Longtime Airstream owners call it "The Mothership." Airstream’s headquarters in Jackson Center, Ohio, are home to not only our leaders, designers, and planners, but also our doers. All of our travel trailers and touring coaches are produced right here in three cutting-edge facilities. And from here they canvas the globe.
From visiting our Heritage Center Museum to shopping our flagship Airstream Supply Company store, there's a lot to do when you Visit the Mothership. But the highlight of any visit to Jackson Center is one of our public Plant Tours. It's your chance to watch us build an American icon from the ground up, and see the exacting standards that we adhere to and the people who make it happen. From rivet guns and sewing machines to rows of Sprinter van shells and rooms that re-create rain showers, our Airstream Factory Tours demonstrate the caliber of construction and the testing each unit undergoes. We welcome you to come inside to see how we do things differently.
You can tour any or all of our three manufacturing facilities. As of March 2026, Travel Trailer Plant Tours run Monday through Thursday at 1pm EST, Touring Coach Plant Tours are Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10am EST, and Basecamp Plant Tours occur Tuesdays at 11am EST. Click below to see our full hours, dates when we're closed, read up on what to expect, and plan your visit to The Mothership today.
A Virtual Tour of Airstream's Manufacturing Facilities
Can't wait to see it yourself? Read on to learn more about the manufacturing process and get a sneak peak of what you'll experience when you Visit the Mothership. Or click the buttons below to watch our virtual tours on YouTube.
Travel Trailer Tour on YouTube
The Airstream Travel Trailer Factory Tour
Our state-of-the-art plant, newly completed in 2020, is where every single Airstream travel trailer is made. Spawning thousands of aspirations cast in aluminum per year, our travel trailer plant is fascinating for the curious hoping to see behind the scenes, for current and future Airstreamers, and for kids and kids at heart.
A tour is a chance to see how every unit is handcrafted right here in Jackson Center, Ohio. This is where the magic begins — and it’s carried forward to your adventures on the road.
As we build an Airstream travel trailer, we work from the outside in, starting with giant sheets of shiny aluminum riveted together by a team working on both sides. We apply thousands of tons of pressure per square inch to stretch the aluminum on the ends to each Airstream’s classic curved shape.
Once the exterior aluminum is riveted in place, we bring in the chassis. It’s amazing to watch as a crane lifts the shell and lowers it onto the finished chassis, where it’s bolted together. Another story of adventure takes shape.
Next, you’ll see what makes an Airstream door so special. All aluminum, following the line of the aerodynamic Airstream, it shuts like a vault. Our teams spend almost three hours assembling the hundreds of components for the metal screen, the window, the locking mechanism, and more. Each door is insulated for warmth and sealed against water.
The windows come next: hinges, locks, supports, screens and tinted glass. Our window frames are built by hand right here from extruded metal bars. The many windows make Airstream interiors feel bright, and they frame each new iconic view.
You’ll watch craftspeople work all around–and even on top–as an Airstream goes down the line to completely finish the exterior shell, step by step. It's thousands upon thousands of little details, all handled with care.
As if all this wasn’t enough, we create the perfect storm, also known as the water check. For 25 to 30 minutes, we unleash 10,000 gallons of recycled water on every Airstream as a team member inside checks for leaks. In the event they find a leak, the trailer is repaired and tested again. Some brands let the customer be the first to discover water leaks. Not us. While many brands build the interior out on the chassis and then apply the walls and ceiling–we do things the opposite way, putting great care into the building the iconic shell first and insuring its watertight before we build out the interior. That process means that ever single interior component must pass through the 26-inch main entry door–one of the many reasons we build so many components in-house. Airstream may not do it the easy way, but we like to think we do it the right way.
The Airstream travel trailer manufacturing plant was constructed in an L shape. Leading up to the right-angle turn in that L, we install all the components that work behind the scenes during your trip. That includes power converters, wall outlets, inverters, breaker boxes, and more. Once those electrical systems are finished, we make sure the electrical system gets a green light. We hook every travel trailer to 30- or 50-amp power and test every single outlet, fan and light – even that little one over the dump station. Then we do it all again while the trailer is operating under battery power.
Only once it's passed these electrical checks will the travel trailer move to the aptly named finish line, where interior workmanship takes center stage. As the shell was assembled, other teams were crafting the furniture and cabinetry. Unlike other manufacturers, ours aren’t pre-built. In the woodshop, pieces are sanded and assembled with pocket screws, dowels (made in-house), and glue. Unlike the majority of the industry, we only use staples on rare occasions, like in our upholstery and to hold some guide pieces. We never use staples to attach cabinet pieces or secure components to the wall. 
