver RV. – Tara Cox
Wow, a 60’s Ford CrewCab.
there's a guy about eight miles from here that buys old ones and refurbishes them, always has three or four on the lot
GAWD!
I thought you were telling FReepers about a new trailer for a movie called, “The Most Traveled.”
I need another beer......
Beautiful Arabians in that last pic.
LOL!
Gonna be a bitch when he applies the brakes on a down hill stretch.
Thanks for the neat post, Jet Jaguar.
Did these have air conditioning?
At the time, no.
You could install it if you had the dollars.
Tough people. LOL
It was camping with hard sided trailer at the time.
It was roughing it.
It must have been a lot of fun. They did have a lot of comforts.
But it is the wrong brand of trailer to be the most traveled trailer. 
I’ve been noticing a growing trend of restoring and/or renovating certain RV’s, most notably 73-78 GMC motorhomes, but also old Airstreams and even classic ‘50s singlewide trailer homes.
Here’s a decent site for a company that works almost exclusively with old Airstreams:
http://www.timelesstraveltrailers.com/
At first my wife was all excited about the prospect of seeing the Cadillac Ranch. After she finally saw it a few years ago her response was “is that all there is?” We were both more excited about seeing Carhenge in western Nebraska.
I remember getting caught in a line of traffic backed up behind one of the Byam caravans in Missouri. Airstream after Airstream driven by elderly retireees, it went on for miles.
Even if the trailer ahead would signal that it was OK to pass, you wound up smack between another set of Airstreams traveling at a moderate safe speed. Combine ordinary personal travlers llike myself with frustrated truckers also trying to keep their schedules, and you had a moving parking lot that was a nightmare.
I appreciate the fact that this was a great adventure for those folks in the caravan since they were footloose and wealthy enough to join others like them on the road. Most wanted to be courteous and polite, but they invited a lot of road rage and dangerous driving from some frustrated motorists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.