The caravan experience is like none other. You can expect to grow (read: be pushed out of your comfort zone and persevere), make new friends, and learn new things. I’m on my second caravan now (2026 Northern Lights and Polar Bears), and once again we have the most exceptional leaders in Airstream Club International. Everything’s planned out to a T! It’s well paced, yet packed with activities that are anything but ordinary. Tomorrow we spend an afternoon farming, and I’m looking forward to learning what it takes to operate a Canadian farm. Today we broke camp in Winnipeg at the Town & Country Campground. It’s an outstanding one: plenty of room for the rigs, all pull-throughs, enough sky for a stellar Starlink connection, a place for a catered meal, and a thoroughly stocked store complete with ice cream and T-shirts. What else do you need?
If you caravan long enough to the most extreme places in North America, at some point your rig is going to break. Yeah, it is. RVs aren’t built with the quality control that goes into car manufacturing, and you’ll face some of the most punishing roads this part of the earth can give you. Your rig isn’t going to like it. On our way to Winnipeg, Epsilon had the drain valve on the fresh water tank sheared clean off. That’s the bad news. The good news is that in a caravan you’re almost guaranteed to find expertise to help with repairs on the small stuff. And boy, did I need it. I put the call out to our fellow travelers, and two friends were able to pick up parts on their way to the meet point. Before I even met up with them, though, another fellow traveler and friend from a previous adventure helped me get a brass faucet, which is a better solution than what Airstream started with. In one afternoon we’d diagnosed the problem and bought the parts. The next morning we worked together to install and test it all. It’s working fine, and now I know how to repair one more piece of our dear Epsilon.
When it comes to making friends, you have an excellent opportunity, especially if you’re an old guy. Old guys don’t make friends easily. Once you’re in a caravan, though, you can put all your pent-up skills to work solving caravan problems and individual problems. As you do, you get easy conversation and appreciation from everyone you help. Boom, instant friendships form. Sometimes you get to add a liquid spirit, and other times you get to share the Holy Spirit with a wide variety of people. There’s one law you must understand to make this work no matter what, and I call it the Law of Unoffendability. It means you do your best not to let anyone’s conversation or manner offend you. Avoid discussing politics, for example. When you’re at home, you probably watch some form of TV regularly, like the news. Give that stuff a break. The function of news agencies is simply to teach you who to be offended by. Don’t listen to them. If you’re not taught who to be offended by, you likely won’t be offended. The flip side of the Law of Unoffendability is that you step back from yourself and actively work not to be offensive! Apply both ends of the same law and you’ll have a great time, and you might even make some of the most unlikely friends.
There’s also no doubt that when you visit a part of the world so different from your daily life, you’ll learn new things: arts and crafts, cooking, textile arts, mechanical contraptions, history, archaeology, botany, and many other subjects. Open yourself up to a couple of them. Read a book you’ve been meaning to dive into, then share what you learned with others. Caravanning is an adventure you won’t regret. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe a lot! And there’s always the chance to lead an Airstream caravan, which is a whole new world of joys and challenges. Maybe you’re up to it? Now go make someone’s day great!
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