Parents from Croydon, south London, have built a lucrative £30,000-a-year side hustle designing and renting out motorhomes.
Anna, a travel agent, and Sergio, a mechanic, bought a used motorhome in 2020 to convert and take their one-year-old son on UK adventures while foreign travel was restricted.
When family and friends saw their many trips, requests to borrow the van poured in. Realising its potential as a “side hustle,” the couple listed the motorhome on Camplify in September 2021.
The couple rented the van to nearly 20 families and couples in the first year. This success led them to purchase two more motorhomes, which they renovated and listed on the Camplify platform to expand their rapidly growing business.
Anna said: “We had a one-year-old boy in 2020, who was very active and had a constant need for attention. I was going mad and my husband was still working full-time. We wanted to go on a wild adventure, so we decided to buy a motorhome.
“We bought it from a family who used it for trips around the UK when their children were growing up, but they didn’t have much need for it any longer.
“My husband put the work in to sort out the mechanics in the campervan while I did the interior – it takes around two to four months to transform the motorhome. However, once we started using it, suddenly our friends were asking if they could borrow it for their own trips and we quickly realised there was an opportunity to rent it out.”
The results of this have landed the pair with a Peugeot La Van, Flash, and Renault Master.
Anna said: “We make around £8,000 to £10,000 per year from each of our three vans.
“It takes a lot of time and effort to manage it and it’s been a lot of work to get to where we are now, but I used to work in the hotel business and this provides me with a platform to recreate that, I absolutely love it. It’s like a mini-hotel on wheels and we’re always on-hand, 24/7 when the motorhomes are rented out, to sort out any issues.”
The couple still use their motorhomes personally to travel around the UK with their now five-year-old son.
Anna said: “I love the easiness of travel and prices for families can be so dramatic during school holidays, so it’s a cheaper way to move around and see some of the most beautiful places in the country.
“It makes a lot of sense for parents like us, as it allows us to take our son out into the wilderness during every school holiday and experience beautiful places like Cornwall, Devon, the New Forest or Poole, and you can even travel further afield to the Lake District or Scotland! It’s amazing for him too, really.”
Flavia Robles Lorente, performance manager at Camplify, commented: “Anna and Sergio have built a fantastic business, born out of what was a side hustle, that has gone from strength to strength in a very short space of time.
“It’s brilliant to see them inject their passion into their builds – all three of their converted motorhomes offer a simplistic luxury that lots of holidaymakers love.”
