are there still new age travellers

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Whatever Happened to New Age Travellers?

Dropped from the psychic landscape of british pop and undetected by the radar of retromania, where did these diverse communities go.

The hope that any youth subculture of the last 60 years might have es­caped the maw of hipster recuperation today seems unlikely. It’s become axiomatic that every look, sound and pose that pop ever invented has been revived, emptied out and sold back. To walk through Bushwick in Brooklyn or Dalston in London, is to walk through a pop culture re-enactment museum, like Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, only with younger staff and artisanal coffee. Punk, new wave, rockabilly, goth, techno, industrial, hip-hop. Folkies, hippies, skaters, new romantics, teds, club kids, indie kids, b-boys, ska girls, skinheads, casuals, greasers, mods. Internet tech­nology has enabled full-spectrum access to archival images and sounds of the postwar era, allowing pop’s founding texts to be reprinted ad nauseam.

A dim memory surfaced recently. I was in the car with my family one summer in the mid-1980s, on holiday in Dorset, driving past a long caravan of hippies in painted buses and mud-splattered vans. This image spark­ed a line of thought about illegal outdoor ‘free parties’ in Britain during the early 1990s, organized by shadowy collectives with names such as Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Exodus. I recalled an encampment of buses close to where I grew up; teenagers from school would score weed from the people living up there. On the news: run-ins at Stonehenge between the police and what was called the ‘peace convoy’; 20,000 people de­scending on Castlemorton Common, Worcestershire, in 1992, for the biggest illegal outdoor rave ever held in Britain. The Face ran a photo-essay featuring teepees, grimy buses, sound-systems and white people with matted dreadlocks. I remembered other events and names: the anti-Criminal Justice Bill marches in London in 1994; the Dongas Tribe motorway protesters at Twyford Down; ‘Swampy’ the eco-activist who became a household name. By the end of the 1990s, much of this had disappeared from sight. Dropped from the psychic landscape of British pop, undetected by the radar of retromania: whatever happened to New Age travellers?

Their origins lie in the squats and free festivals of the 1970s. With the motto ‘Bring what you expect to find’, the first of the free festivals was held at Windsor Great Park in 1972. Organizers Ubi Dwyer and Sid Rawle squatted royal land for three consecutive summers, inspired by beliefs about common property forged in London’s alternative communes. Tolerated for the first two years, the festival was shut down by police in 1974 after numbers had grown from an initial 700 to over 8,000. That same summer saw the first Stonehenge Free Festival, initiated by Wally Hope, in fields adjacent to the iconic megaliths and held at summer solstice every year until 1984. (Wally Hope was the pseudonym of Philip Russell, who died in mysterious circumstances following an arrest for possession of lsd in 1975. His ashes were cere­moniously taken to every Stonehenge Festival after his death.) Early Stonehenge headliners included psychedelic prog rockers Hawkwind and Gong, who emerged from the 1960s Canterbury scene. Later years saw reggae stars such as Sugar Minott, anarcho punks Crass and post-punk band The Raincoats. Even pop acts such as Dexys Midnight Runners and Thompson Twins played there. Initially attracting practicing neo-druids a­longside the hippies, factions from the anarcho-punk scenes and like- minded underground tribes became drawn to the Stonehenge celebration. Similar events sprouted across the country, and those who didn’t wish to return to their city lives started to spend summers travelling from festival-to-festival in a rag-tag train of vehicles that became known as ‘the convoy’.

In the mid-1970s, changes in uk squatting laws had an impact upon urban alternative communities. E­victed squatters and those disil­lusioned with city life took to the road, living in buses and caravans all year round. Nomadic life suggested idealistic models of co-operative living, and travelling tapped into a tradition of revolutionary utopianism in British culture; one born of romantic longing for a pre-industrial Albion in which the radical was fused with the rural. In his book Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music (2010), Rob Young describes this as ‘a mindset that always finds its identity in the grain of the past’. ‘The British road’, he writes, ‘is a road to the interior of the imagination rather than a physical coverage of distance.’

Sociologist Kevin Hetherington, in his book New Age Travellers (2000), holds that travellers ‘adopt an identity that brings together a series of disparate “ethnic” identities that share one thing in common: their marginalized and often oppressed status within society’. Traveller culture carries references to proto-socialist movements such as the English Civil War-era Diggers and Levellers. (Young points out that, in 1975, Windsor Free Festival organizers Rawle and Dwyer both starred in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s biopic Winstanley , about the leader of the Diggers.) Travellers also adopted aspects of gypsy life, Ras­ta­farianism and circus communities. Their identity evolved syncretically, a bricolage of values and styles.

In 1982, the convoy drove to Greenham Common in solidarity with the women’s peace camp that had begun protesting the use of the raf airbase for storing strategic nuclear missiles. The media started to refer to the travellers as ‘the peace convoy’. Traveller communities diversified; there were those who had been on the road since the early 1970s who were now starting families. Some were radicalized believers in direct environmental and political action. Others were marginalized by economic conditions under Margaret Thatcher’s government, or were running away from bad personal situations, looking to disappear into drugs and alcohol.

Despite having roots in the counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s, music was not at the heart of traveller identity. Links can be made between travellers and a wide range of musical styles – psychedelic rock, anarcho-punk, dub, folk music, ambient and techno – yet no one group ever emerged as a ‘definitive’ traveller band. They were a blank slate, onto which could be written a number of oppositional forms of music. The early 1990s saw traveller culture almost enter the mainstream with what were nicknamed ‘crusty’ bands; Back to the Planet and Ozric Tentacles, for instance, or the drear­ily right-on Levellers. Music produced by sound-systems associated with the travellers, such as Spiral Tribe, was largely primitivist, banging techno, though tracks such as ‘Breach the Peace’ and ‘Forward the Revolution’ were idealistically intentioned rabble-rousing.

Yet music culture brought about two of the definitive moments in the traveller story. In 1985, the peace convoy was prevented from attending the Stonehenge Free Festival and set upon by the Wiltshire Police. The incident became known as the Battle of the Beanfield. Observer journalist Nick Davies described how ‘there was glass breaking, people screaming, black smoke towering out of burning caravans and everywhere there seemed to be people being bashed and flattened and pulled by the hair […] men, women and children were led away, shivering, swearing, crying, bleeding, leaving their homes in pieces […] I felt sick enough to cry.’ Thatcher crowed that her government was ‘only too delighted to do anything we can to make life difficult for such things as hippie convoys’. In 1986, the Public Order Act was introduced, which gave police the power to break up any group of 12 or more vehicles, a law which began to atomize the travellers.

