hello everyone and welcome back to the channel if you are new here I'm Charity and I'm ben and in
2018 we bought our first rv and set off to travel with our family and explore the united states
today's video is all about how to rent an rv plus some tips if you are an rv owner and you
might be considering renting out yours we've actually done it and so we're gonna share with
you later on in the video our experience let you know how it went and if we'd ever do it again
with some of the restrictions this year on travel internationally so many people have
taken to domestic travel in the united states and we kind of think there's no better way to
travel domestically than buy an rv what we love about the rv is that you have a huge windshield
at least in our class a here so you can see the beautiful united states of america from the best
view available and another thing that we love about just exploring the united states in an rv
is having our own bathroom and our own kitchen and our own bed and many others are feeling the same
and it has never been a more popular time to rent an rv in fact this summer we heard so many stories
about you couldn't rent an rv to try because they were all booked and they were basically flying off
the shelves any of the places that had rvs for rent or rv sharing which we'll get into here in
just a minute but suffice it to say there's never been a more popular time for rving than right now
so how does one go about renting an rv anyways that's a great question so there's lots of
options right now to be able to rent an rv you've got your cruise america and rv for rent
and those companies have been around for a while and that's kind of what a lot of people
think of when they think of a rental rv you know you're driving down the road and you see
one of those rvs that says rv for rent or cruise america on the side pretty obvious usually
so while those are definitely options there's also rv sharing options available these days yeah and
what rv sharing is is somebody isn't using their rv for a certain period of time they will rent out
the rv and make it available to others to come and rent their rv so websites like rvshare.com
outdoorsy.com and rvez.com are all sites to be able to rent an rv from a private owner and we'll
put a link for those sites down below now this is a great way to explore rv life because if you
notice driving down the road seeing a cruise america or rv for rent the majority of those
that you see are class crvs and there's a good reason for that and that's because people that are
just getting their feet wet kind of like driving something that feels a little bit more like a van
or a truck it's not very intimidating like driving this rig behind us can feel intimidating
so when it comes to rvs one size does not fit all and for people that are just starting out
jumping behind the wheel of a big rig might not really feel that feasible so most of the
rv rental companies that actually own a fleet of rental rvs tend to go with the class crvs
they're very easy to drive and people don't feel as intimidated to drive them but if
you want a different experience than going through an rv share service where you can
rent a travel trailer fifth wheel camper van we've talked about it would be so much fun
if we could get a weekend without the kids to rent like a small airstream and experience that and so
to be able to do something out of the ordinary or maybe you're considering buying an rv
renting one first is a great option to be able to get your feet wet and get a feel for
how does it drive how does it tow depending upon what sort of rv that you're looking at
so a few things to be aware of if you do choose to rent an rv and this is going to go pretty much
for any rv rental company out there whether you do choose a company that owns a fleet of rental rvs
or you go through a private owner for rv sharing you're going to have a security deposit so they're
going to require a deposit if anything comes back damaged there's a hole in the wall there's a
hole put in one of the upholstery cushions they want a damaged deposit to be able to cover
any damage that might occur why that the rv is out another thing to be aware of is that most of the
time there will be a mileage charge for mileage over a certain pre-allowed mileage limit so and
that can vary if you go through an rv share type of company the owner is going to set that
as far as the mileage that's allowed how many hours that you might be allowed on the generator
if it's equipped with the generator so a few things to think about when renting an rv are how
large of an rv will you need how many people are with you traveling right how many people that you
have going with you kind of dictate how large of an rv you might think you need because of sleeping
space so if you're renting a class c that has an overhead bunk or a class a with a drop down bunk
does the dinette fold into a sleeping space how many people are going to be going with you on your
trip really is going to kind of dictate how big of an rv that you might want to consider renting
another thing to think about is what kind of camping are you wanting to do if you're going to
be staying in an rv park then most any rv is going to work because you'll have access to full hookups
if you're wanting to do more kind of off grid or boondocking then you might want to think about
something like a camper van or a towable trailer with higher ground clearance where you can get it
into kind of more of those backwoods type of areas so renting an rv is another great option if you
have friends and family that may want to join you but you don't have enough room for them in your
current rv we have a pretty big extended family so there's been times where we've all met together at
a campground and we just didn't have the sleeping space now at that particular campground there was
