Adventure Travel with Maddi Bourgerie - RVshare

Maddi Bourgerie
Travel Expert
RVshare

Maddi is a seasoned travel expert with over a decade of experience in the travel industry. Having explored nearly all 50 states, more than 25 countries, and 25 RV rentals, Maddi has a wealth of knowledge in outdoor travel. She is currently a full-time advocate for RVshare, where she passionately supports the company’s mission to help travelers discover the magic of RV adventures.

From the East Coast to the West Coast, Maddi has embarked on countless road trips, checking off National Parks and RV experiences from her ever-growing bucket list. Her taste extends beyond RVs into international travel from scuba diving in Egypt to exploring the backroads of Vietnam.

She is committed to inspiring others to explore the world on their own terms.

summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Maddi Bourgerie, a travel expert from RVshare. They discuss Maddi's journey into the world of travel, her experiences with RVing, and the importance of shared adventures in relationships. The conversation also covers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the travel industry, the misconceptions surrounding RV travel, and the growing community of RV enthusiasts. Maddi shares insights on how RVshare has adapted to the changing landscape of travel and the unique experiences that RVing offers.

takeaways

• Maddi's passion for travel began at a young age.
• RVshare operates as a peer-to-peer RV rental platform.
• Travel experiences can significantly shape personal relationships.
• The pandemic created a surge in interest for RV travel.
• RVing offers a unique way to explore the outdoors with comforts.
• Many RVs can be delivered to your desired camping location.
• The RV community is welcoming and offers many resources for newcomers.
• Traveling in an RV can be budget-friendly with various camping options.
• Understanding RV insurance is crucial for renters.
• Shared experiences are vital for fulfilling relationships.

Learn more about Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Marketing and join our private community to get episode updates, special access to our guests, and exclusive adventure travel offers on our website.

Transcript

Jason Elkins (00:01.015)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the adventure traveler. Excited today we've got Maddi Bourgerie, a travel expert with RVshare. Maddi, did I pronounce your last name right?

Maddi (00:14.016)
Hi, Jason. Yes, you did. It's a tough one, but you got it.

Jason Elkins (00:16.641)
All right, cool. got well, in full disclosure, we practiced a couple of times before I pushed the record button. So I'm happy to hear that it stuck. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Really appreciate you taking time out of your day to join us and share your story.

Maddi (00:31.138)
Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Jason Elkins (00:33.273)
All right, so typically I want to jump into kind of like how you got from where you were to where you are now, but let's do the 30 second elevator pitch for kind of RVshare and not so much what you're doing for them because we're going to get back to that. But just for our listeners that are kind of like, what's this RVshare thing all about? What would you answer with?

Maddi (00:52.846)
Sure, RVshare is an RV rental website based here in the US. So we have more than 100,000 RVs across the United States in all 50 states. We are a peer-to-peer platform, so very similar model to Verbo or Airbnb, where people who own RVs can list their RVs to rent to other travelers while they're not using them. And we have more than 3,000 makes and models. So really anything from

a teardrop travel trailer all the way up to the larger big rigs called Class A drivables. You can really rent anything from our site for a variety of different adventures.

Jason Elkins (01:34.041)
That's very cool. look forward to learning to hearing more about that. You said 100,000 RVs. Wow. OK, so we're going to come back to that because I'm pretty fascinated. Haven't had anybody on the show really talking about RV life or this type of thing. So I'm super excited to kind of delve into something that I see as like kind of like.

Maddi (01:38.914)
Mm-hmm, yep.

Jason Elkins (01:55.341)
you know, sailing, you know, we've talked, I've talked to people that are sailors and I've always thought of RV as kind of land sailing and very, very similar. So I look forward to hearing your thoughts when we get back to that point, Maddie, but I want to understand how does someone like you, what happened in your life that caused you to get into this? So how far back do we need to go to kind of understand what happened?

Maddi (02:16.888)
Yes.

