Owners: introduce yourself!

[Cal_Viall]

Hello Friends! My name is Cal and I got into RVing about 14 years ago. It all started with a slide-in truck camper, then moved to a pop-up trailer and then a Casita and now an Airstream for my family that doubled in the past 19 months. My wife, Monica, and my twins Isabelle and Ryland.

We enjoy tent camping and RV glamping although it is slightly challenging right now with the twins. We bought the 2004 Airstream International 25'er about a year ago and immediately started renting it out on Outdoorsy. Our number one priority is to rent it out and if it's not booked then we may use it ourselves.

We live on the Western Slope of Colorado so lots of camping options. Our favorite uses for the Airstream are for music festivals or just parking it with incredible mountain or desert views.

Glad to be here.

Thanks!

-Cal

[Marguerite_Young]

My name is Marguerite, we live in Oakland California. I own a 1956 Shasta 1500, which is a classic canned ham trailer that I restored in 2011. We've traveled the West with it over those years logging more than 15,000 miles with my son.
We've used it at music festivals and to support our many kayaking adventures.
We are new to Outdoorsy, and hope that it is a way to supplement our income for more adventures when we're not using it.

[Jerrold_Stevens]

Greetings from Austin! I had done some tent camping over the years and enjoyed the experience, but it was losing some of it's charm as I got older and wanted more of my creature comforts. I married a Chinese girl a few years ago and finally got her residence visa so she could come here with me.

She was fascinated with the idea of camping (they don't really do that in China) and wanted to try it. I had been intrigued with the resurgence of Teardrop campers and thought that might be a nice step up from a tent, so I spent this past winter designing and building my own! Great experience and we tried it a couple times. Worked really well, but she wanted her own bathroom and I wanted to be able to stand up to put my clothes on. And, I really wanted a motorhome so I could tow my motorcycle when camping near great riding roads!

So, I sold the teardrop to a nice woman who took it to Colorado and we bought our 2016 Minnie Winnie just about a month ago. We did a couple trips ourselves and loved it. Then I put it in a rental consignment program. Wasn't getting the volume of rentals I thought I should get for this time of year and I was frustrated that I didn't have it here at my home so we could just jump in and go somewhere if it wasn't rented.

I guess I stumbled across the Outdoorsy ad on Facebook and it got my interest. Spent days researching it and decided to take the "leap of faith". I notified the consignment company that I'm pulling it out after the next rental near the end of June and started working up my listing on Outdoorsy. I've posted ads in FB Marketplace and on Craigslist. Looking for more ways to promote it too!

Thanks to Outdoorsy for creating this service!

Jerrold

[Gina_Sigman]

Hi Kathleen and Dan. I see you are RV owners in California also. We just started with Outdoorsey and haven't rented our RV out yet. We are unsure of some things such as how to tax (California is different and all) Should we add state and federal tax percentages to our rental fee? How do you manage this? Also, we have an old RV. It's an 89 Coachmen and we are having a hard time with getting liability insurance on it. Any ideas?

[Gina_Sigman]

Hi. We're Gina and Barry from Los Alamos, Ca. We "rescued" a 23 ft 1989 Coachmen Catalina motor home 3 years ago with only 5600 miles on it that was sitting under a tree, rusting in Houston Tx. We fully restored it and upgraded it, hoping we would travel the country in it. Alas, "the Tinman" as we gently refer to him, is just a little too cumbersome for that duty and has been sitting here on California's beautiful Central Coast since then. We are retired and would like to have an extra income with this. We want to rent him out to people out here for "local" use but are not quite ready to do a full listing yet. Is anyone here from California? How much should we tax? We are having a hard time with getting liability insurance due to the RV's age. Just wondering if the best option would be for us to drive it ourselves to destinations and just park it at the campsite for the renter instead of letting them drive it. After all, we live in a tourist area close to Santa Barbara, Goleta, Pismo, etc. Any thoughts? Advise appreciated!

[Kathleen_and_Dan]

Hi Gina! Welcome!! We don't charge tax, but that is a gray area. I have looked at other listings in CA and some people charge tax, and others don't. This is our first year renting so we haven't filed a return with our rental income yet. I would check with your accountant .. we're playing it by ear

As far as insurance, check out this post in the forum. https://community.outdoorsy.co/t/how-to-secure-liability-insurance-on-an-older-rv/412?u=kathleen_and_dan

Outdoorsy has amazing customer service, so you can always reach out to them and they will help you if you're having issues getting insurance coverage.