At the end of the 1980s, acid house transformed British youth culture. Illegal warehouse parties and outdoor raves across the country brought the new subculture into contact with the travelling and squat scenes. Sound-systems associated with these communities started to grow. In 1992, Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and diy found themselves at the centre of an outdoor party on Castlemorton Common, started by travellers prevented from attending the nearby Avon Free Festival. It made national news as thousands from across the country joined the week-long rave. The moral panic over Castlemorton led to the Criminal Justice Act of 1994. It toughened laws on trespass, ‘anti-social’ behaviour and, infamously, unlicensed gatherings of people listening to music ‘characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats’. The travellers dropped from media sight, but continued their way of life in Britain, albeit under much tougher conditions. Today you can find third-generation traveller families. Others have upped sticks and left for more tolerant European countries.

Ideas around anti-capitalism and environmental sustainability, central tenets of traveller culture, are today part of mainstream discussion. Yet the New Age traveller aesthetic – the ‘crusty’ look – has been relegated from the pantheon of cool. Some subcultures are simply more readily adaptable, more attractive, than others. A mod-style button-down shirt looks sharper than combat fatigues, and you can wear it to the office, too. Despite warranting a key place in histories of alternative living, the defiant anti-style of the travellers’ look, their refusal to play the fashion game or to wed themselves to a particular musical sensibility, has kept them in the footnotes of pop history, rarely ranked alongside those that enjoyed identifiable icons and soundtracks.

Main image: Stonehenge Free Festival, 1978. Courtesy:  Chris Moorhouse/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Dan Fox is the author of Pretentiousness: Why It Matters (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2016) and Limbo (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018). He co-directed the film Other, Like Me (2021).

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‘The police bill is wiping out a culture’: New Travellers take a stand

If it becomes law, residing on land without permission would be a criminal offence, threatening a way of life for communities across the UK

“I am worried that not everyone knows what is coming,” says Amy, sitting in the truck she has turned into a cosy home for her and her two children. “If this bill is passed it will mean the end of our culture. The end of our way of life.”

Amy, who wanted to be known by her first name, lives with her two sons on a small Travellers’ site down a quiet country lane in the west of England, along the edges of an ancient forest.

Despite the wheels on everyone’s homes, there is a feeling of permanence here. Amy’s neighbours are busy gardening in the sunshine, tyres are filled with plants, wood is stacked in piles ready to be made into more planters. In every corner, life is blooming.

But for Amy, and many others, this way of life is under threat. Gypsies and Travellers are preparing to rally as the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill gets a step closer to being passed into law. If passed, section 4 of the bill, which has its third reading in the Commons this week, will make “residing or intending to reside on land without the permission of the owner or occupier” a new criminal offence.

Amy started a podcast entitled “I choose the road” in an attempt to sound the alarm. “I started to think about how I could get the news out there to other Travellers about what was happening. People might not know their homes could be taken away and they could even go to prison.”

Amy and her neighbours aren’t on the land legally, but “the owners tolerate us for now. I don’t know what will happen once the bill passes, though”. None of the Travellers interviewed by the Guardian wanted to include their full name for fear of being traceable by the authorities.

Amy outside her truck in a field in the west of England, in June. She took to the road in the 1990s and has lived this way ever since

Across the UK many Travellers live like this, finding fields where they will be quietly tolerated, in breach of planning and housing regulations. Others move much more frequently, having to find somewhere new every few days.

Amy took to the road in the 90’s, after getting involved in a Travellers’ road protest in Ireland as a teenager and living largely in vehicles ever since. “We are known as ‘New Travellers’. We don’t have ethnic heritage but I’ve done this for many years … [The name] allows us to claim our identity without stepping on other people’s.”

For Amy and her neighbour, Jess, living this way is a commitment to an alternative way of life, outside the structures of capitalism.

“It’s about a simpler life,” says Amy, “a life closer to nature where you can hear the rain on the roof, where you don’t need as much money so you can be with your children more. And it’s about community, because living on a Traveller site and raising children here is like living in an old-fashioned village.”

Jess is pottering around outside her van, which is surrounded by the detritus of a creative life. It’s filled with fabric and craft materials and hula-hoops lie all around it. The Traveller community has deep connections to the creative side of British festivals and she hopes to be back on the scene this summer. For now, she is ready to fight for her way of life against the police bill.

“I grew up on a council estate in Wales and I moved to town when I left home and thought ‘oh yes, this is just as bad as I thought it would be’, just depressing and lonely. I realise now what I was searching for was community,” says Jess, who did not want to give her surname.

Jess in her van in the west of England. She says she took to the road because ‘I was searching for community’

If this bill passes, she says, “we will be the last generation. I will just keep moving … until they take my vehicle, I don’t have other options in my back pocket. I feel fucking petrified and also angry. People worry about Travellers turning up in their area, but where is the common land? You are taking away my animal freedom to be on this planet. It’s wiping out a culture.”

In the south of England, another Jess lives in converted horsebox and rides a large motorbike. Lately, she has been spending time on Facebook, sharing her story of decades on the road and encouraging others to tell their stories. “Travellers don’t like to draw attention to themselves, but I believe this is a time when it’s urgent to share our stories, our culture and history.”

Jess chose this way of life to be closer to nature. “I don’t even like to sit in the van … it’s just so I can be as close to nature as possible. The doors are always open, I’m always outside. There is a real push towards cultural homogeneity, through the media you are told – think this way, judge people like this. People don’t understand why I would choose this life, but for me it’s sanity. A simple lifestyle close to the earth that doesn’t tax resources and is sustainable on a small income. ”

‘I’m always outside’: Jess in her converted horsebox in East Sussex

Today she is parked up at the top of the South Downs, her truck doors wide open. Like Amy, she took to the road in the 90s, as protest camps and rave culture brought people on to the road.

“When I was younger I had a breakdown and pieced my health back together in Ireland and that is where I met people living on the road, including a world of horse-drawn vehicles. It was eye-opening, I thought, ‘oh my God I don’t have to go home, I can live camping’.

“I worked in agriculture, from farm to farm both here and in Europe. Being outside working was good for my mental health. I had choices and I chose it all.”

Jess can’t say where she has been parked recently because it’s barely legal. Many Travellers are on edge, worried constantly about being tracked down and fined by local authorities.

“During lockdown they left us alone’ says Jess. “But before that I was parking my truck all over Brighton or out in the South Downs. I recently got about three section 77s (a legal order to remove a vehicle) stuck on my windscreen. They say ‘you are believed to be residing in a vehicle on the side of the highway and you need to move in the shortest time practicable’.”

Jess, photographed in front of the converted horsebox she lives in, took to the road after living for a while in camps in Ireland

“As it stands right now, it is a civil offence – I can move my truck to another place and they mostly leave you alone. You stay a few nights somewhere, take fines in your stride, it’s a hazard of the lifestyle.”

The law will bring a major hardening, from civil to criminal offence. “If this law is enforced they could immediately arrest me, stick me in a police car, take me to the station and destroy my truck.”

Travellers aren’t welcome on the campsites that ordinary holidaymakers might visit. “There are legalities around living on a campsite, they are expensive and they don’t like our vehicles. The special sites set up by councils are full.”

