Your Vanlife Story Awaits
GoCamp Promises Camping Made Easy In Road Trip Ready Eurovans & Vanagons Through Its Camper Van Rental Business
After a relatively long career in the public sector, Deborah Kane was ready for a significant change. Fond memories of camping trips in their family Vanagon and a birthday camping trip with her teenager sparked the idea that gave her the opportunity for that change.
“My kids are 16 and 13 years old. When they were closer to 3 and 6, my husband and I bought a Vanagon, and we would go camping all the time. It was super easy because with the Vanagon you can have it constantly packed and there’s not a lot of planning and organization that has to go into it. With little kids that’s really important”, recalled Deborah. “As they hit those middle school years, the Vanagon began to seem impractical and we sold it and bought a Honda Pilot, and you know immediately our camping days seemed like they fell off a cliff, because all of a sudden camping was hard again.”
Deborah had immediate regret from selling their Vanagon. “I had that regret for a period of years and then my daughter last summer had her 15th birthday and she said for her birthday she wanted to go camping. I had a friend that said, ‘you know you can rent Eurovans’. I rented one and the company that I rented this from, I thought they had one or two, but they actually had 25 vans on their lot. I started talking with them and said wow, that’s a lot of expensive camper vans to have, and they were like, ‘oh we’re booked solid from May through October, it’s a great business’. I spent that entire weekend thinking to myself, well that is a great business, but why would anyone buy all that inventory when there are so many people that have Eurovans and Vanagons as their third car and much like my experience, they are not using it as much as they would like to? Immediately, I thought Airbnb is so big we could just do an Airbnb for camper vans”, said Deborah.
After contemplating the situation, the idea began to grow on Deborah and she ended up buying a Eurovan for her family. “We launched in April of this year, and it’s been great. I thought to myself, I don’t have to go buy ten more, I could actually find ten people who own a camper van and have them to list on my site and that’s what I did. We’ve got 14 vans on the sight right now and they are all owned by individual van owners who probably use them 3-4 times per year, but don’t use them every week in the summer. Folks saw an opportunity to earn a little extra income, and they honestly just really like the idea of sharing this experience they really love with other people”, stated Deborah.
GoCamp promises to make camping easy providing road trip ready vans for up to four people. “You get the adventure of a lifetime, you get a van that we call 'road-trip ready'. Every van on GoCamp is outfitted so that four people could hop in and go, all they have to do is buy their groceries. The vans have all the bedding for four people, camp chairs, headlamps, camp tables, all the kitchenware you need, all the cookware, they’re also loaded with maps. We do a lot of trip planning with our customers”, claimed Deborah. Camping made easy, is how the company simply explains what they offer.
GoCamp has already found a wide customer base that includes visitors from around the world. “We’ve had a lot of international customers, and those people of course are coming in on an airplane and all they bring is their clothes. So, they just hop on the van and they’re ready to go. We also get a lot of people from the east coast because they want to have a pacific northwest experience. They are great for families and for couples”, Deborah said.
The largest portion of GoCamps customer base includes families. “When I sat down and conceived of the idea for GoCamp, I had in mind families. I wanted to make it easy for families to get out and camp. I wanted to make it easy for moms and dads to create that sitting around the campfire smores and marshmallow experience for their kids, because I know parenting is hard. That vision has been fulfilled for sure, because at least half of our renters are families with kids”, Deborah stated.
The process for renting a van from GoCamp is fairly simple. Reservations are made online and the website creates a contract between the renter and the van owner. Renters are introduced to the owners to make pick up and drop off arrangements between the two parties. “You are picking up the van at someone’s house and meeting their family and hearing about their adventures in the van. So, you know on one hand we are creating opportunities for renters to get into these vehicles, but we are also creating a sense of community among the van owners that is quite special”, Deborah said.
For Deborah, renting camping vans just made sense and her love of these vans shows in her business. “They are just so iconic and classic and romantic. For me, I like the fact that the Eurovans and Vanagons are self contained units. They’re not as big as the big RV’s so you can get into those tight little camping spots and go off on forest roads and not worry about not being able to turn around. There just seems to be a market for people that want that #vanlife experience”, claimed Deborah.
Jared Langenegger
A graduate of New Mexico State University with B.S. in wildlife and fisheries science, Jared spent 15 years working in fisheries and parks management. He enjoys camping, fishing, hunting, painting, and wood working.
Make Sure To Check Out:
GoCamp Rentals, to rent your Eurovan or Vanagon for a family outing, or even a solo camping trip. You get the adventure of a lifetime and you get a van that is 'road-trip ready'. Every van on GoCamp is outfitted so that four people could hop in and just go.