I hope that helps (a little bit at least!).

Kathleen

[Richard_Shevlin]

Hello everyone my name is Richard, with my wife Barbara. We begin RVing about 6 years ago starting with BigHorn 5th wheeler. I love RVing continue to grow so into thousand 15 we purchased our first motorcoach . We now have a 2014 forest river Georgetown 364 w/ bunkbeds. Fortunately our business continues to grow and we recently started a consignment store, and that's where we met outdoorsy's ad on Facebook.

[Logan]

Great Richard! Tell me more about your consignment store?

[Jennifer_Jones]

Hi everyone! I'm Jennifer and have two homeschooled boys 7 and 13. I bought a 5th wheeler and an old RV to live in off grid this coming winter, but decided to offer my 5th wheeler for rent here. I am looking forward to flipping the ones I have and upgrading until we have the outfit to hit the road. Right now, we're more-less looking to live tiny house style.

[Jonathan_Swain]

Greetings from Lodi, CA. My wife and I just bought our first RV, a 30 Foot bunk house. We have TEN children, five through adoption, who are age 2-11, so vacationing as a family was becoming a real challenge. We needed a way to get that good quality family time in without having to book huge hotel rooms and eating out all the time. The camping and RV experience seemed like the ticket. So here we are. We have two official trips under our belt and knew from the beginning that with such a large family, we would need to rent out our RV a little to offset the cost of the rig. Although we look a little funny towing the rig with a 15 passenger van, it seems to be working for us. Looking forward to many more memories with the littles in the future as well as helping other families create memories as well.

[Nancy_Caudle]

Hi! Im Nancy and me and my husband were getting into rental houses and even bought a couple when we seen a vlog on youtube on Biggerpockets, the guest on there was talking about her success story and she mentioned that her friend was doing great renting RV's..stop what youre doing​ hmmm, so we researched it and started doing it! Signed up last week and have 4 booking so far and in the fall we will purchase a smaller one and so on and so forth! Yay!

[Kimbrell_John_Frazie]

Greeting from the NC High Country, near Grandfather Mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway. My name is Kimbrell and my husband is John and got our first travel trailer 12 years ago. We kayak and carried our boats on top of a pickup truck so a trailer worked well for us. Over the years we have travelled all over the US and Canada, kayaking in lakes and sounds wherever we go. 2 years ago we traded the truck and TT in on a Class C Minnie Winnie 27Q, and it was a great decision, but considerable more expensive. Now we have a car we can tow with the boats on top of it. We travel with 2 dogs, 2 bikes, 2 kayaks and 2 old folks (us!). I'm trying out Outdoorsy to see if it will help offset our own travel costs, since I am an artist and John is retired now. I have 2 upcoming bookings and I feel confident that the renters, whom I have vetted carefully will not be problems. If this goes well, I might buy another Class C just for rental and keep our much-loved MinnieWinnie for backup, and just for us to use. Time will tell.....

[Logan]

Just wanted to thank everyone for introducing themselves!

@Jennifer_Jones I appreciate the less is more lifestyle. Great pics!

@Jonathan_Swain The fun experience that your family has had with RVing will be had by other families. Thanks for the pics!

I like it when 1) We can help offset the cost of your family travel habits, and 2) You find your niche, like with other families! Let us know when you've rented out your RV to another happy fam?

@Nancy_Caudle You entrepreneur you!

@Kimbrell_John_Frazie Fun things seem to come in twos for you. Take a pick and let us know in the General Discussion thread what you're considering purchasing for rental?

Logan

[Michael_Leppelman]

My name is Michael. As child we went camping all the time. My parents bought an old Caveman Camper. A few years later they bought a travel trailer. Later on they upgraded to a fifth wheel. Years later they the move out of the house and in to the RV full time. I have always liked camping and on day a friend of mine talk me in to buying an RV. Have never even though about the option of renting it out when I am not using it. I haven't been using it much so I decided I was going to sell it and get out of the payment. I went to NADA to get the value of my RV so I can list it on craigslist for sale. After getting the value I saw a link about list you RV for rental purpose. That is how I found out about Outdoorsy.