We could start pretty far back. mean, I think I feel extremely fortunate to be able to mesh one of my extreme passions of travel with my day job. I was kind of bit by that travel bug when I was eight or nine. I had grandparents who were big world travelers, moved all over the world, taking their family along. My dad grew up in Brazil. They lived in many states and

when their retirement decided to head to Roatan, Honduras. And this was back in the early 90s. And I was fortunate enough to be able to go visit them a number of times. And it is a destination, a cruising destination today, but back then it was rather a remote destination. And I think that really opened my eyes to other experiences around the world. And I, since then, have just always wanted to explore and find ways to explore.

you know, when I was old enough heading into high school, I had an interesting like mentor who really encouraged that curiosity in me and was passionate about travel himself and actually did travel groups for adults and would take them to Europe and Africa and things like that. but I was under the age of 18 and really wanted to go. So he put together a travel group specifically for some of his high school students that he.

knew kind of had that passion and I worked, you know, a part-time job to raise money to be able to pay for this trip, first trip to like Italy and Spain and to kind of have somebody show me the world without even my parents. was very much in it anxious to kind of head out my own and really forge that path and I would do anything to like travel and see the world. And so that was kind of my foray into travel.

Jason Elkins (03:57.198)
super cool.

Jason Elkins (04:14.201)
Very cool. Hey, I have a question for you. Was your first trip out of the country when you went down to Roatown? Or had you been outside of the country already? Okay. Did you go with your parents or did you meet your grandparents? I'm just curious what that looked like because that's kind of a big deal.

Maddi (04:23.338)
Yes, I think so. Yeah, I think that was the first.

Maddi (04:32.832)
Yes, we did go as a family. My parents took us. You know, we, I think that was like we had to get passports and we headed down there. have two younger sisters, so the whole family went and we had gone a few times. There was even one time my whole extended family went, which was really special. And there's still a picture at my parents' house with everyone there at the same time, which is pretty remarkable because I think it was a big trip and a big journey and to bring everyone together down there.

But I just remember they lived outside of this kind of Bayside village and a lot of these locals fished for their food. I loved playing with the kids in the village and we would go down to one of the local restaurants and as a kid, one of the most incredible things was

The fact that the toilet was a hole in the ground that just went straight into the ocean. And that was something that stood out to me in very specific memory.

Jason Elkins (05:34.106)
a little different. How how old were you when you started going to Roatan?

Maddi (05:37.854)
I think it was eight.

Jason Elkins (05:40.153)
Okay, I'm curious about how, what transpired like when you were back home, like in school, like, I don't know if these are summer vacation, spring break, but like, what did the other kids think? Did you discuss that with them? Did you just feel like it was kind of normal growing up? Because I can imagine, you know, like I had a pretty great childhood and I'd come back at the end of summer vacation and the teachers, you know, we'd do the little ice breaking thing. What did you do this summer?

and they'd get to me and I'd have some off the wall wild thing. And I remember my teacher actually called my mom once, I think in probably when I was in second grade or something and said, well, your son's great, but he's got quite an imagination. And he was, know, we need to work on that because he was making up a lot of stuff about what he was doing this summer. So I'm curious if you ran into anything like that.

Maddi (06:22.382)
I'm

Maddi (06:31.126)
I think I was definitely fortunate to be able to have those experiences. And since I can remember, I've always been seen in my childhood, in my teenage years, and in my adult life as somebody who is more on the brink of adventure. People look up to me as somebody who's always adventuring and admiring that that's what I prioritize and always wondering how I can afford.

to do that and the answer is it's because I prioritize it and it's really important to me and it's not because I have a magic button or make a lot more income than my peers. It's just that travels, something that I spend money on and I want to be able to see the world. And so I think back and even middle school and my family, I mean, I had a pretty middle class like normal upbringing.

