Usually the presence of “camper van” and “blowout” in the same sentence would be the source of headache and/or alarm, but when you stick them in the right order, good things can happen. That’s the case today, as national rental chain Escape Camper Vans is shutting down and letting go of its rental fleet in an Ebay inventory blowout, presenting a rather appealing opportunity for those who might want to get into the hash-tag-van-life (Who let 2010 in here?) at a discount.
“After nearly two decades of helping travelers explore the open road, we share this message with heavy hearts: we’ve made the difficult decision to officially close our doors,” the company posted to its web site.
“We’ve worked tirelessly to continue our mission in the face of an increasingly challenging economic environment, declines in international travel, inflationary pressures, and shifts in the consumer market,” the company said. “Ultimately, the time has come for this special, extraordinary chapter to close. But we’re excited to announce the good news for you: We have camper vans for sale!”
Indeed. Pages and pages of them, in fact, currently listed on Bidadoo (essentially an Ebay landing page). And on top of that, they’ve got a bunch of spare roof tents too. Feelin’ lucky?
The company’s web site lists five models still available for rent, but from reading through the FAQ and other pages, it’s evident that more were available. Bidadoo’s interface doesn’t allow you to filter them by the names Escape used for the various configurations, but you can at least sort them by the underlying chassis.
If you’re like me, you’re probably skeptical (at minimum) of the prospect of buying a used camper to begin with—let alone one that was available for hire for the bulk (or all) of its life. After all, if the fastest car in the world is a rental, surely the most capable expedition vehicles are too?
Out of curiosity, I decided to see what was/wasn’t permitted under Escape’s terms of use, and while there are a fair number of warnings about where you are/aren’t allowed to drive. I was expecting references to the Rubicon Trail or Colorado’s Black Bear Pass; turns out the company had more issues with people wrecking their interiors at Burning Man. Hey, uncertainty is part of adventure, right?
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Byron is an editor at The Drive with a keen eye for infrastructure, sales and regulatory stories.