A camper's life traveling the open road

A recreational vehicle on show during an exhibition in Beijing. With rising demand for the vehicles in China, experts expect more of these kinds of event in future. Li Wenming / for China Daily

But life on the road means there is no excuse not to talk, given you are living under a far smaller roof, "with different wonderful views outside, maybe even some birds chirping", he adds.

"Life is everywhere around you, you know," he laughs.

According to Wang, 80 percent of campers are used by families for household outings.

"The camper industry went through explosive growth in 2011, and there's no reason to doubt that pace of growth will continue over the next two or three years," he says.

According to Beijing Recreational Vehicle Center, camper numbers in China reached 10,000 at the end of last year, compared to 6.5 million, 9.6 million and 80,000 in Europe, the United States and Japan respectively.

There are many more campsites too in those markets.

In the 2009 document, Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Tourism Industry, campers were listed as among the country's more potentially popular leisure items of the future, as the population continues to increase their personal spending.

In the Outline of National Tourism and Leisure (2013-2020), published in February this year, the General Office of the State Council underlined that construction of campsites would receive government support.

At the end of 2012, the local governments of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shanghai signed a Yangtze River Delta region camper travel outline, which detailed five ideal routes for camper travel, with two more now being planned.

The outline also highlighted that a network of 250 camper service stations will be established by the end of 2020 in the regions, by which time there will be 400 to 500 campsites.

"At present, there are more camper users in the northern part of China than in the south," said Wang.

"In the south, people can easily access green open spaces without the need for a camper — there might even be some outside their backdoors.

"But in the north, due to weather conditions, people have fewer chances to enjoy the outdoors," he said, adding that the Yangtze Delta region is particularly enjoyed by camper owners from all over the country.