For the 2022 edition of the OC’s Wealthiest special report, the Business Journal profiled altCamp, a then-new luxury camper van rental firm whose pitch — bringing five-star luxury to the camping experience, at a price starting around $400 a night, plus gas — was finding heavy interest among those seeking post-pandemic ‘revenge travel.’
The Costa Mesa-based firm, whose souped-up Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans are fitted with amenities including off-grid power systems, fully equipped kitchens with Williams Sonoma accessories, Wi-Fi and heated showers, quickly built a customer base ranging from Silicon Valley fintech billionaires to professional surfers like Filipe Toledo, who is now a brand ambassador.
Company founder Adam Bosch has described the company’s for-rent RVs as “a Four Seasons on wheels.”
Airbnbs for RVs
Now in its fifth year of operation, Bosch has expansion plans underway for the company.
The firm recently expanded its inventory to include over 1,000 third-party camper vans through a partnership with Outdoorsy. The deal makes “us the largest camper-van-only rental platform in the U.S.,” Bosch said.
In addition, a new business line, BookRVs.com, aims to become the AirBnB of RV rentals, with offerings for rent from owners across the country at different price points, and a variety of vehicle sizes and options.
It’s “similar to altCamp, but focused entirely on marketing third-party travel trailer rentals,” he said.
One big upside of the website says Bosch: renting out other people’s RVs means no wear and tear on his own vehicles.
AltCamp’s strategy: rent out newly-built vehicles for a few years, and then sell them while their mileage is still low, with money going into new builds. A pair of the company’s initial RVs are currently on the market for sale, with prices running $175,000 and $205,000.
Joshua Tree Tryout
With this week’s OC’s Wealthiest edition in mind, my family recently gave one of altCamp’s vans a try, during a long weekend at Joshua Tree.
The verdict: while we’re not on the wealthiest list, the vans made us feel like we were. We won’t be going back to using a traditional tent any time soon when camping.
We picked up our van in Westminster, at the headquarters of Vanspeed, which customizes Sprinter vans for altCamp, as well as other businesses and individual customers.
Founder and CEO Duran Morley showed how in a matter of weeks, a van can be converted head-to-toe into a custom build at his company’s 30,000-square-foot facility, with work to ceilings, walls, flooring, upholstery and more.
Build-outs for Vanspeed vans typically start around $150,000 or so. Vans for altCamp cost more to build out, in excess of $200,000.
After that, we got a rundown of the features for our van, dubbed The Loft, from Bosch.
The vehicle’s interior features were largely self-explanatory, while a roof-top tent, the solar-powered outdoor shower and awning on one side of the vehicle took only a minute or two to figure out.
The pre-road trip tutorial proved important.
The van is a head-turner and conversation starter.
We got comments and questions about the vehicle from people at multiple stops in and out of Joshua Tree. Most people at the park were surprised at the rental cost – they expected it to be more per night. I paid less than $400.
The van’s performance made it feel more like a large SUV than an RV; parking and driving the vehicle in SoCal traffic wasn’t hard.
The interior was strategic in design, fitting in many more amenities than one would expect, and leaving plenty of room for storage. The indoor bed was comfortable and roomy.
Our biggest surprise: the spacious kitchen, which included plenty of stored water to last for a long weekend, a stove that heated quickly and a good-sized fridge.
We stayed at the 30-spot Ryan Campground at Joshua Tree for a few nights. Each morning, a woman also staying in the campground did a walk through the area, and each morning she walked up and said “that’s the best camper here.”
