Beyond the campervan lifestyle: A social cartography of contemporary campervan tourism

Campervan tourism has become an increasingly important segment of outdoor recreation and tourism, with growing economic, environmental, and territorial impacts. Despite its relevance, research has largely focused on specific subcultures, destinations, or sustainability issues, and a systematic understanding of campervan users as a differentiated social population remains lacking. This article addresses that gap through the largest empirical study of campervan users currently available in the academic literature (N = 2845). Using multivariate statistical techniques – including Multiple Correspondence Analysis and cluster analysis – the study maps the internal diversity of contemporary campervan tourism and examines how travel practices, vehicle choices, forms of sociability, and sustainability orientations vary across different groups of users. Drawing on a relational approach to social stratification, the analysis identifies two main dimensions structuring the campervan space and locates within it seven ideal-typical visitor profiles. These profiles were developed abductively by combining dimensions recovered from existing typologies with an exploratory reading of the correspondence space, and were then operationalised as empirical yardsticks against which configurations of motivations, practices, and socio-material arrangements are compared. The findings show that campervan tourism is neither a homogeneous lifestyle nor an inherently alternative form of travel. Rather, it comprises diverse ways of combining mobility, dwelling, comfort, sociability, and engagement with outdoor environments. Orientations toward sustainability vary systematically across profiles, emerging as practically and socially situated responses rather than expressions of a shared ethical commitment. By providing a large-scale social cartography of campervan tourism, the article contributes to a more systematic understanding of a rapidly growing but surprisingly under-researched form of outdoor recreation, with direct implications for destination management, infrastructure planning, and sustainability policies.