Jess is a confident woman and feels she can speak up if others are too worried to. “Tell me why I shouldn’t live this way? I look after my parents, I work, I pay tax, why do I have to live in a bloody house?”

The converted Bedford Dominant bus that Jess bought for £1000 in Spain in 2001. She travelled around Europe in it with her family in the late 90s and early 00s

In Bristol, Luke saw Jess’s message and thought the time had come to speak up. He is part of a group of Travellers who move around the south-west, currently awaiting eviction from a site they broke into and looking at where they can hide next.

“What are we supposed to do? Squatting is gone, soon this will go – all means of subsistence are being criminalised. You can’t just be.”

Luke is a full-time carer for young people with disabilities, but doesn’t want to live in an ordinary house. “Nomadism is for me. I like sitting round the campfire, I like digging holes, chopping wood. I need community. I was on my own for a very, very long time and when I got into squatting it was like getting into a warm bath – I don’t really want to give up that communal element.”

He is very concerned about the possible further powers that would allow police to seize vehicles on the spot. “If that happens, I’ll just go back to sleeping in a tent in the wood.”

Amy with her cat, in the west of England

Earlier this month, the high court ruled that local authorities can no longer issue blanket injunctions against “persons unknown” to prevent Gypsies and Travellers stopping on local land. In recent years the injunctions were widely used to prevent people stopping even if they were new to the area. Campaigners and lawyers plan to use human rights laws to push back against the bill.

For Luke, the constant pressure to move on and stay out of sight is stressful. “The whole time we are keeping an eye on where we can go next. Then on the day we move it’s stressful wondering will it happen, how long will we have there.”

He says his life deserves respect. “There is attention on van lifers , young yuppies, and that’s fine. But there are some of us who are not photogenic or erudite, who have not got other choices. We are out here living in dilapidated caravans and helping each other out. I would like it to be a matter of record that we existed, some of us who clawed our way out of the filth to get here, and even that is being taken away from us.”

A spokesperson for the home secretary said: “We don’t agree with the characterisation that the measures in the bill are ‘wiping out a culture’.

“In July 2019, in England and Wales, only 4.4% of caravans were on unauthorised encampments on land not owned by the occupants.”

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This documentary explores how New Age travellers shaped UK rave culture

In our new short film, dazed’s günseli yalcinkaya meets producer kai whiston to trace the lesser-known history of rave culture outside of britain’s major cities.

UK rave culture has come a long way since its beginnings in the late 80s. While today’s electronic music landscape is synonymous with corporate-sponsored festivals and big room line-ups, the roots of rave culture can be traced back to the grassroots and DIY generation. As genres like acid house swept across warehouses and abandoned factories in big cities like London and Manchester, a neo-hippy strand of rave music was simultaneously taking over the south west countryside, with groups like Bedlam and Spiral Tribe heading a new wave of sound systems and free parties.

In this exclusive documentary, Dazed’s Günseli Yalcinkaya heads down to Shaftesbury in north Dorset to meet with British producer Kai Whiston to trace the history of rave culture beyond Britain’s major cities. Whiston’s third studio album Quiet As Kept, F.O.G . builds on the artist’s own experiences growing up in the New Age Traveller community, with his mother Helene bouncing between the free parties of South England to witness the rise of Massive Attack, The Prodigy and Orbital. 

“It took years of hindsight, creating a distance from my upbringing to view it all rationally, and in that I saw the story was bigger than my experience and was about the traveller community as a whole,” he explains. “It was through the impulse to write this project, hearing the stories from my mum (told throughout the album via phone interview interludes) and doing my own research that I found the beauty in growing up in that environment and accepted how it shaped me.”

Set against the bleak landscape of Thatcher’s Britain, the short film pays homage to the UK free party rave scene, and includes first-hand accounts of historical events such as Castle Morton, largest illegal rave in British history, as well as the subsequent moral panic that resulted in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in 1994. Also starring south west producer Iglooghost, the film touches on how these communities combined with folkloric traditions have go onto inspire a wider trend of rave mysticism across electronic music and the broader internet scene.

Quiet As Kept, F.O.G. extended edition is out now

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What it's like growing up as a New Age Traveller living on the road

New Age Travellers have lived nomadically for decades, but they struggle to be accepted into the wider travelling community

• 13:42, 8 JUL 2021
• Updated 11:44, 9 JUL 2021

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Nienta only remembers growing up on the road. As a New Age Traveller, she started travelling with her parents at age two in a tent called a bender, then a horse and wagon and then a caravan.

Her mum opted for nomadism after her council bedsit was repeatedly broken into, finding a home and a community on the road that was safer and cheaper for her and her family than staying in one place.

So for people like Nienta, now 31, it's hard to hear when people say she's not a Traveller, as she doesn't remember being anything else. The road has been home for her just like the other New Age Travellers who started a movement popularising nomadism stemming all the way back to the 60s.

Read more: The reality of rights to housing for Gypsies and Travellers

New Age Travellers run into the same pitfalls as the ethnic Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) community, such as lack of camps, roadside stopping places and access to education and healthcare.

However, they are often not accepted by the wider GRT community, which has existed for centuries as an ethnic group. They have fought for their right to live nomadically for centuries, despite often brutal marginalisation.

A recent bill has been introduced attempting to curtail the Traveller movement called the 2021 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would restrict the places one can stop a vehicle, which some argue is already scarce.

If passed, the bill would increase police powers to confiscate vehicles trespassing on private land, with offences punishable by a prison sentence. Among other things, it would also give police more power to stop protests.

Critics call it a deliberate attempt to limit the freedoms of specific minority communities, whilst legislators see it as a necessary new power for roadside anti-social behaviour. In response to the bill proposal, advocates of the GRT community have organised protests across the country.

The bill would also impact New Age Travellers who aren’t by definition included in the GRT community or protected by equality laws as an ethnic minority, and so not always remembered in these campaigns.

This is the strange limbo New Age Travellers face.

Some have grown up on the roadside and face the same practical issues of having no fixed address, but many don’t integrate with GRT communities whose heritage stems back centuries, whose culture differs and who are protective of their identities after centuries of racism from settled communities.

New Age Travellers may resemble settled ethnically white communities and experience less racism than GRT because of this.

They often have their own distinct camps, despite being persecuted by the same laws and some of the same stigma. While some outsiders see their lifestyle through the romanticism of living close to nature, others view them as criminals trespassing.

Who are New Age Travellers and where do they come from?

Many have similar stories to Nienta's family.

She said: “[In 1992] when my mum started travelling she found a community that she felt safe with, bringing up her children in the countryside.

“Being a mother is hard when you don’t have money. This way of life gave her the ability to do that well.”

Nienta started travelling life in a bender, a type of tent made up of hazel branches covered in carpet or canvas.

She and her two brothers went to primary school wherever they stopped, sometimes seeing a community teacher who would come out to camps.

Community members would teach camp children crafts, which Nienta attributes as the reason so many New Age Traveller children go into creative professions. Nienta is a set designer.

