Our Honest roadsurfer Review for Families: The Need to Know!
We spent a magical week in Olympic National Park with our roadsurfer van that we rented in Seattle. We absolutely love traveling by campervan with our kids and have used a few different companies at this point. If you’re thinking of renting a van through roadsurfer, but are looking for first hand experience, we have you covered with a full roadsurfer review! Overall, they were great to rent from and we had an awesome experience. We’ll detail all of the need to know below.
Disclosure : Some of my blog posts do contain affiliate links which means I get a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you decide to make a purchase. Thanks for supporting me and helping me to continue to make free content on this platform!
Another disclaimer: We did rent this campervan free of charge, but are not being paid by the company to write this review. These opinions are all honest and our own after taking a wonderful trip with roadsurfer!
Full roadsurfer Review For Families
roadsurfer Review: An Overview of our Experience
In short, amazing!!! roadsurfer made every step of the process SO easy. The campervan had everything we needed and more! It was so family friendly and had some really cool features.
Our favorite feature? the sleeping arrangements! (queen bed and a rooftop tent)
Pros:
- No need to unpack and pack up every day for traveling to a new location!
- Easy sleeping setups
- Convenient cooking setup
- Drive assist capabilities
- Storage capacity
- Very helpful and easy-to-use website!
Cons:
- Back seats are out of reach, so helping littles can be difficult when they need something while you’re driving. This is common in campervans in general.
- For the liberty lodge van, there was no microwave. This wasn’t really a con for us, but if you’re looking for one, keep this in mind!
- Depending on which location you use, there may not be parking on site – you’ll have to arrange parking during your vacation.
- Your pickup time is NOT flexible (outside of business hours) so keep in mind they do not do after hours pickups. If your flight lands at an odd time, you may have to pick up the van the next day.
And here is more of the Pros and Cons of Traveling by Campervan with Kids!
Is roadsurfer Family Friendly?
YES!!! Our kids loved the campervan as much as we did (or maybe even more!). When it was time to return the van, they were so bummed and asked when we would be going on our next campervan trip. The Liberty Lodge van had two back seats that worked perfectly for our car seats as well.
Our kids favorite part was the sleeping arrangements. They thought the rooftop tent was so fun, and they also loved snuggling up on the inside bed.
If you have more or less than 4 people in your family, check out the roadsurfer website for which model might be right for you. There are several options depending on how many are in your party.
Where Can you Rent roadsurfer Campervans?
roadsurfer is primarily a European company with 100 rental locations in 18 countries all over the world! They currently have 10 locations in the U.S. with more to come, including:
- Dallas
- Denver
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- New York City
- Phoenix
- San Fransisco
- Salt Lake City
- Seattle
So far, we only have experience with the Seattle location, but we had a great experience here and are looking forward to more adventures with roadsurfer.
Preparing for your roadsurfer Trip
Before picking up your campervan rental, roadsurfer makes sure that you are informed and ready! On their site are videos walking you through all the van’s features. There is a tutorial roadsurfer sends you, with detailed explanations you must complete as well. This tutorial can be downloaded, so you have it with you whenever you need!
roadsurfer also includes options for helpful add-ons, making packing much easier. Some add-ons we went with were bed sheets, pillows, and cookware.
The Campervan Pickup Process
We found the pickup process easy and convenient and the employee who assisted us was super helpful/ The office where you pick up the van (in the Seattle location) has a kids’ station to keep the littles occupied while you sign the necessary documents. We love this kind of thoughtfulness for families!
Once that was taken care of, the employee walked us through all the basics and important features of the van with a nice checklist before we headed out. We did have to find a parking garage to park our own vehicle, which the employee gave us some nearby recommendations as well.
TIP: Try to arrange a parking spot ahead of time if you can if you’re visiting the Seattle location. We didn’t and that was the most stressful part of our pickup process.
The Drop Off Process
roadsurfer has a very easy to navigate website and a helpful checklist for everything that needs to be taken care of before dropping off your van and saying goodbye. We were able to do much of the checklist the night before and the morning of, which made the actual drop off process super quick and easy.
Cool Features of roadsurfer Vans (Liberty Lodge)
We loved the Liberty Lodge van and all it’s cool features! It had some super helpful driving assist features, which was key in such a big vehicle with big blind spots. There’s a nice little kitchen setup with a fridge, stove top, and sink. It also has a shower and toilet which was so nice to have with our toddlers.
