I have just returned from a holiday in California, touring Big Sur for 10 days in a van, rented from an airport renter from Los Angeles. We kitted out the Chevvy Express van with things we bought from WalMart. You can pre-order so everything is ready for you when you arrive.
Twin mattresses, water tanks, BBQ, cooker top, shower bags, etc. It was a temporary home for us for 10 days.
I post this as it was a much cheaper trip than renting an RV, and a smaller vehicle that made the driving safer than having a wider truck. California 1 - the road - is twisty and I think highly dangerous in places.
We toured some amazing 'forestry' roads - unmade roads - up through the Ventana mountain range. We camped in some incredible legal camp grounds alongside the ocean and along some of the forestry roads that blew us away. We camped some nights in the van, and others in the pop-up tent that we took out.
If anyone would like to know more about how we did this and the route we took, please email me at: david.longman@killingcancer.co.uk
It was a much cheaper holiday than we could have afforded with hotels.
I would like to mention one thing. We have come back with Legionnaires disease, caused we suspect from the air conditioning in the van. Research since returning home suggests that a very high percentage of US hire vehicles carry nasty bugs in the air con.
The message is to take your own antibiotics on any road trip like this, and don't switch on the aircon! Your own research will tell you that if you 'smell' something odd with the aircon, what you can smell is the bugs.
Perhaps there is something we / you can spray on the air intakes to kill the bugs?
We are off for two months in Oahu on the same van rental basis in February. We couldn't afford the trip any other way.
Sounds like some trip! What did you do with all the stuff you'd bought once your trip was finished?
Gave it to the Salvation Army (mattresses, extra coke and sprite, sleeping bag, pillows), and to homeless people on the beact at Venice (cool box, water containers, another pillow and last supply of drink). We only kept the Coleman twin hob that goes into Matilda now.
For Oahu, we will upscale a bit. You learn lessons from the short trip of the need for more stacking units, rigid water containers, a quilt and not a sleeping bag, and the need for plenty of S hooks to hang things up.
Most of all this we knew from our 'rough camping' experiences in the Transit.
On the trip out we took our Pop-Up tent and used that as an extra suitcase for towels and clothes.
David Longman
When you take the cost of everything from A to B I don't see getting much change from £4000...?
Doing out the van is around £300 with the bare essentials that we wanted. The van rental cost depends on who you go with - we are doing two months in Oahu for £1,500. For California we used Airport Vehicle Rentals. If you book with a company not based in the immediate airport catchment area you save on an extra airport tax. Flights - obviously a lot less to LA than Oahu. California was about £2k.
David Longman
Hi David
Was it just a ordinary panel van you hired?
It was a Chevvy Express. 2.5 litre from Airport Van Rentals. I have pictures and a full 'story' plus a route plan, and all the email addresses, websites, you will need to make it work out well.
We took our pop-up tent, and 'used' it as a 2nd suitcase to carry things.
We set up a WalMart account to get everything delivered to the store we wanted, so it was 'arrive' and go. There was no major fit out required. I did have to cut one mattress down a bit, but I had planned for that by taking out a Stanley knife.
We took a small frying pan, small saucepan, rubber straps, S hooks to hang things inside ...
If you want to do this and are serious about it, give me a call or send me an email: david.longman@killingcancer.co.uk. Mobile: 0779 88 33 003
Avoid the heat of summer when there are more people around. May or September / October would be best.
Give me a call.
David Longman