Like Nienta’s mum, many from the 60s through to the 90s and beyond turned to travelling for the opportunity to live cheaply and freely. From the 1960s onwards there was a wave of people turning to this way of life, some who were homeless or squatters, full-time free festival-goers, striking miners or protesters for peace such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

They came from every corner of society linked by a core set of desires to live closer to nature, more sustainably and for community, moving around in large groups for support, resource sharing and childcare.

'You eventually get evicted from everywhere'

Since the 80s, authorities have tried to deter this trend with raids, mass arrests, destruction of New Age camps and new laws attempting to criminalise nomadism. 1986 and 1994 saw criminalisation of trespassing on types of private land specifically in response to the rise in free festivals and raves sometimes associated with New Age Traveller camps.

This made it harder to travel without breaking laws. Councils were no longer obliged to provide legal stopping places from 1994 to 2006.

Today, Cambridgeshire's provision for Traveller's is similarly bleak. There is only one legal council-granted short-term stopping place for Travellers provided in the whole county. In 2019 the region was asked to redo an accommodation needs assessment by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which estimated that very few new permanent Traveller pitches were needed, whilst campaigners called this estimation 'unrepresentative'.

EHRC called the assessment and others like it ‘inadequate in addressing the very specific needs of ethnic Gypsies and Travellers'.

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For Nienta, a common fixture of her childhood were council evictions, describing some as "fine" and others "forceful".

She said: “I remember police moving us late at night, taking only families with children to a layby. My aunt borrowed my brother so she could come with us and we wouldn’t be broken up.

“You eventually get evicted from everywhere. No one wants you around. It’s become much harder to move around and authorities are forcing people onto bigger sites with multiple communities which is causing issues. We want to be in nature, not on concrete slabs on undesirable scraps of land by motorways.”

Many New Age Travellers moved abroad or simply stopped travelling once UK authorities started to crack down on their lifestyle.

Nienta describes the 2021 Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill as the most recent attack on her way of life.

She said: “The bill directly attacks us, our friends and families, making people I love and care for criminals. It’s upsetting to see and the language used in the bill is dehumanizing and upsetting.”

Beverley Carpenter, an advocacy worker for Travellers in Cambridgeshire, said: “Discrimination may not underlie so many issues for New Age Travellers, as it seems to with the GRT community… [but New Age Travellers similarly] pose a threat to accepted norms around ways of living.

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“Everyone, however, will be affected by the Police Bill. It will potentially eradicate nomadic ways of life. I am hearing from New Age Traveller women who we work with who often live alone in vans but tend to feel safer in groups.

"They are concerned that this will not be allowed in future and are alarmed about their way of life becoming much more insecure or even dangerous.”

'They say we’re not real Travellers'

In response to the bill proposal, Nienta set up an Instagram blog, Tat Down, to share pictures of her and her sibling's upbringing in the hopes to humanise Traveller experiences.

She said: “The media has a lot to answer for when it comes to dehumanizing Travellers. A lot of people don’t get to see these types of images as we were completely cut off from society. Growing up this way was amazing.”

However, even this blog has not been without controversy. It has recently attracted abuse from GRT people who see Nienta as appropriating their culture.

She said: “They say we’re not real Travellers. That’s hurtful. The ‘new’ in New Age Travellers implies it’s a new thing or that it was a choice, but this lifestyle isn't a choice for my parents and there are now fourth-generation New Age Travellers. When does it stop being new?”

Her parents followed seasonal harvest and festival work which was common income for other Travellers too, but Nienta always remembered a “divide” between the groups.

She said: “We were always quite separate. I hope that can change because we should be sticking up for each other.”

Despite the tension her blog has attracted, she aims to keep going to build understanding about the life she loves: “No one has the right to take away someone's home.

"I want to show people that we’re not criminals, we are the same as everyone else, we just live slightly differently. I want to show how relatable our lives really are. Sharing these stories makes me even more proud to be a Traveller."

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New age travellers: vanloads of uproarious humanity.

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Hetherington, Kevin (2000). New Age Travellers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity. London, UK: Cassell.

URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Age-Travellers-Vanload...

New Age Travellers are a hybrid phenomenon: part youth subculture, part alternative lifestyle and part social movement. Their cultural politics has had an impact on many young people in Britain over the final two decades of the 20th century. Drawing on first-hand research, this book describes the emergence and character of the travellers' way of life during the 1980s and 1990s. With its origins in the free-festival culture of the 1970s, New Age Travellers became one of the most notorious folk devils in Britain in the 1980s and early 1990s, notably when they tried to hold festivals at sites like Stonehenge. Despite the subsequent efforts of the Criminal Justice Act to criminalize their way of life, New Age Travellers continue to adapt their lifestyle and retain a shadowy presence within the British landscape. This book looks at the history and lifestyle of the Travellers. It discusses the significance of festivals, consumption and nomadism to their way of life. It also considers the identity they have created for themselves in relation to ideas of ethnicity and class, to questions of Englishness and contested representations of the countryside.

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New Age Travellers

New Age travellers appeared in 1980s and early 1990s Britain. In the UK during the 1980s the Travellers mobile homes (trucks, old vans, and buses) moved in convoys. New Age Travellers are groups of people who often espouse New Age (“hippie”, “gypsy”) values, and travel between music festivals and fairs, in order to live in a community with others who hold similar beliefs.

New Age travellers lifestyle

New Age travellers is a generic term which has been widely used in the media, but rarely among participants, to describe groups of scruffy young people who have apparently dropped out of normal society and have chosen to take to the road in convoys of battered old vehicles. There appears to be an urban variation on this grouping who are commonly involved in squatting in previously unoccupied housing. Eschewing traditional forms of employment, many (by no means all) live off welfare benefits, begging, and petty crime.

Many of these young people perceive their problem to be a Britain in terminal economic decline which has failed to deliver the consumer affluence promised by post-war capitalism, while many others have chosen to reject the values of materialism. For these people (not all New Age travellers are young), the solution to their problem is to establish an alternative life-style outside of straight society. Many among their number consider themselves to be anarchists and belong to overtly anti-capitalist groups such as Class War. It would be inappropriate, however, to consider all those young people labelled as New Age travellers to be a close-knit politicised homogenous grouping. The level of commitment to anarchist politics is undoubtedly variable, but there does seem to be some general commitment towards antiauthoritarianism, a rejection of the traditional party political system which is considered irrelevant, and an enthusiasm for predominantly green politics centring on single issues such as animal rights and the fast-expanding antiroads movement (a group of protesters who physically challenge and obstruct the road building program in Britain).

It will be the case, however, that some adherents to mis life-style have little enthusiasm for more overt political manifestations of this subculture but quite simply enjoy the freedom from the rat-race of conventional society and the pleasures of copious quantities of alcohol and drugs. There have been some quite close links between New Age travellers and the Rave culture and there are some apparent crossovers between the two groups. Some students and other groups of young people share serious political concerns for environmental and animal rights politics and many of these are on the fringes of New Age culture if only on a weekender basis. Some groups of young people seem to have affinities with more than one contemporary subculture and are not easy to categorise.

