Membership of The Caravan Club currently stands at 336,000 families, thus representing more than 850,000 caravanners, motor caravanners and trailer tent owners. Including Site Wardens there are over 600 staff, with 200 at Head Office in East Grinstead. The annual turnover is nearly £70 million. The Club has no borrowings and finances all expenditure from revenue and reserves.

The Club was formed in 1907 by ten men and one woman, and must be one of the very few organisations that has had the same title and aims ever since.

The Wanderer caravan was the first purpose-built leisure caravan and was made in 1885. It still exists and is owned by The Caravan Club. There is a picture of Wanderer on the Press Photo Gallery page. To view click here.

Membership grew slowly until 1939 when it stood at 1057. It had doubled by 1945 and reached 10,000 in 1954. The 100,000 milestone was reached in 1971 and 250,000 in 1982.

Club members own a total of 500,000 cars, making the Club a major customer of the motor trade.

Club members go out touring 6 times a year for an average of 4 nights each time. This means that Club families spend close to 7 million nights a year caravanning.

The Club has availability of some 5 million pitch nights per year on its own sites plus about 3 million on the privately owned CL (Certificated Location) network. At a touring group average of 2.2 persons per group this equates to over 17 million bed nights or more than a major hotel chain such as the Travel Inn network (to be confirmed).

On average Club members spend £25 per family per day on local purchases such as fuel, eating out, visiting local attractions and buying food and clothing. This means that Club members spend more than £200 million every year on supporting the local economy. Over the last ten years this has added up to £1.2 billion that our members have spent on supporting local traders whenever they are caravanning.

The Club provides a total area for caravanning in UK of over 5000 acres, or nearly 8 square miles, including CLs. The actual pitch areas total 500 acres for its own sites, plus an estimated area of 350 acres on the CL network giving a total pitching area of 850 acres or more than 4 million square yards. This equates to some 200,000 average-sized hotel bedrooms.