In June of 2018, we embarked on a yearlong RV trip around the country. (It ended up only being 10 months, but that’s a story for a different post!) When we came back we had to pay for storage for our RV and start saving again since our travel fund was obviously depleted. RV Rental seemed to be the way to go. Renting out your RV can be a great option for you, too! Here’s how we did it.
Sadly, we realized that the RV that had brought us so much joy for our time on the road was now going to cost us money every month as it sat there largely unused. We had no imminent travel plans and the motorhome was starting to feel like a money pit.
So, we decided to rent out our RV on Outdoorsy, in the hopes that it would pay for itself. My husband did tons of research and then we just dove in. With some trial and error, we now regularly rent out the RV and have had fantastic experiences. Best of all, our little motorhome is now pretty much completely self-sustaining! We even make a little extra to put into our travel fund.
In this post I’ll share tips on renting out your RV, marketing it in an appealing way and also protecting your investment while making sure your renters have an awesome time.
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Which RV rental company should I use?
I really do not recommend that you try renting out your RV on your own. The number one reason is for insurance. Big companies like Outdoorsy and RV Share can cover much more insurance than most people can on their own. Also, going through a rental company means you can post your rig on their platform, which already has tons of advertising and name recognition.
Through our research we chose Outdoorsy because we felt that their platform was more user friendly and we thought their insurance plan was better. I do not have any experience with other companies or have any negative opinions of them, we just chose Outdoorsy and are so happy with the service, we’ve never looked back.
**Full Disclosure: I am an Outdoorsy affiliate. Which means that if you click on a link a make a purchase I will get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Everything in this post is my personal opinion and we used Outdoorsy for over a year before joining their affiliate program.
So let’s look at the main points to consider for renting out your RV.
What to Consider When Renting out Your RV
1. Pricing:
Once you put in the make, model, year and size of your RV, Outdoorsy will give you a suggested price range. We went with that range, but also looked at what RVs like ours were renting for in our area. Living in coastal Southern California , we realized that rental prices are different depending on what part of the country you’re in. We also decided to lower the price for weekly and monthly rental – that way we attract long-term renters.
2. Extras:
This is a REALLY important section, in my opinion. Our RV rents with everything included. When you go to rent an RV on Outdoorsy, you’ll see that there are renters who charge extra for every single thing: linens, towels, silverware, pots and pans, toilet paper, etc. I personally feel that this is bad business.
As a renter, I would hate realizing that what I thought was an initially good price is going to go up quite a bit if I want to have any amenities within the RV. It’s a ‘bait and switch’ to advertise a low price and then tack on all kinds of extras. One of the reasons to rent someone’s personal RV is that it’s stocked with stuff and it’s more “homey”, so getting nickel and dimed for every little extra is irritating at best, but also most likely a turn–off for potential renters.
Here’s a partial list of what we include, at no additional cost, in our RV:
- Sheets/pillows
- Towels
- Utensils
- Cookware
- Coffeepot
- Flashlights
- Grill
- Area rugs
- Outside floor mat
- Pool/beach toys
- Board games
- TV/DVD
- Toaster
- Lawn chairs
- Storage bins
Like I said, that’s only a partial list, but obviously anyone who rents our rig won’t have to bring much with them besides their clothing and personal effects. We want to make it as easy on them as possible. And this is something that our reviewers have mentioned as a positive, so I highly recommend it.
If your rig is not fully stocked or you’re new to this, I have a post on Creating Your Perfect RV Kitchen that gives tips on how to set up, needed items and storage.
In case you’re wondering, the only thing we bought extra sets of, instead of using our own that we travel with, are the sheets, pillows and towels. Everything else we use as well, so we didn’t have to invest much money when we started renting.
3. Marketing:
People who are looking to rent an RV have hundreds of photos and rigs to sort through. Your first task is to take a fantastic photo of your vehicle! Park it somewhere nice, choose a great time of day (we have a sunset in the background), make sure it is washed and sparkling, and use all the filters to get a great shot! Then take indoor shots and in-use shots that highlight the features and amenities of your rental. We feature things like the TV, the bed already made up with pretty linens and all our extra storage features. My husband is a magician with storage and outfitted our rig with these awesome RV storage hacks.
Next, write a description that will catch people’s eye. In our description we talk about how it is fully stocked – no need to purchase any camping equipment. We also explain that our family travels often in this rig, so it has all the features necessary for a family vacation, it is clean and always in great service.
4. Renting it out:
So someone has rented your rig for the first time… now what? Rental companies like Outdoorsy give you a rental agreement and checklist to go over with your renters. We created a more in-depth checklist to make sure the renters really know what they’re doing. It’s not easy to jump into an RV the first time and head out. We tell our renters to expect their pick-up to take about an hour so that we can thoroughly prep them.
We want to make sure the renters know how everything works. Some features you need to show would be slide-outs, the generator, how to hook up and unhook, etc. This is hard to grasp and remember all at once so we created an RV Rental Handbook.
This is a binder where we typed out in detail how to use every single thing in the RV. Mainly because by the time the renters arrive at their destination, after a long day of driving an RV for the first time, they might not remember everything you told them!
We also make ourselves available at any time to the renters by text. This is a personal choice, and maybe you don’t want to be quite so available, but we do it because we’d much rather have them ask us about something than make a decision that ends up having negative results.
A Few RV Renting Tips:
- No festivals! Here in SoCal we have plenty of renters looking to go to Burning Man – apparently it is impossible to ever get the dust out of your rig again after event that so we block out those dates entirely (people have lied about where they’re going to try to go to Burning Man).
- Who are the ideal renters? This will be different for everyone. We try to market to families to avoid things like partiers or festival goers. Yes we are generalizing, but this is an expensive investment and we just can’t take the chance. The way we wrote our blurb suggests that it’s outfitted with families in mind. This way the main people who respond to our ads are families or couples.
- Car seat safety: this is kind of a big deal. A lot of people don’t realize that many motorhomes are not built according to federal regulations for seat belts and, therefore, car seats. The best article I could find on this is here. We usually let our renters know this ahead of time in case they have very small children who still need car seats. Yes, this has caused some renters to change their minds, but we have to value safety over profit.
- Rules for Renting: All of these are personal choices, but since we also use our RV often, we want it kept up to our standards. These are the rules we have in place:
- No pets (it’s just easier for us in terms of clean up or possible renters with allergies.)
- Smoking is absolutely prohibited (with a hefty fee for violation)
- No climbing on the roof (self-explanatory)
- I already covered the No Festivals rule
- No trips outside the U.S. (we live right near the border with Mexico, but Outdoorsy insurance doesn’t cover it)
And lastly,
- Stick to your contract: We make sure we reiterate during pick up that the price, including mileage, is non-negotiable. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than having someone turn in the RV after a great vacation and then ask you to “cut them a deal” and lower the mileage so they don’t have to pay as much. We ask them to figure out their trip mileage ahead of time so that there are no surprises because we won’t be changing the price. In case you’re wondering, there is a nightly fee that includes 100 miles a day (you can set the mileage to whatever you want). Anything over that 100 miles a day is a per mile price that you also get to set.
Phew! This is lengthy and I still feel like there’s more I could cover. Things like cleaning fees, deposits, etc. But this is a good start for renting out your RV, and Outdoorsy has lots of articles on their site that help with all of this.
Here are some links if you’re interested:
Please feel free to ask questions in the comments or let me know any good tips you have for RV rental!