Thousands of people still live a traveller lifestyle in Britain. As of 2010 they are normally known simply as Travellers. Although most Travellers in UK are British, large numbers of Europeans also travel in the Britain.

• Subculture theory

New Age Travellers

New age travelers.

We all did the hippy traveler thing back in the 90’s, some more than others. Some people moved on the road, had kids and stayed there, others just used to go and party in the summer time and go back to the cities on the winter. It was fun, crazy, beautiful and unpredictable. The music was amazing and there was a freedom of spirit that’s been squeezed out of modern life and replaced by the fakeness we now know as the internet. “There’s your freedom mate, sorry we decided you can’t drive around in buses having fun all the time,  but you can sit and talk about yourself all day long on Facebook, or watch a variety of disturbing porn movies.” Anyway enough banter. This is a great documentary about new age travelers, exclusion zones, and Glastonbury festival during the reign of her royal nastiness Margret Thatcher.

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Gypsy Roma and Traveller History and Culture

Gypsy Roma and Traveller people belong to minority ethnic groups that have contributed to British society for centuries. Their distinctive way of life and traditions manifest themselves in nomadism, the centrality of their extended family, unique languages and entrepreneurial economy. It is reported that there are around 300,000 Travellers in the UK and they are one of the most disadvantaged groups. The real population may be different as some members of these communities do not participate in the census .

The Traveller Movement works predominantly with ethnic Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller Communities.

Irish Travellers and Romany Gypsies

Irish Travellers

Traditionally, Irish Travellers are a nomadic group of people from Ireland but have a separate identity, heritage and culture to the community in general. An Irish Traveller presence can be traced back to 12th century Ireland, with migrations to Great Britain in the early 19th century. The Irish Traveller community is categorised as an ethnic minority group under the Race Relations Act, 1976 (amended 2000); the Human Rights Act 1998; and the Equality Act 2010. Some Travellers of Irish heritage identify as Pavee or Minceir, which are words from the Irish Traveller language, Shelta.

Romany Gypsies

Romany Gypsies have been in Britain since at least 1515 after migrating from continental Europe during the Roma migration from India. The term Gypsy comes from “Egyptian” which is what the settled population perceived them to be because of their dark complexion. In reality, linguistic analysis of the Romani language proves that Romany Gypsies, like the European Roma, originally came from Northern India, probably around the 12th century. French Manush Gypsies have a similar origin and culture to Romany Gypsies.

There are other groups of Travellers who may travel through Britain, such as Scottish Travellers, Welsh Travellers and English Travellers, many of whom can trace a nomadic heritage back for many generations and who may have married into or outside of more traditional Irish Traveller and Romany Gypsy families. There were already indigenous nomadic people in Britain when the Romany Gypsies first arrived hundreds of years ago and the different cultures/ethnicities have to some extent merged.

Number of Gypsies and Travellers in Britain

This year, the 2021 Census included a “Roma” category for the first time, following in the footsteps of the 2011 Census which included a “Gypsy and Irish Traveller” category. The 2021 Census statistics have not yet been released but the 2011 Census put the combined Gypsy and Irish Traveller population in England and Wales as 57,680. This was recognised by many as an underestimate for various reasons. For instance, it varies greatly with data collected locally such as from the Gypsy Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessments, which total the Traveller population at just over 120,000, according to our research.

Other academic estimates of the combined Gypsy, Irish Traveller and other Traveller population range from 120,000 to 300,000. Ethnic monitoring data of the Gypsy Traveller population is rarely collected by key service providers in health, employment, planning and criminal justice.

Where Gypsies and Travellers Live

Although most Gypsies and Travellers see travelling as part of their identity, they can choose to live in different ways including:

• moving regularly around the country from site to site and being ‘on the road’
• living permanently in caravans or mobile homes, on sites provided by the council, or on private sites
• living in settled accommodation during winter or school term-time, travelling during the summer months
• living in ‘bricks and mortar’ housing, settled together, but still retaining a strong commitment to Gypsy/Traveller culture and traditions

Currently, their nomadic life is being threatened by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, that is currently being deliberated in Parliament, To find out more or get involved with opposing this bill, please visit here

Although Travellers speak English in most situations, they often speak to each other in their own language; for Irish Travellers this is called Cant or Gammon* and Gypsies speak Romani, which is the only indigenous language in the UK with Indic roots.

*Sometimes referred to as “Shelta” by linguists and academics

New Travellers and Show People

There are also Traveller groups which are known as ‘cultural’ rather than ‘ethnic’ Travellers. These include ‘new’ Travellers and Showmen. Most of the information on this page relates to ethnic Travellers but ‘Showmen’ do share many cultural traits with ethnic Travellers.

Show People are a cultural minority that have owned and operated funfairs and circuses for many generations and their identity is connected to their family businesses. They operate rides and attractions that can be seen throughout the summer months at funfairs. They generally have winter quarters where the family settles to repair the machinery that they operate and prepare for the next travelling season. Most Show People belong to the Showmen’s Guild which is an organisation that provides economic and social regulation and advocacy for Show People. The Showman’s Guild works with both central and local governments to protect the economic interests of its members.

The term New Travellers refers to people sometimes referred to as “New Age Travellers”. They are generally people who have taken to life ‘on the road’ in their own lifetime, though some New Traveller families claim to have been on the road for three consecutive generations. The New Traveller culture grew out of the hippie and free-festival movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Barge Travellers are similar to New Travellers but live on the UK’s 2,200 miles of canals. They form a distinct group in the canal network and many are former ‘new’ Travellers who moved onto the canals after changes to the law made the free festival circuit and a life on the road almost untenable. Many New Travellers have also settled into private sites or rural communes although a few groups are still travelling.

If you are a new age Traveller and require support please contact Friends, Families, and Travellers (FFT) .

Differences and Values

Differences Between Gypsies, Travellers, and Roma

Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are often categorised together under the “Roma” definition in Europe and under the acronym “GRT” in Britain. These communities and other nomadic groups, such as Scottish and English Travellers, Show People and New Travellers, share a number of characteristics in common: the importance of family and/or community networks; the nomadic way of life, a tendency toward self-employment, experience of disadvantage and having the poorest health outcomes in the United Kingdom.

The Roma communities also originated from India from around the 10th/ 12th centuries and have historically faced persecution, including slavery and genocide. They are still marginalised and ghettoised in many Eastern European countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania etc) where they are often the largest and most visible ethnic minority group, sometimes making up 10% of the total population. However, ‘Roma’ is a political term and a self-identification of many Roma activists. In reality, European Roma populations are made up of various subgroups, some with their own form of Romani, who often identify as that group rather than by the all-encompassing Roma identity.

