Motorhome hire with Goboony + £20 off your first holiday

It’s been two weeks now since we got the new puppy and honestly time has warped into this sort of new baby speed, where individual days seem to take weeks to pass but you’re not sure what day it is or when you last ate. What I do know is that it’s three weeks now since we went away for the weekend in a motorhome from Goboony and it’s about time I told you about it.

Our motorhome weekend was designed to be a last hoorah before the puppy arrived, a final slurp at the cup of freedom, before we realised exactly what we’d done to our lives i.e. changed them completely forever.

It was brilliant, as we expected it to be, because we love motorhome holidays – they make me want to sell the house and train the cats to sleep in bunk beds and take to the road. We’ve done two motorhome holidays before, both longer trips and both with loans from Bailey. For the first one we went around the UK ticking off all the counties I’ve never visited before and the second was a tour of Ireland. (Some parts more interesting than others.)

This was only a short break – three nights – but it still felt like an adventure. I was nervous beforehand as the motorhome we’d chosen was seven metres long, but I also knew that once I got behind the wheel I’d feel like a badass bitch and want to become a truck driver. Honestly, driving anything sizable makes me feel so powerful. I especially love it when you get surprised looks from men. ‘A woman? Driving something larger than a Fiat Punto? Whatever is the world coming to?’

Goboony motorhome hire

What is Goboony?

Good question. Goboony is basically AirBnB for motorhomes. Individual motorhome owners list their vehicles on the Goboony site and you have a browse, filtering by things like size, price and location, until you find the motorhome that’s right for you. If it’s available, you request a booking, you get to chat directly to the owner through the Goboony website and bish bash bosh, you’re off on your motorhome adventure.

Goboony motorhome hire

All of the payments are done through Goboony, and they hold the deposit, so you never hand over cash or give the van owner your credit card details or anything like that.

Picking up our Goboony motorhome

After some browsing, (minimal to be honest because I like to make decisions quickly and based on instinct…), we plumped for this motorhome in Bournemouth. As you can see from the first picture, it’s not small, but then I wanted to feel like a badass remember? I also liked how spacious and comfortable it looked. On our other motorhome trips we’ve had to convert the beds every night but in this one there is a double bed over the cabin and fixed, full size bunks at the end, so the beds can stay made up the whole time, no faffing required.

The seats around the table were also very comfy. Sometimes these can be a bit shallow, or have cushions that slip off, but Nic, the van’s owner, had actually added his own velcro to keep them in place.

Motorhome rental

Motorhome hire cheap

This sort of attention to detail is what made our weekend so wonderful. Nic and his family clearly love their motorhome, and spent five months travelling around Europe in it, so they know it inside out. They know exactly what you need for a comfortable stay, and there was absolutely nothing that we could have added or changed.

Nic was incredibly helpful throughout the motorhome hire process, sending loads of information in advance including videos showing how individual features work within the van. When we collected the van he again took loads of time to show us around in detail, and was available while we were away for any emergencies.

Because Goboony motorhomes are all individually owned, many of them have features that you might not expect if you went to a hire company. For example, Nic’s motorhome has a built in awning, which was lovely on the sunny evenings to give us some shade.

Motorhome hire

The weekend we went away was one of the hottest we’ve had so far this year, and I was worried that the motorhome might get too hot or stuffy, but this wasn’t the case at all. It stayed cool enough the whole time, air conditioning in the cab was brilliant when we were driving, and the van itself even had an air conditioning unit, which isn’t common in hired motorhomes.

We didn’t actually find we needed the air conditioning – the van stayed cool enough with the windows open, and I loved sleeping on the double bunk with the window right next to me head. On the first night we stayed at Ocknell Campsite in the New Forest and woke up to wild ponies outside the van.

Hire a motorhome

Motorhome hire Goboony

Ocknell campsite didn’t have electric hookup, but we managed fine without it. Nic’s motorhome has solar panels on the roof, so you can still use the internal lights and do things like charge phones, plus it has a gas cooker and hob, so even without electricity you can still make yourself a cup of tea and heat up some beans.

Have you even really BEEN camping if you don’t eat beans for at least one meal? (Top beans tip – add lots of real butter and curry powder.)

Best camping beans

Driving the motorhome

Apart from one very small detour because we couldn’t turn right into a road marked as only 6ft wide, we didn’t encounter any problems at all driving our motorhome. We sped (safely) along motorways, navigated narrow country lanes and generally felt like queens of the road the whole time.

If you’re planning a long motorhome trip, have never driven one before, and are especially nervous, then you could look at doing some training – places like the Caravan Club do one day motorhome driver training courses all across the UK. Honestly though, it’s not scary at all. You have huge mirrors, you can always ask for help, and the way I see it it’s in everyone else’s best interests to give you plenty of space!

We did lots of touristy things on our weekend, like taking the steam train from Swanage to Corfe Castle and looking at the model village, (classic British holiday), and we had no trouble parking – if we weren’t sure we just Googled car park information beforehand to see which ones had parking available for vans.

In the first week of having the puppy we thought about our motorhome trip a lot, mainly in sentences like ‘what did we do to our lives?? I want to be back in the motorhome!!’ but the good news is that Goboony has a dog friendly motorhome section, so as soon as puppy is ready to go out on the road we can be right back out there having another adventure.

Get £20 off your first motorhome hire with Goboony here.

Motorhome hirehire a campervan

Steam train ride

Disclosure: We were loaned the motorhome by Goboony for the purposes of this review. We paid for everything else, including fuel, campsite fees and all other costs. If you book through Goboony using my links I will get a small commission. 

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1 Comment

  1. 14 August, 2021 / 5:21 pm

    This looks amazing!

    Danielle | thereluctantblogger.co.uk

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