[Brian_Richards]

My name is Brain and I am new to the Outdoorsy community. I spend my childhood camping and traveling in an RV and have memories that I will cherish all my life. I purchased my first travel trailer as an adult 2 years ago in in order to have a temporary residence between the sell and purchase of our homes. Since then, our poor camper has not had the use we intended it to. We have two small children and it has not had much use. I was excited to know that this company existed to allow for families that may not afford or just want the experience that I had growing up. I would like to know what people's success rates are how I can market my RV to potential renters.

[Jeffrey_H_Whalen]

Hi everyone! My name is jeff and my family and I have been camping with travel trailers for years. Our first camper was '94 Layton that we bought to go camping with friends. We later upgraded to our current '10 Flagstaff Microlite which we've decided to rent on Outdoorsy because we haven't been using it as much as we used to and wanted others to be able to enjoy it and camping in general. I found Outdoorsy through a Facebook sponsored ad one day and decided to give it a whirl!

[Nicole_Plummer]

Hi Everyone, I just signed up after literally finding Outdoorsy this afternoon. We own a 2005 Conquest LE Class C that we bought in 2006. I love to RV, every time I step into 'Big Joe', I am instantly transported to freedom and relaxation. Something about its smell just gives me the feeling that I am where I belong.
Over the years I have repeatedly thought how it would be nice to be able to rent out the RV to help cover its cost and make sure it gets enough usage, but I never considered that a realistic option, at least not enough to research the subject. And then, low and behold, I found Outdoorsy, via Facebook no less. I still have lots of reading and research to do but I think this could definitely be a valid option for us. Well, I'm looking forward to learning more and maybe I'll even be able to figure out how to properly write up a listing. So, here goes nothing...

[Tom_Minowicz]

Hi all. My name is Tom M. and I live in the foothills of western NC between Charlotte and Asheville. We purchased our camper about a week ago after realizing we really need to have "family time" away from all the electonics in the world. We have two children (8 year old son and 12 year old daughter) and love to visit the mountains of NC, TN and VA.

We not only purchased our 2017 Outback Ultra-lite 293ubh, but we listed it for rent on here too. We look forward to many years with our travel trailer and hopefully graduating to a Class A when our children get out of school. What better way to explore our great country!

[James_William_Turner]

My wife, Kathleen, and I bought our first trailer in April this year, because we wanted to spend more time seeing America after spending 18 years as ex-pats. I was thinking about how Uber worked one day and did a search of peer to peer rentals for RVs. Outdoorsy was at the top of my search,and I liked its look and feel. We have 2 reservations lined up, and our trailer will soon go out on its first rental.

I'm looking forward to learning more about camping in general and about renting in particular.

Jim T
Houston, TX

[Scott_Semone]

We are pretty new to renting our 2014 Airstream Interstate; we actually stumbled upon Outdoorsy when looking into a renting solution for a friend who started a new business and wanted to take his product on the road using our RV. We decided that he really needed a custom travel trailer rather than a Class-B; however I did post our Interstate on OUTDOORSY and started to get emails about interest in renting our unit. I have rented it out seven times thus far; the first time being the hardest to let go to complete strangers, however all great rental experiences with the exception of our last renter (no. 7) who treated it like an AVIS rental car and returned it with lots of roof-top and undercarriage damage, left over food in the refrigerator, dirt and mud on the exterior. Now I'm trying to sort through the outdoorsy insurance coverage and finding it not to be an easy thing.

I joined the community forum in order to find out more about the insurance coverage and hopefully a phone number, rather than a chat or email discussion. If OUTDOORSY support holds up based on this last rental experience, we'll continue to be be apart of OUTDOORSY; I've been hard at work making repairs for an existing rental agreement ( No. 8) which was booked back in February. I didn't want to leave the renter high & dry two weeks prior to her trip; our Interstate should be road ready with some limitations and cosmetic damage in the mean time.

I didn't leave such great feedback for renter No. 7; I felt like I owe it to the OUTDOORSY community who might get a rental request. All six prior renter's feedback ratings have been five stars on both ends.

Sorry for the long introduction; I'll look forward to sharing the good and bad, as well as receiving any helpful suggestions from other owners who have already dealt with a mishap renter....