Airstream Sweden officially launches at the Scandinavian Caravan Show held at Elmia, Jönköping, Sweden, 10-13 September 2009. Visit us on Stand B01:08.

Airstream will also be at The Caravan Show, Kista, Stockholm 24-27 September 2009.

The 5th Annual European Airstream Rally was recently held at Bel Repayre Campground in Southern France. Perry Balfour, who organises the event said, "On our side it was a great success. The meeting has been building since its creation in 2003. We are hoping, we don't know yet, but it must have been the biggest assembly ever in Europe of so many Airstreams, (29 trailers) and it was nice to see all the European models here. (Wally Byam will be proud of us)." Photos of the gathering will be on-line soon at www.airstreameurope.com

The next UK Airstream Gathering will be held at Bracelands Caravan Park, Bracelands Drive, Christchurch, Coleford, Gloucester, GL16, 7NN over the weekend of 11th to 13th of September 2009.

If you are interested, please DON'T contact the site directly (they won't know what you are talking about). Contact petebull@warpmail.net Final details will be sent out in the next week or so. All Airstream owners welcome.

When longtime Airstream trailer owner Steve Burrows met Dale "Pee-Wee" Schwamborn at an event in San Antonio last winter, he was intrigued by the older man's stories of the 1959 Airstream caravan across Africa, a trip that took about six months to complete.

This was the crème de la crème of Airstream caravans. An 18,000-mile, seven-month journey from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt, starting in July 1959.

Many of the 101 caravanners in 41 Airstreams shipped out of New York aboard the African Enterprise. Time reported that they “zigzagged over desert, through jungle and swamp, and it was obvious that wherever they went, the natives … had never seen anything quite like them before.” They met Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, visited a Pygmy enclave, observed Victoria Falls from above and were greeted by schoolchildren in one village shouting “Viva Wally Byam!”

The trip was not without trouble. Twenty-two truck axles were broken along a rugged path in Ethiopia, transmissions gave out and many vehicles were battered and bruised. In dangerous regions of the continent, caravanners were escorted by military troops on the lookout for bandits. Ultimately, 29 of the 41 trailers completed the sojourn.

On September 11 2009 Burrows, accompanied by Schwamborn as the guest of honor, will lead a caravan of 15 or 16 Airstream trailers on a trip from Cape Girardeau to Cairo, Illinois, and back on September 13.