HIRING A CARAVAN

Caravanning holidays are no longer just for caravan owners. With new platforms popping up, owners of caravans who don't use their home on wheels often, now have the opportunity to share their vehicles with people who don't own one themselves.

It has been known that people with caravans use them less than 50 days a year, leaving them sitting idle in the driveway or storage yard for the rest of the year. Our previous caravan was the same. Being a 2 parent full time working family, it was only on long weekends we managed to get away from our normal daily grind and head out for an adventure with the kids.

After hearing about this new platform we decided to hire out our van and make a little extra pocket money. Within the first 3 hours of having our listing active, we had our first booking. And it only got better from there. Our caravan was so popular that we bought a second, a third, a fourth and even a fifth van!

Using the platform was simple for us to list our vans available for hire. All we needed were some good quality photos, the details including weights of the van and the services it has. Once all the details are entered then the van is live, and ready to go!

Hiring out your van doesn't come without its' challenges though. We've had a hirer allow 6 kids to sleep in one of our vans without adult supervision, and damn did that one come back damaged and in a terrible state of uncleanliness. We've had another hirer who didn't pay much attention when we showed him how to use our van, leaving a vital locking clip unlocked and the roof of the van came open, with the mattress flying out onto the highway. Our poor van was so damaged it was off the road for 6 months.

There are certain procedures that need to be followed when hiring out your caravan. Some required by the platform in which the caravan is listed, and some we personally set in place to protect ourselves from damage, but unfortunately learnt the hard way. But the platform provides insurance, which makes us feel a little better about watching a complete stranger drive our asset away.

In our next post, we will go further indepth on hiring your van out. Including how to protect yourself from tricky situations, what to expect when hiring your van out, the rundown of the 'handover' to the hirer, and how to prepare your van for hire.