Caravan sales are booming in the Bay but sun-seekers are warned a confined space away from daily life is not a quick fix for a strained marriage.
Trade Me spokeswoman Millie Silvester said Bay residents searched "caravan" 6100 times from October 26 to November 4, and the seven days prior it was 5700.
The next largest Bay searches were for desks – for working from home - outdoor furniture, and spa pools, each with less than 2000 searches.
Sales and rental manager at Rotorua's Ace Caravans and Campervans, Clinton Wells, said the last 12 months had been the biggest for sales since 1996.
"It's just gone through the roof. We're selling more than what we can really get in and we're not even getting to the point of listing it [on Trade Me]. As soon as it's in, bang we've got people that are interested in buying."
Customers were coming from across the North Island in search of caravans, while motorhome sales had slowed, he said.
The sale and rental of portable cabins was also booming at Ace, with 15 to 20 inquiries a day from people desperate for accommodation.
"We're just flat-out building more and more cabins for rent and for sale. The sales of those are ridiculous," he said.
Some families wanted additional space for older children, while others were returning home from overseas to a housing crisis.
"People coming back from overseas, they want their own space until they can find a place to either rent or buy."
The demand reflected the Bay's hugely competitive rental market, he said.
"You've got no show of getting a rental here, if something's available for rent they've just got so many people going to the viewings," he said.
Ace was also getting five or six inquiries a day for second-hand English, Australian and Kiwi caravans. There were multiple lists of people waiting to be contacted if the right van came up.
"It's younger families, perhaps they might have been travelling overseas before, now they're not able to so they're buying a caravan to see a bit of New Zealand."
One young family who bought a caravan this week were selling their house and planned to travel around while they decided what and where to buy again, he said.
While August to November were generally the busiest sales months, inquiry numbers "exploded" after the first lockdown last year.
Stock levels at the yard were currently low, with only three caravans and two motorhomes available as of Wednesday this week.
Meanwhile, Tauranga counsellor Bergen Gell says many clients are keen to seek a home on wheels. Some were desperate for a sense of normality, others simply needed an affordable place to call home.
"People are really stressed and tired and they want lifestyle still because they can't travel anywhere," she said. "I think realistically people are still wanting to have a ray of hope …they are trying to have some form of normality in really uncertain times."
Bay residents were wanting to regain some control over their lives, to have a holiday and live life, checking out of the craziness of the pandemic.
"Taking time off, connecting with nature, spending time with family, when families are quite fractured and separated are really important things to do."
Not having routines and timeframes around the Christmas period are really good for us. To just actually stop and breath and do nothing and bring back into life some fun, some joy, some laughter some love."
Covid had thrust some Bay residents into financial difficulty, forcing them out of homeownership and into a caravan or campervan, Gell said.
Others had immigrated back to the relative safety of New Zealand and needed urgent and affordable accommodation while working and travelling around the country, or moving from site to site within the Bay.
While some couples saw a caravan purchase as a "relationship saver", Gell warned large purchases in difficult times should not be taken lightly – or used as a relationship band-aid.
"Couples buying caravans as a plaster to their marriage, I don't agree with that at all. If you have issues in your marriage, you've got to deal with those issues.
"There's got to be a strong enough foundation in any relationship because it's a financial investment. It's not like a $200 weekend, it's generally thousands, so it's a big decision to make. You want to make sure if you're spending that money that that investment's going to pay off and it's not going to pay off if you spend a week fighting," she said.
Ron Jessen, former director of Liteweight Caravans which were manufactured in Hamilton from 1946 to 1990, has written multiple books on caravans and recently a "bible" for those planning to get on the road in a caravan or RV.
With European imports booming through the 2000s and restoring retro vans becoming a popular hobby, Jessen said the last two years had seen the growth curve steepen further.
"Ever since Covid it's accelerated dramatically," he said.
While he used to see the occasional caravan on the road and more motorhomes, the tables had turned, he said.
On a recent trip from Wellington to Whitianga via Tauranga, he and wife Marilyn counted five motorhomes and about 25 caravans, ranging from brand new to early 1970s.
"That's the first time I've seen so many caravans on the road on a Tuesday morning, and not even Christmas time so there's definitely some growth going on there."
Jessen said people in their 40s and 50s were now buying caravans to give their children the same experiences they once had.
"It's just a lifestyle I can remember going away in the caravan. Being a kid, you'd meet kids next door and the kids two sites down and you'd have a ball. The parents just got to kick back and relax," he said.
For families, caravans were cost-effective, low maintenance and allowed you to set up your site and have a tow vehicle available for daytime touring.
"The money they would have put into a trip is going elsewhere, it's going into tripping around New Zealand and buying a caravan, be it new, be it second-hand, be it retro and restoring it."
Having caravanned most of his life, Jessen still spends up to three months on the road in one of two early Liteweight models the couple restored. He is thrilled to see his former industry and beloved pastime booming again.
"You can't go overseas and when you can it's still not going to be particularly safe, and New Zealand has an awful lot to offer in terms of caravanning and people are just starting to discover that."
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