We were beyond excited to start our trip from Etobicoke to Tobermory (& Manitoulin Island!) in the fully off-grid converted Westie, as we had booked another Westfalia back in October with someone else to do an East-Coast Trip.Compared to our other rental in October that was very simple, this Westfalia definitely had some upgrades, such as super-bright LED lights, a microwave, water kettle, heater, etc. If you like extra features, this would be the van for you. The solar panels on the top of the van always made sure we could charge our phones, turn on the inside LED lights and use gadgets even when the van was turned off.It's super easy to convert the van from moving, to setting up camp (it literally just took us 5 minutes to set up our bed and everything else, and convert back!), to getting up and going back on the road the next day! Before we started our journey, Mike even gave us some water and his own homemade wine to get our trip off to a great start.Unfortunately, we found out a day into our journey that the water and propane grill did not work, and Hampus, Natalya & Mike did the best they could (even face-timed us from Sweden!) to help us resolve the problems. We could not get those two things to work even until the end of our trip, but with the microwave and water kettle, it was not a big deal in the end. Upon return of the van, Mike got right to fixing those things for the next renters.Unfortunately, on Day 3 we had a problem with the ignition lock, and the van would not start up anymore with the key. Again, Hampus and Natalya did the best they could to guide us through getting the van to start up in an alternative way, and thankfully this way worked all throughout the trip. A bit unconventional (and I was lucky to travel with two very technically skilled people), but we made it work.Altogether, I can say we had a blast driving this Westfalia - the camping experience was great (as we could camp pretty much anywhere, and get up and go within 5 minutes in the morning!) even with our technical difficulties. If you do decide to rent a vintage Westfalia however, you should be prepared and aware that issues like we had with the ignition lock can happen. We only docked one star as we wasted some of our trip time trying to fix our problems, but overall had a great trip and would 10/10 rent a Westie again.Thank you for an awesome trip despite our technical difficulties!
6 Photos submitted by Lea A.
