RV Trivia
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99 free RV trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This RV trivia quiz is for anyone who has ever backed a trailer into a campsite, dumped a black tank or argued about Class A versus Class C. It runs from the horse-drawn Wanderer of 1884 and the world's first caravan club to the pandemic boom that put an RV in more than eleven million American driveways, taking in Wally Byam's aluminium Airstreams, the Iowa town that built the first Winnebagos, the Indiana county that calls itself the RV Capital of the World and the only motorhome ever built start to finish by a major automaker. It also covers the culture around the vehicles: KOA and Good Sam, boondockers in Quartzsite and Slab City, grey nomads, van life, and the RVs that stole films and TV shows, from Lucy and Desi's long, long trailer to Walter White's meth lab and the Winnebago that flew in Spaceballs. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has camped, a third need some RV-world knowledge, and the rest reward the full-timers who know which trailer NASA used to quarantine the Apollo 11 crew. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on recreational vehicles, manufacturers and films before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The first known purpose-built RV, the horse-drawn Wanderer, was commissioned in 1884 in which country?
Britain
Britain: the Wanderer was built in Bristol for the Scottish author Dr William Gordon Stables, whose first trip took it 1,300 miles from Berkshire to Inverness.
Q 02Which club, formed in 1907 for horse-drawn touring, was the world's first RV club?
Caravan Club
Caravan Club: regarded as the first of its kind, it grew out of the Gentlemen Gypsy movement, which prized horse-drawn touring as a rest cure; it survives as the Caravan and Motorhome Club.
Q 03In which National Lampoon film does Cousin Eddie turn up unannounced in an RV?
Christmas Vacation
Christmas Vacation: Eddie later admits the family has been living in the RV, and his habit of emptying its sewage tank into the storm drain sets up the film's explosive finale.
Q 04Which affordable car helped make lightweight camping trailers popular in the US from 1911?
The Ford Model T
The Ford Model T, cheap enough for ordinary families after 1908, put auto-camping within reach; lightweight folding camp trailers appeared around 1911, helped by better roads and new national parks.
Q 05In an RV's plumbing, 'black water' is the waste from which fixture?
The toilet
The toilet feeds the black-water tank, kept apart from the grey water of sinks and showers so that it can be emptied only at a dump station or sewer hookup.
Q 06Which brand, founded in 1931, alone survived among the hundreds of US trailer makers of the 1930s?
Airstream
Airstream began after Wally Byam built a trailer because his wife refused to sleep on the ground; of the hundreds of firms building trailers in 1936, his alone outlived the Depression.
Q 07The rounded aluminium body of Wally Byam's trailers is based on which earlier design?
The Bowlus Road Chief
Byam's 1936 Clipper copied the riveted aluminium shell of the Bowlus Road Chief, designed by aircraft builder William Hawley Bowlus in 1934, moving its front door to the side.
Q 08Wally Byam's company builds its aluminium trailers in which Ohio town?
Jackson Center
Jackson Center became its base after Byam opened a facility there in 1952; California production ended in 1979, leaving the Ohio village as the brand's only home.
Q 09A modified aluminium trailer served NASA as what after the Apollo 11, 12 and 14 missions?
A mobile quarantine facility
The Mobile Quarantine Facility, a converted trailer, held the crew from the recovery carrier until they reached the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston; Apollo 13 never landed, so needed none.
Q 10Winnebago Industries was founded in 1958 in which Iowa town?
Forest City
Forest City, in Winnebago County, is where John K. Hanson set up the company in 1958; the motorhome plant stayed there after the headquarters moved to Eden Prairie, Minnesota, in 2021.
Q 11In 2018 Winnebago expanded into boat building by acquiring which company?
Chris-Craft
Chris-Craft, the Florida powerboat builder that traces its roots to a skiff made in 1874, was bought by Winnebago in 2018, taking the motorhome maker onto the water; it later added pontoon builder Barletta.
Q 12Roughly what share of RVs sold in the US were built in Indiana in the late 2010s?
About 85 percent
About 85 percent of RVs sold in the US were built in Indiana in the late 2010s, roughly two-thirds of them in a single county where makers and suppliers cluster.
Q 13What do RVers call camping with no water, power or sewer hookups?
Boondocking
Q 21A pop-up camper is also known by what other name?
