Our Horrific Experience Renting an RV

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a goal of traveling to ALL of the mainland US states by the time I turned 30. With only one more year to go, we only had about 4 states left and they were all in the center of the US. States like Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota…COVID of course got in our way, and we had to cancel our trips to Missouri in 2020. So, in 2021, a few months before my 30th birthday, we decided to fly to Colorado, rent an RV and travel to our last remaining states. It seemed like a good plan…what could go wrong?

Months before our trip, I had found out about a website that is like AirBnB’s, but for RV’s – Outdoorsy.com

*Disclaimer – This post is to not reflect bad on the company, but to share our experience with one of their hosts.

I found the perfect Sprinter Van for us that we could pick up in Denver and stick to our tight-knit budget to travel to the surrounding states in a week. We planned to fly into Denver, drive to Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and back down to Colorado so we would make a loop. Of course staying on the “inner” part of the states to make a circle and cross them off our list so we can stay within that week time frame. It seemed doable, right?!

Our flights got moved around a lot because of airlines having low staff and also the fact that a lot of people weren’t traveling, yet so flights weren’t full to fly. So they combined a lot of the flights, which we were happy about because it meant we would arrive earlier to Denver that day. I contacted the person we were renting the RV from to let him know ahead of time that we would be early, and he said that would be perfect.

We arrived to Denver as planned and took an Uber to the location where we were supposed to pick up the RV. It was maybe 20 minutes from the airport when we arrived at an apartment complex. I told the Uber drive to just drop us off at the main entrance and I contacted the guy to see where we were supposed to go from there.

Keep in mind it was all via text through the app.

No answer…

Maybe 10 minutes later, he responded saying he would be right there.

So we waited…

Another 10 minutes later, he said he wasn’t home and that he was trying to get his “roommate” to get here and give us the keys.

No one showed up…

We started to get frantic, because here we are with ALL of our luggage bags in the middle of a parking lot of an apartment complex. No shade, in the hot sun of the west. (yes, we got sunburned) People were coming up to us asking if we were OK. It was about 45 minutes later that we started to get really angry.

I kept asking him what was going on and he stopped responding.

I contacted the company after about an hour letting them know the situation. They said they were going to try and contact him for us.

Meanwhile, it gets to be an hour and a half since we got there and he finally calls. Probably because he realized the company was reaching out to him so he was seriously in the wrong. I tell him where we are and how pissed we are and he asks the question, “where are you?”

He then proceeds to tell us that it was the wrong address. That he moved a few months ago and apparently never updated the app. His new address was 40 minutes away!!!! I was in shock, I couldn’t believe it. We just wasted now about 2 hours of our trip when we should have been on the road by now all because this guy was a complete idiot.

Since we already paid for this RV, and we obviously really wanted to travel in an RV, otherwise this hassle was for nothing, we decided to take another Uber to his “new” address. He promised he’d comp us a day or two at this point, so we figured we’d give him another chance.

Shane fell asleep in the Uber, I looked out the window as we drove past the Outdoor Man looking Outdoor World building and drove closer to the beautiful snow capped Rocky Mountains. When we arrived at the new location, his parents were outside and he was nowhere to be found. We quickly realized his “roommate” he had mentioned earlier must have been his parents and they were doing his dirty work for him.

They explained how he’s at work and they were going to get us set up. I knew it wasn’t their fault, so I didn’t say a word to them about how their son has mistreated this situation. Now, keep in mind – this was our FIRST time ever driving an RV. We knew nothing about how to dump, service, etc and we were promised we’d be given a run down upon pickup.

His parents knew NOTHING about the RV, they had never driven one like this either. They showed us where all the bells and whistles were, but not how to actually use them. Like how to dump or run the generator. They did tell us to use diesel only – at least that part they were clear on. At this point, we figured we’d be better off figuring this out ourselves on our way, and we needed to get the F out of here before we got any further behind. As it was, we were 4 hours behind schedule at this point. We were supposed to be seeing the Garden of the Gods right now and on our way to Kansas.

It’s rush hour in Denver, so here we are driving this big rig for the first time, so naturally we were arguing because we were both so frustrated with how the day was going. We finally arrived at Garden of the Gods and it was magnificent. It made the day worth it just to be in this magical place.