Travellers and Roma each have very different customs, religion, language and heritage. For instance, Gypsies are said to have originated in India and the Romani language (also spoken by Roma) is considered to consist of at least seven varieties, each a language in their own right.

Values and Culture of GRT Communities

Family, extended family bonds and networks are very important to the Gypsy and Traveller way of life, as is a distinct identity from the settled ‘Gorja’ or ‘country’ population. Family anniversaries, births, weddings and funerals are usually marked by extended family or community gatherings with strong religious ceremonial content. Gypsies and Travellers generally marry young and respect their older generation. Contrary to frequent media depiction, Traveller communities value cleanliness and tidiness.

Many Irish Travellers are practising Catholics, while some Gypsies and Travellers are part of a growing Christian Evangelical movement.

Gypsy and Traveller culture has always adapted to survive and continues to do so today. Rapid economic change, recession and the gradual dismantling of the ‘grey’ economy have driven many Gypsy and Traveller families into hard times. The criminalisation of ‘travelling’ and the dire shortage of authorised private or council sites have added to this. Some Travellers describe the effect that this is having as “a crisis in the community” . A study in Ireland put the suicide rate of Irish Traveller men as 3-5 times higher than the wider population. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the same phenomenon is happening amongst Traveller communities in the UK.

Gypsies and Travellers are also adapting to new ways, as they have always done. Most of the younger generation and some of the older generation use social network platforms to stay in touch and there is a growing recognition that reading and writing are useful tools to have. Many Gypsies and Travellers utilise their often remarkable array of skills and trades as part of the formal economy. Some Gypsies and Travellers, many supported by their families, are entering further and higher education and becoming solicitors, teachers, accountants, journalists and other professionals.

There have always been successful Gypsy and Traveller businesses, some of which are household names within their sectors, although the ethnicity of the owners is often concealed. Gypsies and Travellers have always been represented in the fields of sport and entertainment.

How Gypsies and Travellers Are Disadvantaged

The Traveller, Gypsy, and Roma communities are widely considered to be among the most socially excluded communities in the UK. They have a much lower life expectancy than the general population, with Traveller men and women living 10-12 years less than the wider population.

Travellers have higher rates of infant mortality, maternal death and stillbirths than the general population. They experience racist sentiment in the media and elsewhere, which would be socially unacceptable if directed at any other minority community. Ofsted consider young Travellers to be one of the groups most at risk of low attainment in education.

Government services rarely include Traveller views in the planning and delivery of services.

In recent years, there has been increased political networking between the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller activists and campaign organisations.

Watch this video by Travellers Times made for Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month 2021:

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Generational differences amongst new age travellers

1998, The Sociological Review

Previous studies of ‘New Age’ travellers have paid no attention to generational differences within the travellers’ scene. This paper looks at these differences to reflect upon the new social movement (NSM) literature. It is argued that NSM theory only analyses those movements with ‘post-material’ concerns about culture, identity and symbolic challenges. It thus ignores less privileged movements which are concerned with apparently ‘traditional’ issues, such as survival, political opposition and citizenship rights. A number of such movements have emerged during the past few years in the wake of economic and social restructuring under post-Fordist conditions and the dismantling of a Keynesian-style welfare state that is associated with these processes. While the older generation of travellers was tied to the NSM movements and chose to move onto the road, the younger travellers have been forced to do so for lack of any reasonable alternative, having faced unemployment and homelessness in a post-Fordist/Keynesian era. They are, therefore, part of the contemporary movement scene to which ‘old’ issues are seemingly still applicable. The article concludes by showing how both the older and the younger travellers are now struggling to survive in the face of legislation which effectively criminalises their way of life.

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During Thatcher's Britain (1979-1990), the inner-city squatting movement and the hippy convoy movements of the 1970s formed a new lifestyle culture, termed 'New Age Travellers' by the contemporary media. It was a reaction to the injustices of early neoliberalism and a romantic desire to salvage what was left of the natural world before every facet of life became ‘up for sale’. Over three decades since the birth of this movement, I explore the life-worlds of those who remain on the road today and those who retreated into more conventional forms of living. The piece asks what sustains a ‘creationist culture’ such as this, in contrast to other travelling cultures who are sustained through family heritage and tradition. I address some of the familiar misconceptions and stereotypes of a culture which has all too often been spoken for, concluding that the lifestyle is sustained by a commitment to craftsmanship and an integral appreciation (and tolerance) for nature.

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Th e article focuses on tourist practices in the context of social diff erentiation and distinction. It examines the cultural signifi cance of travel as classifi cation practice and thereby its role in constituting and reproducing class hierarchies in contemporary globalized (or de-territorialized) world, characterized with increasing transnational patterns of communication and mobility. Using the case of Slovenia, characterized by post-egalitarian sentiment, it argues that class today is constituted also through class-specifi c and intersecting modes of travelling and dwelling. Th e results show that in post-egalitarian Slovenia social groups reproduce their status also by monopolizing distinct travel practices and travel aspirations, while on the other hand many are limited or constrained in such (voluntary) mobilities. We thus demonstrate that class matters for how people orient themselves as regards travel and (physi-cal/geographical) mobility, although in the results only the fundamental tension between the (global) mobility of the advantaged and the (local) fi xedness of the non-privileged that is structured by cultural capital/class position is recognized, along with the highest travel aspirations of those in the middle of social structure. In general, the paper calls for accounts on mobility in relation to class identity formation to be sensitive to both its symbolic and material aspects.

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Increasing youth travel has led to young people being labelled as ‘nomads’. This paper examines the phenomenon of youth nomadism in the tourism literature as well as examining recent empirical evidence. A review of the literature around youth nomadism identifies two major themes: analyses of the growth and development of youth travel niches, such as backpacking, volunteer tourism and educational exchange, and broader approaches linked to the rise of the mobilities paradigm. A major global survey of youth travel (34,000 respondents) indicates three major travel styles related to different forms of ‘nomadism’: the backpacker, the flashpacker and the global nomad. The traditional backpacker can be seen as a form of ‘neo-tribe’, gathering in self-sufficient enclaves. In contrast, the flashpacker, or ‘digital nomad', utilizes existing digital and logistic infrastructure to maintain a fluid, individualized lifestyle. The global nomad, or ‘location independent traveller’, tries to integrate with the local community, while trying to avoid the strictures of ‘system’.

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Increasing youth travel has led to young people being labelled as 'nomads'. This paper examines the phenomenon of youth nomadism in the tourism literature as well as examining recent empirical evidence. A review of the literature around youth nomadism identifies two major themes: analyses of the growth and development of youth travel niches, such as backpacking, volunteer tourism and educational exchange, and broader approaches linked to the rise of the mobilities paradigm. A major global survey of youth travel (34,000 respondents) indicates three major travel styles related to different forms of 'nomadism': the backpacker, the flashpacker and the global nomad. The traditional backpacker can be seen as a form of 'neotribe', gathering in self-sufficient enclaves. In contrast, the flashpacker, or 'digital nomad', utilizes existing digital and logistic infrastructure to maintain a fluid, individualized lifestyle. The global nomad, or 'location independent traveller', tries to integrate with the local community, while trying to avoid the strictures of 'system'.

