History

The South American Airstream Caravan: What Happened?

airstream-south-america

Only Wally Byam could have conjured up his first Airstream caravan trip, through Mexico and Central America for four months. Imagine leaving El Paso, Texas and roughing it along the center of the continent all the way out to Managua, Nicaragua. Then soon after that, adding visits to Canada and Cuba. Picture your Airstream and tow vehicle being loaded on a steamship in Brooklyn, New York and heading for Rotterdam in the Netherlands for a comprehensive six month tour of Europe.

It made sense to Wally to go all out for an Airstream caravan to South America, and/or one to Lebanon and Europe. But something happened.

Did Mr. Byam change his mind? Did the response from The Caravanner readers push him towards selecting alternative caravans? History tells us that a South American caravan didn't happen in that time period. The Beirut, Lebanon caravan became part of the 1959 African caravan instead.

Through these changes in destination a new ambitious caravan was conceived to replace South America and pinned up on the wall board, an "around-the-world" trip. This trip ended up taking place in 1963 with Andy Charles, president of the Jackson Center branch of Airstream, as the director.

Airstream was the highest-profile RV manufacturer in overseas product travel for many years. The high profile caravans brought excitement for owners, and highlighted goodwill between nations - not to mention the fact that it showed off Airstreams to people in faraway lands.