A tent trailer
A tent trailer, or folding trailer, has soft canvas or vinyl walls that collapse into a low box, so it tows and stores far more easily than a rigid caravan.
Q 22Which trailer hides its kitchen under a rear hatch?
Teardrop
Teardrop: named for its shape, it sleeps two inside and cooks outside under the hatch; many were built at home from plans printed in magazines.
Q 23KOA, the franchised campground chain founded in 1962, is based in which city?
Billings, Montana
Billings, Montana, is where Dave Drum opened the first Kampgrounds of America site on the Yellowstone River in 1962 for travellers heading to the Seattle World's Fair; the company stayed headquartered there.
Boondocking, or dry camping, means relying on the RV's own tanks and batteries; a night in a store car park counts, as does a stay on open public land.
Q 14Which Elkhart-based company owns Jayco, Heartland RV and Wally Byam's aluminium-trailer brand?
Thor Industries
Thor Industries is no thunder god: Wade Thompson and Peter Orthwein joined the first letters of their surnames in 1980 when they bought the ailing aluminium-trailer maker.
Q 15The GMC Motorhome of 1973 to 1978 was assembled in which Michigan city?
Pontiac
Pontiac, Michigan, home of GMC's Truck and Coach division, turned out 12,921 of the motorhomes, which GM sold as complete vehicles instead of supplying a chassis to RV builders.
Q 16What was unusual about the GMC Motorhome's drivetrain?
It was front-wheel drive
It was front-wheel drive, borrowing the Oldsmobile Toronado's 455 V8 and transaxle; with no driveshaft underneath, the floor could sit about 14 inches off the road.
Q 17A motorhome with its engine mounted at the rear is known as what?
A pusher
A pusher has its engine at the back, pushing the coach along, and is usually a diesel; front-engined 'pullers' have traditionally run on petrol.
Q 18What do larger RVs use to gain living space once parked?
Slide-outs
Slide-outs are wall sections that push outward once the RV is parked, widening the living space, then pull back flush with the body for the road.
Q 19A fifth-wheel trailer connects to the tow vehicle by way of what?
A kingpin into a horseshoe-shaped plate
A kingpin into a horseshoe-shaped plate: the trailer's pin locks into a fifth-wheel plate in the pickup bed, the same coupling that links semi-trailers to their tractor units.
Q 20In North America, an RV carried in the bed of a pickup is called a truck camper or what?
A slide-in
A slide-in is lifted into the pickup bed and secured with tie-downs, leaving the truck free to be used alone once the camper is dropped on its jacks at camp.
Q 24What does the 'MH' stand for in the name of the RV/MH Hall of Fame?
Manufactured housing
MH is manufactured housing: the hall grew out of a 1972 heritage foundation set up to honour both recreational vehicles and factory-built homes.
Q 25Roughly how many Americans lived full-time in RVs in 2018, by the RV industry's own estimate?
One million
One million was the RV Industry Association's estimate; some could not afford ordinary housing, but many said they lived on the road by choice.
Q 26In Australia, what is the slang term for a retiree who travels the country in an RV?
Grey nomad
Grey nomads are Australian retirees who spend months touring the outback towing a van or driving a motorhome, often heading north for winter along the coasts and the Stuart Highway.
Q 27Which desert festival is noted for strict rules on RV water leaks and generator use?
Burning Man
Burning Man, held on Nevada's Black Rock Desert, follows a Leave No Trace principle, so not even waste water from an RV may be left on the dry lake bed.
Q 28Slab City, California's off-grid RV community, is named for the concrete slabs left by what?
A World War II military camp
A World War II military camp: Camp Dunlap's buildings were dismantled by 1956, but the concrete floors stayed, and winter RVers have parked on them ever since.
Q 29Which Arizona town of about 2,400 residents (2020 census) swells with RV campers every winter?
Quartzsite
Quartzsite, on Interstate 10 near the California line, fills with RVs for its winter gem shows and swap meets, which draw about 1.5 million visitors a year.
Q 30Which Lincolnshire, Illinois RV retailer went public in 2016 with a quarter-billion-dollar IPO?
Camping World
Camping World, then led by Marcus Lemonis of TV's The Profit, raised about $251 million in its October 2016 stock-market debut; it also runs the Good Sam club.