Lukasz and Magda
Welcome to the ScotCampers fortnightly blog.
Well, that’s my first hire out and returned – Lukasz and Magda all the way from Poland. Cracking young couple up for adventures and was great fun helping them with recommendations on hillwalks, places to visit and of course the old Clachaig Inn on a Saturday night one! I even managed to try and steer them off Skye! I didn’t succeed but was intrigued on their return that they rushed to get off the island. Looks like they had a fab time exploring – they closed up around 1200 miles and certainly on clean up, there was a bunch of sand! I helped a bit with the route but they had some solid plans around Durness, Torridon, Skye and my favourite, Glencoe. The one thing they asked me however was a decent place to eat locally to my store in Kinross. One for the to do list around market research.
Ahead of the hire came the first proper prep… This included all the mechanical stuff – tyre pressures, fluid levels and so on as well as deep clean, fresh bedding and washed all the cutlery/crockery, as just didn’t feel clean, having been sat a few days. Took way too long so there’s process efficiencies going forward! Back to my corporate work days and a process flow to be developed – watch this space. As part of the prepping of the van I wrote up a handover document so it’s clear how everything works in the van – copy to be handed to all hirers too.
The whole setup of ScotCampers has been a learning process and just doing stuff as when I need it, as opposed to planning everything in advance. Case in point last week when I purchased and installed storage in my garage for the increasing volume of extras to go out with vans – 8 sleeping bags, being one example.
Given the demand for van 1 (Bilbo) and as I’m turning away business due to double bookings, I’m looking around for van 2. Conflicted between buying one ready to go or sourcing a base van and commissioning the “right” build for Scotland/hirers. I’m leaning towards building to get the right sort of van – challenge being getting in the hands of customers this season.
Routes. I’ve written up a couple for the website now. These are based on my own experiences and also my leaning towards finding those less travelled, but beautiful, parts of Scotland. One was based on a trip I did with the local Landrover club last year where destination was Campbeltown, but I went via Arran. Less road miles and some great scenery on the way. Last week I took my time on a route from Dollar, through Dunning, Perth and then the Angus glens. Took me hours as I stopped every time I saw a tourist brown sign! Thing is, how else am I going to know Scotland well enough to actually provide advice to hirers?
Next on the pad is getting the van ready for my next hirer – Aaron – who’s going to Braemar for a wedding. Website launches this week so lots on the go.
Catch you next time and remember, not all those who wander are lost.