Jason Elkins (07:01.293)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (07:26.152)
We did at one point like travel quite a bit. I think because my family is actually from the west, but we lived on the East Coast in Boston, outside of Boston for 10 years. And because of that, I think that area just allowed us to do a lot of like day trips and weekend trips. And so I've been to almost all 50 states and I think it's because my family just would hit the road and, you know, be comfortable with just driving an hour or two to see a new town and

barely went to the same place twice and wasn't like my parents were taking us on these amazing worldly adventures when we were young, but just being able to do that checked a lot of boxes and continued to like fuel that passion in me. And so I think compared to my like childhood friends, that was something different than my parents did.

Jason Elkins (08:03.15)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (08:16.665)
And yeah, and I lived in Vermont for several years. was fortunate I was living there because I was working for a travel company. And a lot of the people in New England, I'm not knocking, beautiful, wonderful people, and they're not always having really traveled very far. I'm sure you went to school with, I'm sure you probably still know people in New England that maybe have never left New England.

Maddi (08:42.743)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (08:42.805)
So, and I don't know why that is. I've heard stories about the Appalachians and people were kind of isolated for a while for generations. And I remember even when I lived there, I lived there for nine years and I'd walk into the same convenience store three or four times a week. And they always looked at me like, who are you? Why are you here? If you didn't go to high school with them, it was kind of like you're an outsider. And this was a small town in Vermont. wasn't Boston. So I'm sure there's different there, but I'm curious. Did you had

Maddi (09:08.225)
Right.

Jason Elkins (09:12.153)
You have two younger siblings. Did they kind of respond the same way to this upbringing or is it just you?

Maddi (09:14.808)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Maddi (09:23.298)
I would say in a sense they did. I think the biggest indicator probably is when, you know, we all graduated high school and we're deciding what our next path was. At this point, we were back in Midwest, in Indiana, and Midwest is very similar. People barely even left the state in most cases. You know, I have some cousins who never left the state of Missouri, like, and it blows my mind. But my sister's definitely...

Jason Elkins (09:39.224)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (09:47.459)
Yeah.

Maddi (09:51.874)
had this, we were raised to be like very individual and kind of forge our own path. And so none of us, you know, wanted to go to Indiana university like the rest of our high school. All of us did go out of state for college and found ways to do that through scholarships and in other, you know, financial advances. And so that I think indicates that they kind of also were comfortable with exploring and

But however, for travel, travel just doesn't necessarily a priority. My middle sister was big into sports and like playing travel, softball, and she wanted to stay with her team in high school. Like that was her priority. So a lot of times she would be traveling, but for sports and that takes time, money and effort. And I think my younger sister like admires of my travel passion and is...

looking to do some similar things, but for some reason, yeah, I was always kind of the one forging that path a bit more and ended up, you know, my career ended up in travel and adventure. So similar, but.

Jason Elkins (11:00.569)
curious does how does this show up in other areas of your life because you're talking you know for me travels if I were to say it in the words that probably my family like I'd say oh he just needs constant stimulation he just needs new experiences the novelty of it just the super open curious and it shows up in area other areas of my life as well I'm curious do you find that that

shows up in other areas of your life or are you completely able to satisfy all those needs just through travel?

Maddi (11:36.686)
Yeah, that's a good question. mean, I definitely a curious person that continues to like to learn and challenge myself. You know, I feel like I'm always every year looking for, you know, what hobby can I continue or what can I learn? You know, I took like pottery and wheel on the wheel last year. It was a challenge and like open my eyes to something different and new. So I definitely have like that creative.

tendency. And then I think it shows up in my relationship. Like, I'm newly married and, you know, the partner, life partner I picked has that sense of adventure as well. He's definitely more of an adventure junkie and loves adrenaline rushes. And so I think being with him has opened my mind up to other types of experiences like paragliding in Hawaii and whitewater rafting in Colorado and just

kind of even extending what my comfort zone was with travel and adventure. And so that's definitely been something that's continued to fuel this passion of mine.

