Dreaming about Van Life? We were too! After making the transition from home owners to living full time in a van (2 years and still loving it), we highly recommend camper rental before taking the leap. Here are 5 reasons why!
Reason #1 For Camper Rental: Reality Check
Aspiring influencers use their special skills to sugarcoat reality and make you believe 95% of vanlife is spent bikini-showering in the back of their van, watching the sunset from their bed or having romantic candle light dinners.
After 2 years living in our van, it’s fair to say we know a thing or two about the reality of Vanlife. Sometimes it’s like the Instagram, sometimes it’s more like:
- Showering in the back of our van, feet in mud and our bodies exposed to the wind.
- Not watching the sunset from our bed, because there's a bunch of stuff up there.
- We actually do romantic candle light dinners. We also have conversations while using the composting toilet like it's perfectly normal.
Rent a camper and experience the real Vanlife, so your expectations meet reality!
Reason #2: Decide on a Van Layout
What you think is the perfect van layout could turn into a less-than-functional box. You see, creating a functional kitchen (or living room, or bedroom) is totally different in 100 sq.ft. than in 1800 sq.ft. You’d be surprised!
Keep in mind that everyone has different needs. For example, we mountain bike or snowboard almost everyday so we optimized our layout around that. If you like to hike, or paddle, or play video games, you might not need all that garage space and you’d need a completely different van layout than us.
So look around and take notes on different layouts that people have (check out Vanlife Ideas on Instagram and check our own Van Tour). Then go for a camper rental that fit your interests the most; it might take 2 or 3 iterations, but it’s a wise investment if it means finding YOUR perfect layout!
Reason #3 to rent a van: Learn what are your irritants
Devil’s in the details. Small irritants can affect your Vanlife in a bad way, especially if they’re repetitive. It gets into your head. Here is a list of weird irritant you might not have suspected:
- Having to setup the bed each day (folding beds).
- Trash can too small (so we end up having a trash bag in the alley 50% of the time).
- Not enough storage compartments.
- No dedicated shoe mat.
Reason #4: Get to know the vanlife routine
It’s all fun and games until the routine kicks in… Being off-the-grid means you’ll necessarily run out of water at some point; and being nomad means you’ll necessarily spend some time looking for water, which can sometimes be nerve wracking as water is SO essential. Here are more routine stuff to expect:
- Find where to dump the toilet.
- Find dumpsters for your trash.
- Constantly fight the dust.
- Constantly fight the mess (things get disorganized in a blink of an eye in small spaces!).
- Wash the dishes as you go, or else it means living in your dirty dishes.
- Tide things up each time you're going to drive the van (things are attracted to the floor, for some reasons).
Reason #5: Build (or buy) Once
Getting your dream camper van is a big investment of money and time (if going the DIY way). Not convinced? We tracked down all the cost and labor of our entire van conversion; we also obsessively documented all the build process in our Build Journal (step-by-step). That’ll give you a good idea of what you’re getting into if going the DIY way:
A perk of travelling in a van means meeting other Vanlifers; van tours are almost part of the routine! 🙂 There’s a story that we hear all the time: people building (or buying) a van, only to find out they’re unhappy with it… and they start all over again! We’d rather be travelling than building or shopping for a new van.
There you have it. Camper Rental is without a doubt a good time and money investment if you're serious about getting into Vanlife!
How to find a cool Camper Rental Near You
Outdoorsy.com is often referred as the “AirBnB” of Camper Rental (or RVing). It’s a community-based (peer-to-peer) platform that connects owners (“hosts”) to renters (“travellers”).
What's in it for Camper Van owners:
- Make a few extra bucks with their investment when it's not being used.
- $1M insurance covering both the owner and the renter.
- 24/7 RV Rental Roadside Assistance.
What's in it for renters:
- Filter your search by location, type (camper, RV, trailer, etc.), amenities (bike rack, shower, etc.)
- $1M insurance covering both the owner and the renter.
- 24/7 RV Rental Roadside Assistance.
Bonjour Isabelle et Antoine,
J’ai donc suivi vos conseils et j’ai loué un van pour 9 jours. Comment dire…..
J’ai fais beaucoup de lecture, planifier un itinéraire, vérifier les applications.
C’est exactement comme vous l’avez écrit mais le vivre c’est autres choses
L’eau…. Argggg comment fait vous pour faire 4 jours avec 80 litres ????
Je comprend mieux pourquoi vous avez une toilette sèche.
Trouver un endroit pour dormir, planifier une douche, les repas,….
L’internet… arggg Pas trop fort en Beauce….une chance que j’avais le gps
Bref, toute une expérience mais j’ai adoré. Couché sur le bord du Fleuve St-Laurent, seul… capotant.
Merci pour vos précieux conseil… je continue à dévorer votre site….
Hi!
First of all, thanks for a great website with TONS of useful and inspiring articles, love your site and the way you combine information with humor! 🙂
My name is Philip, I live in Sweden with my girlfriend Emmi and we’ve built two campervans which we use for adventures like skiing, kitesurfing and mountainbiking. We (or mostly Emmis to be honest!) also run explorista.se, a Swedish blog that’s probably the biggest Vanlife blog in Sweden, have a look with google translate if you’d like! 🙂
We don’t live full time like you guys but we plan to do some longer trips for about 6 months or so.
That’s also why I wanted to contact you guys, since we’re planning on traveling to North America this fall (if the Corona-situation admits) for an epic campervan adventure. Since it’s a bit of a hassle (and expensive!) to ship our own van, our plan is to rent a campervan or RV from October for up to six months and travel through US and Canada!
I’ve read your posts about cool skiing and mtb destinations and I got really inspired! The difficult part is to find a good long term rental that’s not too expensive, and I was wondering if you could help us with a few answers?
Is your recommendation still outdoorsy, or could you recommend any other site och group where we could find a nice van/RV to rent? I’ve done some searches on outdoorsy and didn’t really find too much, maybe October is too far off to search for?
In which city/state would you recommend to search in? Is there typically more campervans/RVs on the westcoast or eastcoast?
Again, thanks a lot for your awesome site and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
/Philip
I’m not sure about all of your questions, but for such a long period it’ll cost a lot to rent. Have you consider buying and re-selling a van instead? I feel like that would be your best option…
Good luck!