However, taking those beloved wheels abroad would require a land to Africa, a ferry, and multiple logistical nightmares. But many other people in the world have vans. . . what if you could borrow the van from a like-minded soul?, for example in Australia, and offer them yours in South Africa?
So thought Carlos Martinez, founder of Swap My Van.
An online network of global travelers owned by an RV, RV, RV, van, or any recreational vehicle. The goal of the platform is to get in touch with other truck owners around the world and exchange vehicles temporarily.
If you are registered on the site, you can tap on the owner of the van and set up an exchange. In return, you allow others to use your vehicle.
We asked Carlos to give us a review of Swap My Van.
How did this come about?
In March 2022, my friend and I bought very reasonable tickets to travel to San Francisco in June. We were very excited, but when we started with the costs of RVs or even car rentals, we found that the costs had skyrocketed after Covid.
We found out we couldn’t afford the holidays and started thinking about wasting plane tickets and taking a holiday van to Spain or Portugal with our vehicle. Then it occurred to me that maybe someone would like to lend us their van in California and come to Spain and use ours in return.
So I Googled “change my van” and so on, but I couldn’t find an online page for that, and no one seemed to have done it on any of the Facebook forums. . . so I posted an addition on Reddit, and we discovered someone who lent us their van!Traveling to California was great, we had local tips, made a new friend, and overall saved a lot of money!
I immediately thought I needed to create an online page where this kind of transience exchange could be organized with wonderful ease, and I spent some of my free time over the next few months creating it, and two weeks ago I was in a position to be posted online.
How does it work?
It is a very, perfectly functional site. You can search for other users who need to change their motorhome or motorhome by continent, country, date range, or just browse our map and get inspired. All you have to do is sign up for your vehicle, upload photos, and use the internal chat to send messages to the users you need to work with.
If you get positive responses, you can exchange numbers and move on. For example, if you know you have a vacation next February, you can look for a user to go to the industry on that date anywhere in the world, or if you need to move to Europe, you put that in the clear out and all European users are displayed. We have looked for clear outs for other desires such as: does the vehicle have a bathroom inside, a kitchen, can I stand inside?Etc.
What did you do with Swap My Van?
The San Francisco vacation was our first van exchange experience via Reddit. We have just published our page online and have already received offers to exchange our van with users from New Zealand, Canada, the United States and South Africa. Now those are all very exciting destinations, we haven’t yet made a decision on where and when to pass next!But we just came back from a month-long trip to California, so we’re having to settle down for a few months before we can go back.
What is your dream for the platform?
Our purpose is a loose platform with thousands of users around the world.
In this sense, we are very excited about the long term in the short, medium and long term. Two weeks after the launch, we have already managed to have a presence in 19 countries in America, Europe, Africa and Oceania. The plan is to succeed in a sufficient number of users, so that the next time we have a month of vacation we can simply navigate the map and locate a van interchange, no matter where we have to go. (I can admit that South Africa is starting to look more and more popular. )
I see a great prospect for our site, especially since, unlike other sharing economy platforms found online, our goal is to make it free, or at least very cheap. (There are maintenance fees that I’m paying right now out of my own pocket) and user-centric.
In short, I in what I do, and the purpose is to create a global network of van-people, not to buy me a yacht.
To see what it’s all about, Swap My Van.
Photos: Carlos Martínez
Also read: Life on the road in SA’s only known Mk1 Transit RV