When Huntington Beach-based JoVonna Kingkade started RVing, it was for some of the same reasons that attract many to the activity — it was a solution for family-friendly travel that hotels couldn’t provide and it was a way to comfortably accommodate several children while on the road.
“We saw an RV sitting on the side of the road with a for-sale sign on it, and we stopped and looked at it,” she says. “We ended up buying the same exact model, but brand new. We started RVing with our kids, and it was great.”
“I say that the trip becomes the destination. You’re not just traveling to get somewhere; the whole journey there is part of vacation now.”
Currently, JoVonna has two RVs: a 2006 Gulfstream Sun Voyager, and a 1975 GMC that’s a favorite for vintage enthusiasts. “One renter had a friend visit from NorCal who had an obsession with vintage RVs, so she surprised her, picked her up from the airport in the GMC. They just had it for half a day, and just tooled around and got a bunch of pictures and had fun with it. She was in tears when she saw it,” JoVonna says.
What started out as a way to offset the costs of RV ownership has developed into a profitable business. In two years, JoVonna has rented her RVs around 24 times, with renters both staying local and out of state.
“I was thinking, ‘I’ll start renting the RV and it’ll offset the cost of having it,'” she says. “Then it just kind of snowballed. Now it’s keeping me busy and it’s turned into a full-time job. I didn’t expect that to happen.”
For JoVonna, Outdoorsy helps to reduce the time and effort of offering rentals. “What I like about Outdoorsy is that it takes a lot of the pain out of it for me, because of the headache of the paperwork, documents and insurance and all that that I don’t have to deal with. I can just take care of getting the vehicle ready, hand it off, take it back, and get it read for the next person.”
Additionally, Outdoorsy’s insurance coverage assists JoVonna in retaining customers. “I’ve had to turn away a lot of rentals because they are with either Geico, Progressive or Mercury, who don’t write binders for temporary RV rentals, so I’ve lost business because of that. Now if somebody contacts me, I just direct them to the Outdoorsy link for my RV and they can book it.”
Click here to see JoVonna’s profile and RVs!