a cabin option but a rental rv is a great option for those times where you want to maybe have
extended family join you in a camping trip and you just don't have the space so let's talk about
being an rv owner and choosing to rent your rv out on one of these sites now we have personal
experience with outdoorsy.com and we'll put a link to them below and just in full disclosure
outdoorsy is not paying us for any of this we just happen to have personal experience using
their platform in so that's what we're going to share with you is our personal experience
with using that so the rv that we rented out wasn't this one just saying we wouldn't
ever want to rent it out actually we've decided that we would not rent this one out and that is
because with it being a 40-foot diesel pusher it's pretty large and even the feedback that we
got from the renters that we had and the one we did rent which was a 32 foot was that it was kind
of longer than what they almost felt comfortable using and so with this being as long as it is
being a diesel pusher there's just kind of more things that somebody that's inexperienced wouldn't
have a positive experience with and then of course that would make not a positive experience for us
either so we've decided we're not going to rent out this current rv we have considered purchasing
a smaller class c and keeping it just strictly as a rental rv and that is something we may still do
in the future something that we continue to talk about especially is our being picks up as much
is it has bad so we rented out our very first rv was a 32 foot class a gas engine it was a
fleetwood pace arrow one of the things that we did and if you go back in this channel
to like our very first video somewhere in there what we did is we actually did a video walk
through of that rig it was geared towards our renters that we wanted them to have something
that was a reference that they could go back to of you know like ben said how to hook up but then
also you know how to put down the leveling jacks and all of those things that we felt like would be
something that they would need to know but they might not remember just in like a walk through
so that was one of the very first videos we ever put together yeah we've come a long way
since then but that's what we did to just give them that walk through experience before they
rented from us but then also to have during the rental period to be able to go back and visit
so you might be wondering did we make any money and was it worth it and that's a yes and no answer
the very first renter that we ever put out ended up needing a repair and
they were not exactly close by way out in the boonies we weren't close to any
town either so we had to pay some big bucks to send a mobile tech out to where that they were
to get that repair done and it was with the slides so it wasn't something that could wait
until that they returned it it was something you couldn't drive down the road with the slide out
repairs are on us it's something that the insurance doesn't cover of course so right
it's your rv same as if you have a rental house and the air conditioner or something goes out then
you as the landlord are stuck fixing that so that first renter was a break-even proposition
now the next two rentals that we had worked out great so they were very responsible people
and that's one thing i should probably mention about outdoorsy is that you have the option as
the rv owner to say yes or to say no when you have a rental inquiry right so i personally like to do
facebook talking so there was a couple of times that people inquired and i kind of looked up their
facebook profile and they're like we're going to burning man just didn't really quite think that
that would be a wise decision on our end to let our investment of our rv go down the road with
somebody that i just wasn't convinced was going to take care of it the best so anyway the next
two that we had were very very great renters they took great care of it and we did make some money
on that so that basically helped us kind of offset our storage costs for the year yeah and we weren't
using the rv for a couple months so it worked out great it did work out great now i will tell you my
heart was in my throat the very first time that that very first renter ever drove off with my rv
yeah i remember your texting everything okay it's my second home and it's like watching it
go down the road kind of felt a little bit like sending a kid off to college but um once that we
kind of got used to that situation we realized this was going to make us a little bit of money
it worked out great and we probably would have continued doing that
had we decided that we weren't gonna upgrade but we did upgrade so we put that rv on the market
and then sold it and then purchased what we have now so overall it was a good experience
if we were going to ever purchase that class c that we talked about maybe renting out we would
probably use outdoorsy again rent out like a dedicated rv like this one now feels like our
baby like we love it it's perfect for us so now we don't want to let other people use it it's
our second home plus we do plan on doing some rv reno this winter and so you can't really you know
rent out an rv in the middle of a renovation and so make sure you are subscribed and stay tuned
because we've got some fun rv renault stuff that's going to be coming up later this season so make
sure that you're subscribed for that so leave us a comment below let us know if you've ever rented if
you're considering renting or what your experience has been with rv rentals in general we would
love to hear your feedback or if you have any questions that we can answer for you or maybe even
questions you'd like to see us do a video on in the future leave them in the comments below we
read each and every one and we really really value your feedback so until next time we'll
wow that makes me scared that um