How one solo NZ road trip turned into a full-time van adventure business.

This International Women’s Day at Camplify, we’re all about shining the light on how van life has empowered women within our community. We were so excited to chat to one of our wonderful van owners, Julia from Open Road Campervans, about her journey with solo travelling, how hiring out her vans on Camplify grew into a full-time business, and her experiences with the stereotypes of being a young woman working with vans.

How has hiring your vans out through Camplify impacted your life?

It started out as a little side hustle. And now it’s grown into a full time business. Hiring out our vans is mine and my partner’s full time job now, so I’d say it’s impacted us in quite a big way. It allows us to be our own boss. People love the vans, and we keep growing. We can’t keep up with demand! It’s been an amazing journey to get to the point where we are now. We started with one van, and now we have six, and we have a few more on order.

Have you personally done any solo travel before, and if so, where have you travelled to?

I was always quite adventurous and had done plenty of solo travel before. For me, the whole van-life journey started in New Zealand. I was traveling around solo in a van for a few months. I'm from Germany and my husband was from New Zealand, so we met over in New Zealand. I kind of introduced him to the van life community and everything kind of went from there.

So, you were essentially the spark for the business that you run now?

Yes. I had to convince my husband a little bit, because he was very much an ‘AirBnB kind of person’. I said we should give van life a try, and so we did our first trip together.

And then he realised it was a pretty awesome way to travel.

Do you feel like you fit the mould of a ‘typical’ van-lifer? Are people ever surprised to see you stepping out of your van?

Definitely. When we were first building the vans initially, Sam was still working full time in a different job, and I did all the van buildings. So I’m the one who knows everything about the plumbing, electricity, and everything else. And it’s funny, because every time someone wants to talk to us at a campsite about a van, they go straight to talk to my husband first. He has to say “Oh, you have to talk to my wife.”

People are always very surprised to find out that I'm the one that's more involved, and has more knowledge. I guess they just don't expect to see a little young blonde woman do this kind of thing. I'm also in touch with the other couples that have the same experience, where everyone always wants to talk to the male partner, not realising that females can do more than just painting.

What advice would you give to women who are hesitant to buy their own van, or who are hesitant to simply travel on their own?

When it comes to van life, you are never really alone. Obviously you can choose to be more alone if you want to, and stay at very deserted campgrounds, for example. But if you feel a little bit unsure about traveling by yourself, you can always start out by going to busier or more well-known caravan parks, where you can always meet other travellers along the way as well.

Many people probably think of van life as a very solitary lifestyle, but it's absolutely not if you don't want it to be. Especially when travelling around Australia. It’s such a safe country, and you don't really have to be that worried about someone breaking into your van, for example. As a single traveller, it's a good place to give van life a try.

There’s a lot of empowerment that comes along with van life too. Initially, when I started like solo traveling, obviously I was thinking to myself ‘how will this go? I’m all by myself.” Once you actually realise you can do it by yourself and you don't need anyone else, it’s just amazing.

Plus, you also don't have to make plans with anyone else! You can just follow your own rhythm and whatever you want to do every day.