Jason Elkins (12:47.257)
That's cool. Since you brought it up, I'll go this direction. If I were to just ask you, out of 100 people just at random, how many of them do you think would be on any level close to that level that you have for wanting to go explore, adventure, the things that we're talking about? What's your best guess?

Maddi (13:11.726)
Probably only a handful. yeah, I find that a lot of people admire that and would like to be more adventurous. But I find that lot more people are just, find it easier to be comfortable at home and not take the time to plan. I think a lot of it's just planning and the time to put into a trip itinerary.

Jason Elkins (13:30.904)
Mm.

Maddi (13:38.478)
A lot of it is obviously financial decisions and I've talked to other people who have a similar passion for travel and it's like, well, my sister-in-law and her husband decided to invest in a larger home for their family, but we decided to live within our means so that we could go on two to three big trips a year and still bring our kids on a few of those. And so I think the prioritization there is something that holds people back.

Jason Elkins (13:54.23)
Mm-hmm, right.

Maddi (14:08.558)
But then I listened to your podcast and a few people you've had on and they blow my mind of what kind of adventures they've had and how their priorities even extend beyond mine. I own a home in Austin, Texas and I have responsibilities here, but so many people that you've talked to have sold everything, moved away, live on a sailboat, have moved all over the world. And to me, that is just like, wow, I wish I could be on that level. So I almost see myself in the middle.

Jason Elkins (14:08.737)
I think you're right. think the priorities.

Jason Elkins (14:39.053)
Well, that and things have a way of changing. You're a little younger than I am. They have a way of developing because I also had, you know, I had the home and I was a real estate agent in Arizona, which to me was the exact opposite of the life that I had wanted to live. So I, you know, I didn't stick with that for long. And the reason I ask that question is it's it's it's hard to find your tribe, right? Because you mentioned you found a partner.

Maddi (14:44.44)
you

Maddi (14:50.862)
Thank

Jason Elkins (15:08.045)
that likes to do this, that's gonna go paragliding with you in Hawaii and do these things. And that's pretty fortunate. And I won't go into your dating history, like how many guys you had to meet before you found one that was on the same level, but, because we have something in common here and I know that that can be a big challenge. So that's very fortunate. And do you feel like your husband maybe appreciates how difficult it is to find a woman that wants to go do stuff like that?

Maddi (15:08.066)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (15:37.794)
Yeah, I would say so, especially because he was raised with four brothers that share his same passion for adrenaline. you know, he was, he, we've even had to discuss before, I'm not one of your brothers. That's going to go like mountain biking down the side of a cliff. Like I do have a bit of limitations. so it was funny that I had to kind of reel him in. but yeah, I do think he feels similar to that. And I think he really enjoys like being able to share what he loves so much.

Jason Elkins (15:42.903)
huh.

Maddi (16:07.404)
with me and like hit one thing that we just really bonded over. And I love about him is like when we do have those experiences, he's looking at me and how I react and just my face and the experience I'm having. like, so that is just really special and something we share. But yeah, I mean, I definitely took a long time to find somebody who was kind of on the same page. And I think it kind of comes along with

Jason Elkins (16:17.39)
Yeah.

Maddi (16:32.258)
being able to be a dreamer too. That's kind what I found in past relationships was, know, somebody was like, you know, my gosh, like it would be so amazing to like just pick up and go to Costa Rica next week. We could work remote from there. Let's just go. I found this cheap flight. And for your partner to be like, whoa, I can't even discuss that. Like.

that to me am like way too logical and I've had that in past relationships whereas my husband today would be like, yeah, let's talk about it. And then we're not like serious maybe and like maybe or maybe we'll do it in a few months.

Jason Elkins (17:02.905)
It's nice to have somebody that can dream the same things, right? Even if you don't eventually do them because other priorities or whatever that you choose together. But I remember in a very long relationship called a marriage that I had, was the last few years of the marriage, I was sitting there watching the people sailing around the world on YouTube. And I was like, we should do this and let's go buy a sailboat.

