Fife couple Danni and Richard Strang stumbled into the campervan life by chance and now run a company offering fully-kitted out vehicles for the price of a cup of coffee.
The pair booked out a mobile home in 2023 to travel round Scotland and instantly fell in love with the lifestyle.
With their company Outdoor Lifestyle Competitions, the Strangs offer “raffle” tickets for £4.97 each.
Contestants can buy up to 500 at a time, and win one of their fully-kitted campervans which has been painstakingly built by the pair, from scratch.
Travelling around Scotland and Europe in a converted van is a growing trend in the holiday industry, they point out, with a rising number of people sharing their journeys on social media.
Outdoor Lifestyle Competitions
In June, Danni and Richard put their first van up for auction, selling around 2,000 tickets.
It was won by a man in Kelty, and the next round has already seen the number of briefs double to 4,000 before the draw takes place in September.
“As a business model it is somewhat of a slow-burner, it will take a few competitions to build a bigger following and have the community behind us that builds repeat custom,” Richard said.
“But we should be close to selling around 4,000 tickets for the next competition, around 60-65% of what is available.
“And our social media channels are growing too and we have people from all over the UK who like and follow our Facebook page.
“Tickets are a flat rate, £4.97 a piece with a maximum allowance per person of 500 tickets which you can buy at once.
“There are other competition websites out there, most of them are offering smaller things like Ninja airfryers, or cash and things like that.
“We went down the more niche route, and there is a growing community of campervan lovers who are getting involved with what we do.”
Campervans built ‘from scratch’
The couple overhaul the vans from scratch, installing beds and other camping equipment.
Danni said: “I think people involved love exploring and adventuring. It can be expensive to get in to.
“We try and keep to a budget of about £5,000 per van, which usually gives us a vehicle that is around 10 years old. There are specific vans we look for which work best for our conversions. They need to be big enough.
“Everything is pulled-out and rebuilt from scratch.
“The only thing we won’t do is the major mechanical works, we use a local garage who does all our MOTs.
“We have gone down all of the legal routes, to make sure our company is completely legitimate and we are allowed to advertise as a trust-worthy firm.
Campervan lifestyle
The pair are keen to grow the business, and already run a landscaping company and hanging basket firm each.
Danni added: “We didn’t even know we were into the lifestyle, we were supposed to get married and go on honeymoon but that was cancelled by the pandemic.
“So we hired a motor home and toured the west coast, and a year after we hired a campervan and really enjoyed it.
“It would never have been something we would have considered, and now we love it. We go when we can, and even work from it when we can.”
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