As summer is approaching, wouldn’t a road trip being the best holiday format to book in order to explore Europe with the right amount of flexibility and adventure? This is what I thought while booking my trip with Indie Campers earlier in the year.
From a couple of years I have known about Indiecampers, an innovative campervan rental company from Lisbon, Portugal. It has been in my bucket list until the release of a very exciting promotion-EUROSAVER. Basically paying the rent of the van with unlimited kms from only 1€ a night!
I was so excited when i booked one of the most premium of their vans, the VW Grand California, for just 5.50€ for 5 nights (this wasn’t the final price as there was the #1. Service costs and #2. I added the premium protection plan)- but still I thought I found the deal of the year.
Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way
- Only 3 days before my trip, I noticed in the check-in email that the model of the van i booked has been changed without even a notification!
- I tried to look for a phone number given the trip was so close but I was only able to find a live chat and email address;
- Wrote to both live chat and email address which ended up in a very stressful Sunday with no resolution, compensation or even justification from Indie Campers but only the addition of a bedding and chemical toilet kit;
- Just to make it more stressful, at the moment of the check in only the bedding kit was provided to us with the info that the chemical toilet is never provided for the van category we got.
So the answer to the question “is it worth the hype”is?
Ni. Apart from the terrible customer support and overall experience pre-trip, I must say the staff at both the check-in and drop-off location were super friendly, welcoming and efficient, which helped realised the build up stress from the inconvenience. On top of it, the van we ultimately got (although not the one we reserved and without a bathroom) was brand new-only 16km!-we had an explanation on how to use it as well from a staff member. So at th end of the day, for the price paid with the EUROSAVER promotion, it was still good value for money.
Overall if you are ready to have a last minute change to your trip to make it even more adventerous, it is worth a shot.
Have you ever had such a pre-road trip experience?
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