Maddi (17:06.647)
Yeah.

Maddi (17:13.067)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (17:20.43)
Thank

Jason Elkins (17:30.937)
And I probably would have been happy had she at least just sat next to me and been like, oh, yeah, that's really cool. Someday, isn't that cool? Wouldn't that be great? I just wanted that validation. I knew we couldn't do it. I mean, I shouldn't say that. I should never say we couldn't do it. But I knew it. I knew it wasn't going to happen on some level, but it's sure nice to share that energy and that dream.

Maddi (17:40.686)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (17:55.659)
OK, maybe we don't do that, but maybe we go to the Virgin Islands and get on a boat for a week or something. Yeah, that can be really challenging. Because if you're passionate about it, if your priority is adventure and travel and exploration and your partner's priority is a new living room set or remodeled kitchen, be very dessert for both of you. I'm not saying I'm right and she was wrong. It probably was miserable for her as well because she's like, I want, you know.

Maddi (18:01.294)
Yes.

Maddi (18:12.782)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (18:23.679)
security, stability, and certainty and I'm like but we should go buy a sailboat and yeah that can be a conflict. So good for you. It sounds like you you found a good one. So what advice I maybe we've already covered this but the question that comes to my mind what advice for someone else is listening to this that I'm not suggesting anybody go leave their marriage or anything but they're single they're they're young

Maddi (18:30.518)
Yes. Thank you.

Jason Elkins (18:48.853)
and they know that they've got this passion, but people around them keep saying, you you probably ought to settle down. You probably ought to find somebody nice and raise a family. What advice would you want to give somebody? Because you've been through it. You're doing it.

Maddi (19:01.802)
Yeah, I think it goes back to kind of what you said. It's finding your tribe and that could look different for everyone. So it could be within your partner or, you know, it could be knowing that your partner understanding that this isn't a priority for them, but it is for you. And so, you know, a few times a year, you're going to travel with your adventure, loving friends or group and, and do certain things that kind of

you know, allow you to fill your cup in that way. So it doesn't always have to be a partner. But I think if that's a priority for you, just like anything else, like if you have certain morals or certain expectations for a future partner, then making sure that those are met or covered before you commit to someone I think is really important. But it doesn't always, you know, always have to play out that way.

Jason Elkins (19:54.041)
And it's hard to figure out early on. There's so many nuances and subtleties because I finally figured out that my highest value was shared experiences. It wasn't experiences. It wasn't shared. It was shared experiences. Shared adventures maybe would be because for me that's the most valuable type of experience.

Maddi (20:05.187)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (20:16.991)
and you mentioned, maybe, you you explained to your partner, I'm going to go off a few times a year with my adventurous friends and go do something. That's great. Unless you're the type that realizes, but sharing my experiences with my partner is a big value of mine. Then you need to reconsider it because maybe that's not going to work because you might be off with your friends all the time being resentful that your partner wouldn't go with you or.

Maddi (20:42.828)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (20:42.839)
doesn't care to see the pictures when you get back, doesn't want to share that with you. So I would say to anybody, try as early on as figure out, OK, what is it I really, really value, I like? And not just on one level, not just I value travel. OK, I value travel because I want to share it with somebody important or whatever it is. And if both people can figure out what's their top combination of values,

Maddi (20:46.966)
Yeah, certainly.

Maddi (21:05.826)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (21:11.807)
and like, be honest about it and set aside all the excitement of new relation that new relationship energy and say, okay, well, we've got, you know, this person's shared shared experiences and this other person is maybe independence and stability. Okay, it's not gonna work, you know, took me 20 years to figure that out. So anyway, enough, enough. Relation is not a relationship podcast, but thank you for sharing that because

Maddi (21:29.1)
Yes.

Yeah, certainly.

Maddi (21:39.65)
you

Jason Elkins (21:41.281)
It's something that it's always an interesting part of the conversation is, you know, that like, did the rest of your family think or what do your partners think? so, all right, very cool. So let's go back and kind of work the timeline a little bit as well, because I'm trying to think where we left off. You were going to Roatan. What happened? What was the rest of the path like?

