When Tim Frye retired from his job as a project manager in 2017, he envisioned traveling the U.S. in an RV with his fiancée. But not long after spending about a quarter of a million dollars on a luxurious, 39-foot 2014 Forest River Berkshire motorhome, his fiancée left him and he was left with a very expensive vehicle in his yard.
“I could sell it, but I’d lose a ton of money because I had just bought it and wouldn’t be able to get the full value back,” Frye said. “Or I could rent it out.”
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Frye, who lives in Flower Mound, Texas, opted for the latter, posting his motorhome on online RV rental marketplace Outdoorsy, which is essentially Airbnb for motorhomes and campervans. Owners coordinate with renters on a meetup spot and handle the vehicle maintenance and cleaning. Outdoorsy handles the booking requests, transactions and RV insurance.
In his first two years renting his RV on the site, business already was good for Frye. But everything changed when coronavirus hit. And for Frye’s RV business, things changed for the better.