Bored with the life in the urban jungle and all that steel and concrete? Well, for a whole new look, why not take your home with you on a nature tour, but with what? Well, perhaps you might like to try – a recreational vehicle, or RV.

And where do you try that? Well, one answer could be a recreational vehicle campsite on Jinlong (Golden Dragon) Mountain on the outskirts of the city of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province. It has the 20,000-squre-meter Longhong Villa RV Campsite, the city’s first park of its kind, in a scenic spot, surrounded by mountains and with a lake nearby. And it has a parking lot with 22 spaces and a three-story restaurant, with a BBQ area next to it.

The RVs come equipped with all the comforts of home – furniture, kitchen appliances that allow people to do their own cooking, a dining area with a table, a bathroom and comfortable beds.

The Longhong Villa RV Campsite is located near a lake in suburban Harbin, Heilongjiang province. [Photo/my399.com]

The park had a trial run on May 1, with use of the site, water, and power free of charge until August and it has had 61 recreational vehicles over the past two months.

The campsite’s general manager who is himself an enthusiast camper, Yin Ruosheng, says they have as many as 14 RVs on a single day and he estimates that the daily fee for each vehicle is about 150 yuan ($24.19).


Recreational vehicle resting happily in a 10-meter slot in the caravan camping site in Harbin [Photo/my399.com]


Well-equipped RV with all the appliances, including microwave, gas stove [Photo/my399.com]

Yin got the idea for the park back in 2013, when he visited the outskirts of Los Angeles and San Francisco in the US and was impressed by the RV parks there and decided to build his own. And, in the last two years, the number of RVs in Harbin has seen a big increase – there were 10 in 2008, then 70 in 2012, then 160 in 2014, and about 200 as of this July, according to Wang Guoqing, head of the city’s RV Association.

Most of the people using the parks, about 80 percent, are in their 50s, and the kind of people who can afford to do this sort of thing and have time to travel, and most of the RVs are domestic brands.

China has around 15,000 recreational vehicles and about 110 of these caravan campsites and the figures will continue to rise since traveling this way has grown in popularity among Chinese.

In response, Yin says that he will continue to improve his facilities, such as the gas supply, and welcomes those who don’t own an RV to rent one at the campsite and enjoy the fun of this alternative approach to the old way.