Maddi (21:49.902)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (22:03.342)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (22:09.484)
Yeah, so like I mentioned, I kind of had my first solo trip to Europe in high school and then went about kind of the normal educational path and ended up going out of state for college. I headed to Auburn University in Alabama. So it was a state I've never lived in, never been to. The South is definitely a very interesting place. I loved my four years there. I studied marketing and public relations.

At that point in time, I didn't travel too much. think the adventure of leaving home and moving away at, you know, 17, 18 was kind of fulfilling at that point. But when I was... Why marketing?

Jason Elkins (22:50.315)
Why marketing? Yeah, you're not the first person I've, you know this because you've heard the show. You're not the first person that I've chatted with that went into marketing and then. So I think there's some sort of connection. I'm curious what it was for you.

Maddi (23:05.154)
Yeah, so in high school, I was a super involved student. I played sports. I was in student government. And my high school had a great newspaper. We were like an award-winning high school newspaper. And I loved to write and really found passion through that. And so I was a journalist for the high school, moved up to an editor. And so I thought I wanted to go into journalism for a long time.

going to school for journalism was my goal.

Jason Elkins (23:36.045)
Was there a thought of traveling with journalism, like foreign correspondent type of stuff or like small town home? know, I mean, what was, was there any thought to that?

Maddi (23:46.38)
Yeah, I wish I could say there was, but I don't think I connected the dots at that point that that could have been a career path. I think I loved telling other people's stories and I liked writing. so journalism was a natural fit. was my favorite hour of the day in school was being able to work on those projects and things like that. My high school actually also had a marketing programs, which is pretty

Jason Elkins (23:55.246)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (24:06.563)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (24:15.756)
I think rare. And so I had a marketing teacher who kind of opened our eyes to just what marketing meant and what kind of degree that could look and what path career that could head down. And so mixing kind of journalism marketing together equals public relations. So when I was kind of looking for a college degree and what kind of fit my interest, I knew I kind of wanted to lean more into the business side.

Jason Elkins (24:33.837)
Hmm.

Maddi (24:43.398)
you know, although journalism can be extremely fulfilling, it's not necessarily the most lucrative, career path. And it seems to be ever changing even since I've been out in the, you know, workplace. And so, yes, very much so. so I think I made the right decision for me and was able then to kind of understand the like business world a bit more marketing and.

Jason Elkins (24:57.165)
Changed a lot, hasn't it?

Maddi (25:11.478)
ultimately led me to my first job. So when I was graduating, I wanted a career in public relations. And at that point, I remember my professors asking, yeah, but what type of PR are you going to do? And again, didn't really connect the dots. I really understood what that meant. And quickly when I started applying to jobs, realized you could do public relations for health care. You could do public relations for technology. And then I was like, wait, all this sounds.

so boring like that doesn't sound fun at all. And when I realized that there was this, you know, career and travel, it kind of fell into it a little bit. I had a good friend in college whose mom lived and worked in Austin, Texas for a company at the time called HomeAway, which is now Verbo and was acquired by Expedia. And so

Jason Elkins (25:40.665)
You

Maddi (26:05.602)
You know, it wasn't like I took that job thinking, wow, I'm going to excel in the travel space. it definitely was more because it, you know, sounded like an interesting service and product. you know, we grew up going to the outer banks in North Carolina and renting a big beach house for the summer, probably rented off Urbo. mean, obviously my parents were the ones making the transaction, but I had understood that concept of vacation rentals, even though

Jason Elkins (26:28.675)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (26:33.902)
the market wasn't as big as it is today. So that sounded interesting enough. And I took the job and moved to Austin, which also was something that was exciting to me because I hadn't lived in Texas and I was ready to try out another city. I, in my mind, probably thought I'd only be here for two to three years. And it's now been over a decade. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (26:55.826)
And you're still, yeah, I asked you before we hit record where you're at. I was making the connection there. So OK. All right.