There were plenty of compartments for storage. A fold out queen bed folds down from the benches in the back. And our personal favorite, a rooftop tent!
The Cooking Setup
The kitchen area is to the left of the sliding side door as you enter. There’s a mini fridge that’s actually pretty spacious with a small freezer in the top and we were able to leave it on the entire trip. It didn’t seem to use much energy at all.
Above the fridge was a stove top with two propane burners that were super easy to use and clean. To the right of the stove was some counter space, then a sink for doing dishes. There was plenty of storage space above and below for the food and kitchen supplies.
The Sleeping Arrangements
The Liberty Lodge campervan had a queen size bed that folds down from the benches in the back and a rooftop tent that pops up and is accessed from inside the van. Each night, I slept on the queen bed inside with our youngest, because he always wants his mama :), and Dane slept in the rooftop tent with our oldest, who loves sleeping in a sleeping bag and calling it a cocoon. Both options were very cozy!
The Rooftop Tent
The tent was VERY EASY to set up and still one of our favorite parts of renting a campervan. There was even a light for bedtime stories and USB outlets on the side so you can charge your phone! It had several windows that could unzip in order to look outside or just let in some fresh air.
Sleeping Inside
The queen bed inside was surprisingly really comfortable and we were even able to get a set of bed sheets and pillows from Road Surfer! It wasn’t very high off the ground, so it was easy to get on and off the bed. There were also button press lights on each side of the bed, as well as USB outlets in the storage compartment right above for charging your phone overnight.
The van did have a heater and A/C unit, but the temperature was perfect over on the northwest coast so we didn’t end up using them at all.
Safety Tips for Sleeping Arrangements with Kids
For the queen bed below, we found it safer to have our 2 y/o on the side with the bathroom and kitchen counter, while I slept on the side with the back doors. The bathroom wall and kitchen counter created a small gap to fall off of if the little one moves in their sleep. We also placed clothes bags and extra pillows on the floor for cushioning, just in case.
For the rooftop tent, Dane made sure to have our 4 y/o laying a couple feet down from the edge of the entrance, a hole that drops to the floor of the van. He found it helpful to sleep at a bit of an angle, shielding our son if he moved toward the hole.
In both situations, if the parking space is not level, Dane would park the front of the van on the incline. This made it so that if the kids were to move downhill in their sleep, they would both be moving away from the side of their beds with a drop.
In addition to safe sleeping arrangements, we’ve got you covered with 13 Tips for Traveling by Campervan With a Baby!
Driving a roadsurfer Campervan
As always, I am a lifelong passenger princess, so my husband does all the driving! However, my chauffer, Dane, said it was super easy to drive. It had all sorts of driver assist features, including: a backup camera; a rearview mirror camera (this was a really cool and handy feature); proximity alerts for parking; blind spot assist/alerts; and lane assist. We had zero issues while driving and felt very safe with the little ones in the van.
Liberty Lodge Campervan Storage
This campervan had plenty of storage in overhead compartments on both sides, in the sides underneath the bed, and even some floor compartments! The ladder for the rooftop tent and the night shades for the windows were stored in a compartment above the front seats.
It took a little figuring out to decide what the best way to organize our things were, but once we figured it out, we had a great system!
The Battery Life
There are separate batteries for the engine and the rest of the van. The battery for the rest of the van charges while you drive or you can charge it with a generator that is connected to the gas tank and uses about a gallon/hour. With how much driving we did, we never even made a dent in the battery level, even though the refrigerator was constantly on and we were using lights a lot and charging our phones all night.
TIP: You did need to have the generator running if you wanted to use the 12v plugins.
The Bathroom
This Liberty Lodge campervan had a small bathroom right behind the rear seats. The whole thing is a standup shower with a toilet. We never used the shower but we did use the toilet. It was really nice to have with kids especially for middle of the night wake ups! There’s a “toilet cassette” (tub) that you access from the outside and dump in a RV sewer line, which was actually super easy to empty.
Should You Rent a roadsurfer Van For Your Next Family Vacation?
If you’re on the fence about whether a campervan trip is right for you and your family – you need to try it! It’s one of our favorite way to travel with kids, and we will keep going back to the van over and over again. roadsurfer makes it SO EASY and we would highly recommend renting a campervan with them. Let me know in the comments if you took the trip and how it went!
And if you’re looking to travel more with your little ones, check out some of our family travel tips today!
