World renowned for recreational areas as diverse as the coast, mountains, and deserts, Southern California is equally well known for the distinctive vehicles used by vacationers on their journeys. Vacationland U.S.A. II traces the evolution of motorized leisure travel in Southern California before World War II. It explores the development of automobiles, trucks, house cars, and other types of vehicles used by vacationers and illustrate how camping trailers and other recreational equipment evolved to meet the demand by motorized tourists for increasingly more comfort and sophistication. The exhibit features vehicles that are both popular and obscure and illustrates their utility by displaying them loaded with period camping equipment or hitched to trailers ranging from a teardrop to one of the earliest Airstreams known to survive.