Afterwards, we had dinner at the Airplane Restaurant, something that had been on my Pinterest bucket list since high school. And we drove until it got dark outside which is when we parked outside of a Wal-Mart for the night. We did our shopping to get supplies for the week. Mainly the essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, water, paper plates and silverware and easy foods that we could microwave like soups and oatmeal. Like I said, we were on a tight-knit budget so we didn’t want to eat out at every meal. I did weeks worth of research before this to figure out how to rough it when RV-ing. Like, where to park for free and what to do when all you have is a microwave and an outdoor shower. We slept the best we could in the parking lot that evening and woke up early the next day to drive to Paint Mines on our way to Kansas.

The Paint Mines was as if you stepped out of the van and onto Mars. I found out about this place from a Wanderful friend who posted photos of it a few months prior. It is very Instagram worthy.

Once we left there, it was time to cross the border into Kansas. We were planning to stay near the 4 corners of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa so we could cross out all 4 states and meet up with friends who lived in the area. Shortly after seeing the signs of “Welcome to Kansas” the RV started to seriously act up. I was driving, Shane was asleep, and I realized the RV was losing it’s momentum driving on the highway. We’d go up a slight incline, and the RV seemed to lose ALL power. I was starting to freak out. So I woke him up and said I need to pull over because at this point the RV wasn’t going over 30-40 MPH. We pulled over and discussed next steps. We figured we would let it rest and take off shortly after to see if it would continue acting up. We drove it for another 20 minutes or so and it started once again. We pulled over and gave the guy a call.

He was as shocked as we were. He said it was a, “Mercedes Sprinter engine, there should be nothing wrong with it.” We literally picked this thing up late yesterday and haven’t even put gas in it, so we knew it wasn’t something we did. It was just our damn luck. He guessed the people before us maybe put unleaded fuel in it rather than Diesel. Hmmm…maybe you should inform the people who rent from you rather than let them figure it out on their own. Wouldn’t you agree?

Our only option at this point was to either take it to a specific Mercedes shop in the prairies of Kansas (which could put us days behind), OR return to Colorado and get our refund and figure out the rest of our trip. We decided to turn around and drive back to Denver.

We were about 5 hours out of Denver, so to only make it so far to turn around and go right back where we came from was NOT ideal. Not to mention, the RV kept losing momentum while driving so we kept having to pull over and let it sit for a while. Even then as we drove it wouldn’t go over 45 MPH on a highway that was 80 MPH. We had to drive back with the flashers on the whole way so a 4-5 hour drive back to Denver ended up being A LOT longer.

Important to note, this is when the guy is begging us to not leave him a bad review. AFTER ALL OF THIS. We agreed to not leave him a bad review on Outdoorsy, never said anything about not posting it somewhere else. 😉

When we showed back up at his house, no one was there. Go figure. So we sat outside and waited for an Uber to take us to an Enterprise location so we could rent a car. It seemed like our best option to not make this whole trip an entire waste. So, here we are in the suburbs of god knows where, with ALL of our luggage PLUS bags of the supplies we just bought the night before, sitting at the end of someones driveway waiting for a ride.

Thankfully the guys at Enterprise really hooked us up FAST with an SUV so we could get the show on the road, have room in the vehicle for all of our stuff, and have an option to sleep in something so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel room every night. We did have to cut our trip short though, which was really sad. We had so many plans, but because we got put 2 days behind schedule, we ended up just driving up to North Dakota and back. We still got to mark a few of the states off our list like Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and North Dakota. We also took a short detour into Wyoming and stayed in a tee-pee near Devil’s Tower (more about that soon).

Needless to say, our tight-knit budget went out the window. We did stay at a few hotels, and obviously had to eat out for every meal. But, if the RV mishap was good for anything, it was the next day that Dates in the States got engaged!!!

If it wasn’t for having to return to Denver, Shane wouldn’t have popped the question at Red Rocks. So, I guess I have to thank the RV for that.

In review, I’m not saying I would never use Outdoorsy again or any other rental company. However, this was just unfortunate how our experience was renting an RV for the first time. We did get our full refund for the rental, BUT that didn’t cover the costs of what we ended up having to pay for our rental car, hotels and food. The trip ended up being an expensive one because all of our planning was irrelevant, BUT it was a trip we will never forget.