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Meet the new generation of travellers: the new nomads

By Stephanie Rafanelli

In 2020, two billion people will travel to islands , deserts, jungles , glaciers and volcanoes at the far corners of our planet. A few may even see its fragile beauty from space. Our earth is still a wonder, all the more so now that the clock ticks on its preservation. But the way we – the nomads born of a peripatetic generation – journey upon it is ever evolving. The digital age, globalisation, immigration and technology have lifted not only borders of our nations but our wanderlust, pushing us faster and further, increasingly hungry for novelty and the solitude of wilder frontiers.

Now, with much of the world reachable, gentrifying, brag-snapped and posted, we have begun to turn our journeys inwards to become meaningful explorers of ourselves and find a more profound connection with our planet. But this is not the hedonistic navel-gazing of Sixties bohemians. Instead, we stand on the brink of a new era of dynamic travel, propelled by the conscious, go-getting, change-driven millennial attitude, no longer dropping out for our holidays but rather acutely tuning in.

Meet the New Nomads, who don’t journey simply to escape – but to find, engage, connect. We measure our carbon footprints and follow the paths mapped by our DNA and a generation of reality TV, like real-life Survivors, testing our mettle against the elements. Our luxury is barefoot immersion in nature, a foraging for and rewilding of our spirits. We are the curious, low-impact seekers of new skills and authenticity; we take delight in the local, bespoke, diverse and idiosyncratic. Journeying to places beyond, we travel for a weekend on impulse, six months, three years; with our children; like-minded communities; and solo (in the EU, one in three households is single, a figure set to rise). Environmental and medical advances have prompted a new focus on planetary and personal health – the two somehow connected by a renewed sense of ancient mindfulness.

By 2020, the wellness tourism industry will be worth £640 billion. Meanwhile, the definition of eco-friendly is sharpening, no longer dismissed as ‘worthy’, but an exciting, innovative science, pioneered by the best minds. Today, 70 per cent of travellers are more likely to choose a hotel if it is green – a sign that for the hotel of the future, environmental design and practice will be a given. Positive transformation – of the self and our planet: this is the mantra of the New Nomads.

This features in our New Nomads Issue: the October 2019 issue on sale now. Buy the issue or subscribe for just £24.

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Differences Between Gypsies & New Age Travellers.

Wednesday 10 november 2010, the differences between gypsies/irish travellers and new age travellers..

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5 comments:

Thanks for this post, I'm part of a Traveller collective working with local councillors to improve the situation for Travellers in our area. I'm writing a short info about New Travellers that'll be displayed in the council offices for a month. I've used some of the stuff you've written here a source as I think it's informative and well written. Hope that's ok, thanks again Emma

Hello, I've read this article too and found that it has some very good information on the differences between gypsies, Irish travelers and new age travellers. I too am a traveller, haveing lived off grid in my horsebox for the the last several years. I am also very keen to promote this way of living as I believe there are a lot of benefits to this lifestyle choice. I would be very interested in the info that you had displayed in the council offices for the month. Would really appreciate you getting in touch. Is there an email address I could contact you on. Have tried to look up hearth and homeplace community but to no avail. All the best Steve.

Very interesting article I feel more people will start to live this life style & I my self lived as a traveller for several years. A house really is not for me & I'm retuning to the road less traveled in the near future.

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Senior Travel Statistics in 2024

Over the last year, interest in travel has decreased among all age groups, but the 50+ age group has been particularly affected. According to a study conducted by the AARP, 80 percent of seniors wanted to travel abroad in 2022, but only 40 percent expressed the same interest in 2023.

The main reason cited is the cost of travel due to inflation and other factors. While some studies predict a surge back to pre-pandemic levels, others predict the senior population settling into a low point for travel rates in 2023 and beyond.

Senior Travel and Tourism Statistics

The big picture.

• Adults aged 60 and above accounted for nearly 37 percent of travelers in 2023, up from 16.45 percent in 2020 – 2021, but not back to pre-pandemic levels (46.3 percent).
• In 2023, 62 percent of adults aged 50 and over have taken or plan to take a leisure trip .
• 1 in 5 seniors reports feeling hesitant about making travel plans in 2023 due to COVID-19.
• Nearly half of seniors (48 percent) report a desire to return to normal leisure travel in 2024, compared to just 8 percent in 2023.
• 52 percent of seniors aged 50+ rank travel and vacation as their number one priority for discretionary income.
• Seniors currently average 27 travel days per year , compared to 35 for millennials.
• The average age of black and Asian travelers is 54, compared to 43 – 46 for Hispanic individuals and 51 – 55 for white individuals.

Preferences

• 61 percent of seniors report that they’ll only travel domestically in 2023, up from 51 percent the year before.
• Interest in international cruises among seniors has dropped 9 percent in the last year, falling from 27 percent to 18 percent.
• 89 percent of those who still cruise report taking ocean cruises due to the value and travel schedule.
• The three most popular international travel destinations for American seniors are Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
• 67 percent of baby boomers say they travel to visit family, compared to 51 – 56 percent for younger generations.
• Adults over the age of 65 are half as likely to take vacations for personal trips such as shopping compared to younger generations, though they are nearly equally likely to take trips for holidays or leisure.
• Seniors plan to take an average of 3.7 trips in 2023.
• 23 percent of seniors aged 50 and above report changing their trips to avoid crowded destinations (26 percent for seniors 70 and over).
• In 2023, seniors reported budgeting about 80 percent of the money they spent on travel the year before.
• Around one third of seniors are actively devoting savings to future vacations, compared to 42 percent in 2022.
• 58 percent of nontravelers cite finances as the number one reason they won’t travel this year.
• 63 percent of adults aged 50 and over report wanting to take a bucket list trip, 24 percent more than before the pandemic.
• When asked why they hadn’t taken the trip, the same group of adults aged 50 years and over most commonly cited rising travel costs (21 percent), personal health problems (16 percent), and less available income (12 percent).
• Seniors aged 70 and over report intending to spend 40 percent less on travel in 2023 compared to 2022.
• Over half of the seniors who canceled trips in 2023 report devoting the unused funds to reducing debt and paying household expenses.

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Ryan Molloy

Ryan has years of experience researching and testing products that help people successfully age in place. After years of working for various publications such as Boston Magazine and The Believer, he has found his home at The Senior List, writing about all things related to caregiving and senior healthcare.

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By Lauren Matison

In 2023, the seashores, lakeshores, battlefields, historic sites, monuments and more that make up the National Park Service had 325.5 million visits , an increase of 4 percent from the year before.

The National Park Service director, Charles F. Sams III, praised the surge of interest in “learning our shared American story throughout the hidden gems of the National Parks System.”