In the woodshop section, you’ll recognize the advantages and complications of Airstream’s unique exterior-first approach. Because the shell is complete by the time a travel trailer enters this stage, we bring every interior component in through a 26-inch door. Cabinets, bulkhead walls, and interior doors are built in component pieces so they can fit through that door. Even the shower is assembled in two pieces. Once inside the trailer, we carefully fit each element to its space, sanding or trimming as needed to exactly align with the curved walls. This also makes it easier to repair or replace components down the road.
With a cooktop, TVs, hooks, magazine racks, and more, it's now beginning to look like home away from home. After the curtains are cut and sewed by hand, we complete a final walkthrough, testing appliances, the LP gas, furnace, air conditioner, drains, and more–1,500 check points on average per trailer.
But before it heads out the door, the Airstream is cleaned and given a fresh coat of wax. The weight and serial number are recorded, and it’s off to a new owner for a lifetime of adventures.
The Airstream Basecamp Factory Tour
One of our best-selling models, Airstream’s Basecamp is manufactured in Jackson Center right down the road from the Travel Trailer Plant. Compact and nimble, the Basecamp is also assembled by hand by experienced teams using the same classic aluminum that makes an Airstream so distinctive.
As with our larger travel trailers, Basecamp is built from the outside in to ensure that the exterior is sound, the shell is watertight, and the components can be modified down the road. The team first works on an upside-down chassis to install the underbody components and the steel underbelly. After it’s flipped right-side up, we install a composite floor that—just as with our travel trailers—provides superior screw retention, water resistance and support compared with plywood, the industry standard. 
Jigs bring the aluminum sheets together, and teams work in tandem with the buck rivet to bring each Basecamp to life. Next, we install the massive panoramic windows for which the Basecamp is known—these are made on site as well.
These compact trailers—inspired by Airstream founder Wally Byam’s very first travel trailer, the Torpedo—continue on a path similar to our traditional travel trailers. And of course, we subject each Basecamp to the same rigorous quality control. Inspectors carry tablets with extensive checklists; these tablets are tied directly to our quality department to feed data in real time, as well as to our transportation department. Airstream employs in-house programmers to design custom software ensuring consistency in these critical inspections.
The Airstream Touring Coach Factory Tour
Moving our travel trailer production into a new facility in 2020 meant more room for manufacturing our iconic RVs. That left the 225,000 sq. ft. former travel trailer plant empty, and allowed us to move touring coach production into the vacated space. The move meant more room for handmade craftsmanship, quality initiatives, and new tooling for all of our product lines, including our Atlas, Interstate, and Rangeline touring coaches. In fact, today this plant is the largest dedicated Class B van production facility in the industry. Inside, you'll see us build out Mercedes-Benz® Sprinter vans and RAM ProMaster® vans into the most luxurious Class B RVs on the market today.
But that’s not the only distinctive feature you’ll notice on this Airstream plant tour.
Our Atlas and Interstate coaches follow different paths down the production line, with areas that allow us to handcraft the interiors of these Class B vans to our exacting standards.
The Atlas arrives as a Sprinter Cab chassis with just a cockpit and frame, so we can add steel outriggers that extend the width, while the Interstate comes in a fully-formed Sprinter van shell with walls and a ceiling. We take out the front seats of both and send them to our upholstery departments to be recovered with Ultraleather. We also remove and the wheel rims, adding custom Airstream aluminum rims. 
Our Class B-plus, as we like to call the Atlas, then undergoes a full buildout for its living space, with custom-molded walls and a slide out for the Murphy Suite in the Atlas 25MS, the only unit in Airstream’s lineup with a slide out. A crane lifts the roof on top of the wall panels, where it’s connected by more than 100 rivets.
On a parallel track on the opposite side of the plant, our Interstate units undergo their own exterior assembly. They’re subjected to two water checks to be sure everything is properly sealed—water that we reuse multiple times to be more sustainable.
The Airstream touring coach plant includes a factory within a factory between the two lines, where we build the interior components, walls, and rooftops. There’s even a woodshop here. These production lines feed out to the Atlas and Interstate lines on either side.
As with every Airstream RV, our touring coaches go through an extensive and rigorous quality check to ensure our own high standards are met. What goes behind and between the walls is an open book at our factory tours, and it’s always first in its class.
The Airstream Mothership Experience
A trip to Jackson Center wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the inspirational Heritage Center, where you can learn how it all began and see one-of-a-kind vintage Airstreams. Be sure to stop in the flagship Airstream Supply Company store for apparel, gifts, and memorabilia. Plan your visit today.
Whether you’re a longtime Airstreamer or a curious future adventurer, we invite you to visit us in Jackson Center and see how details, designs, and dreams come together. Tours are free, and each lasts an hour. Make a day of it—it’s a riveting experience!
Ready to see where adventure begins? Book your free factory tour today.
Curious about how the icon began? Take a tour at the Heritage Center.