Expecting an even greater turnout in 2024, the Park Service and Recreation.gov , the booking platform for federal land reservations, have implemented new measures to streamline the park experience, manage overcrowding and safeguard the environment.

More parks are requiring reservations

To better avoid congested trails, packed parking lots and overflowing trash cans, additional parks are joining Rocky Mountain , Arches and Glacier National Parks this year in requiring day-use permits, timed entries and other reservations for travelers who wish to visit, particularly during peak hours, holidays and the parks’ high seasons. Yosemite National Park is reinstating a timed-entry system it instituted in 2020, but paused in 2022.

Many park enthusiasts expressed mixed feelings about the reservation policies, with some lamenting a lack of first-come, first-served campsites while others find comfort in knowing they have a confirmed booking. As nearly 75 percent of visitors each year descend on national parks from May to October (and often on weekends), park officials stand by the system.

“In some parks, the level of demand is exceeding the capacity for which infrastructure was designed or is outpacing the National Park Service’s ability to sustainably support visitation,” said Kathy Kupper, a public affairs specialist for the service. “This trend is resulting in the need to explore new strategies to protect natural and cultural resources and provide opportunities for safe and meaningful visitor experiences.”

It can be confusing.

New to implementing timed-entry reservations for vehicles is Mount Rainier National Park , in Washington, for its popular Paradise and Sunrise Corridors during certain times in the summer season. Reservations cost $2, are valid for one day and must be purchased along with the park ticket, but do not apply for visitors with wilderness permits or camping or lodge reservations. Similar vehicle reservations are now required for certain periods for viewing the sunrise at Haleakalā National Park in Maui, Hawaii , and driving the Cadillac Summit Road in Maine’s Acadia National Park .

Visitors wishing to hike Old Rag Mountain in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park must obtain a day-use ticket between March 1 and Nov. 30, and in Zion National Park, in Utah, hikers wishing to visit Angels Landing , the dramatic 1,488-foot-tall rock formation, also need to purchase a permit. Fees range from $1 to $6, in addition to the parks’ entrance fees.

As each destination is managed differently, check the park’s webpage for the type of reservation required. Although most bookings can be made through Recreation.gov, some sites, such as Muir Woods National Monument, use a different system.

New features on Recreation.gov

In 2023, Recreation.gov reported that more than 4 million camping reservations and 2 million timed-entry reservations were booked online, and 1.5 million permits were issued. Some 2.9 million new users signed up for the site. With its expanding user base, the booking platform has added 58 reservable national park locations — including 17 campgrounds — such as Central Avenue Walk-in Sites at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and Bluff Hike In Camping in South Carolina’s Congaree National Park.

Recreation.gov has also improved an alerts feature, piloted in July 2023, that can notify users through email or mobile push notifications when a sold-out campsite becomes available. After Recreation.gov notifies you of availability, you must book the campsite yourself online — and quickly, as you’ll be shown how many other people (possibly hundreds) have received the same alert.

While its customer support center and mobile app are still only available in English, Recreation.gov recently introduced a Spanish language translation option. The Park Service partners with Latino Conservation Week , which hosts nationwide hikes and events on environmental education and in-park stewardship, and will celebrate its 10th year in September.

A limit to the annual America the Beautiful pass

The 2024 America the Beautiful pass no longer allows two owners. The annual interagency pass, which costs $80 and covers the entrance fees for more than 2,000 federal recreation sites (of which roughly 100 do not charge for admission year-round), is now marked by a single signature line on the back of the card. The pass owner must show I.D. and be present with any accompanying travelers wishing to access the park with the pass. (Annual passes issued in 2023 will still be valid until their expiration date.) The pass covers all passengers in a vehicle — up to four adults, and children under 16 are admitted free — or up to four cyclists riding together. Active military or veterans and people with permanent disabilities are eligible for a free lifetime pass; 4th grade students may receive a free annual pass; and senior citizens may purchase a $20 annual pass or pay $80 for a lifetime pass.

At the parks, more accessible features, E.V. chargers and new lodging

To better protect against global warming, the Park Service is putting more than $65 million from the Inflation Reduction Act and Great American Outdoors Act into climate mitigation and ecosystem restoration.

Using $15.9 million budgeted for zero-emission vehicle deployment, charging capacity and infrastructure, the Park Service is prioritizing a reduction in carbon emissions, said Mr. Sams, by installing new electric-vehicle charging stations and running electric buses.

An interactive online locator tool created in 2023 shows E.V. charging stations throughout 27 national parks and the type of chargers available. In addition to the tool, every national park page displays alerts on road closures, parking lot capacities, construction work and other incidents.

Mr. Sams also said the Park Service is investing $1.3 billion from the Great American Outdoors Act to improve accessibility features, ranging from a new A.D.A.-compliant visitor center at Morristown National Historic Park in New Jersey to new beach wheelchairs at Sleeping Bear Dunes , Channel Islands and Virgin Islands National Parks . Each destination’s website has an accessibility tab to help visitors plan their trip, and Recreation.gov now has a search filter on its homepage to make it easier to locate accessible accommodations.

New lodging options now available across the country include the Flamingo Lodge , which opened inside Everglades National Park last fall with 24 guest rooms built from repurposed shipping containers. In March, along the southeastern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Cataloochee Ranch reopened with 11 renovated cabins and a new restaurant. This spring, the Clubhouse Hotel & Suites will welcome its first guests in Rapid City, S.D., the closest major town to Badlands National Park , and opening in May in Idaho is the Yellowstone Peaks Hotel , a 30-minute-drive from Yellowstone National Park. This fall, California-bound travelers planning a visit to General Sherman, the largest known tree on Earth, might book at AutoCamp Sequoia , just outside Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park .

Also in California: Those who don’t score a highly coveted (and contentious) spot at the newly reopened High Sierra Camps in Yosemite could book Wildhaven Yosemite in Mariposa, which offers more affordable rates, hiking trails and views of the Sierra Nevadas. Reservations for its first season are available beginning May 1.

Celebrating milestones and a new free entrance day

On the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, visitors can pay tribute to African American heritage at over 100 parks , including the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument , and the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail . This year also marks 100 years since Indigenous people were recognized as United States citizens. Although many parks have Indigenous programming , Mr. Sams, who is the first Native American to serve as N.P.S. director , suggested visiting Hopewell Cultural Historical Park in Ohio and Whitman Mission Historic National Historic Site in Washington, where he recently brought his daughter.

“In order to celebrate the diversity that makes our country great, we must share the complete story of America, which includes both the successes and challenges encountered on the way to form a more perfect union,” Mr. Sams said.

Juneteenth National Independence Day is the National Park Service’s newest free entrance day . Visitors can also take advantage of free admission on April 20, the first day of National Park Week; Aug. 4, the four-year anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act ; Sept. 28 on National Public Lands Day ; and Nov. 11 for Veterans Day .

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024 .

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Flamingo Lodge. It is inside Everglades National Park, not outside the park.

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