Maddi (27:01.294)
So I have been here for a long time, I think it's because Austin is a very, the energy here is just really amazing. It is very innovative, lots of smart people, a lot of amazing companies being built here and the connections I've made are just extremely valuable and have allowed me to continue to grow and have amazing experiences. And I've continued to work in the travel industry since.

Jason Elkins (27:31.341)
How long were you with? Was it home away when you were working there, right? Okay, so how long were you with them?

Maddi (27:31.576)
That's it.

Maddi (27:37.102)
Yeah, was with Homeway for five years. I was there, you know, when they hit some pretty big milestones, they had just gone public and then they were acquired by Expedia a few years later. So I was there through the acquisition. So I had technically worked for Expedia for a year and a half and kind of just remained in public relations.

Jason Elkins (27:58.071)
Was it what you thought it would be when you started there? Because you kind of mentioned, you thought, well, maybe it's not a travel job per se, but it's interesting. I can kind of relate to it because we've gone and rented homes as a family. Was it what you thought it was? Better, worse? How would you define it?

Maddi (28:19.282)
was 10 times better than I thought it was going to be. think, I think a college kid leaving college with this like, schedule and being able to, you know, live and hang out with your friends all the time, like that transition into work life wasn't what, you know, there's a, there's a big transition period. and so I was nervous for that and was like sad to leave my college days at the time. But I think what I found was.

Jason Elkins (28:21.739)
Okay.

Jason Elkins (28:40.3)
Yeah.

Maddi (28:48.736)
working at Virbo and I got extremely lucky with the people I was surrounded with. So finding a culture fit and finding people I enjoyed working with every day was a huge positive. But I think why it was greater than I even thought was because when you work in travel, they prioritize travel. We had unlimited PTO from the jump. So I've always had unlimited days off. We also had a stipend to stay

Um, you know, with in a Verbo anywhere in the world at the time, cause they were global. Um, so I had some really amazing adventures doing that. I took a group of girlfriends to Hawaii for my 25th birthday, because all we had to do was pay for the flights. And I mean, I just, you know, that was a dream. That was incredible that I could do that. And it's because my company was like paying for the stay. Um,

Jason Elkins (29:24.928)
Wow.

Jason Elkins (29:37.271)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (29:46.521)
So then obviously when you've got benefits and perks like that at a company, you're going to attract people to value that. Maybe the pay, we don't need to go into your pay, but sometimes there's trade-offs, right? And it's like, wow, look at all these great perks. you're naturally, think, going to attract people that it's a priority like it is with you. I can see how, because I think on the outside looking in, you're like, it's a tech company.

you know, or whatever, it's a business and, you know, it's hard to imagine a bunch of people working there that are actually into travel and like to travel. But the way you just described it, I can kind of see that. All right, that's very cool.

Maddi (30:14.04)
Yeah.

Maddi (30:25.004)
Yes. Yeah, and the company was expanding all over the world too. So, you know, we now had offices in London, Singapore, Australia, and they had a program called Desk Away and they'd actually encourage you to go work from another office. Yeah, so I did it in London. I also ended up going and doing it.

Jason Elkins (30:43.422)
I was gonna ask you that. That's cool.

Maddi (30:52.798)
visiting the team in Singapore at one point, but had aspirations to do it in Brazil, Australia. I was on board to do it anywhere. You did have to pay your way a little bit, so it did have some financial blockers, and that's why I didn't check them all off my list at the time, but that was extremely motivating to me. And then I got to work on some really cool projects. I was on the marketing team. We took the Today Show.

Jason Elkins (31:09.026)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Maddi (31:18.936)
to Italy and I got to go to Italy for over a month to scout for locations, look at different vacation rentals and we ended up shooting there for a week and we're on set with the Today Show the entire time, which was one of the coolest projects I've ever worked on in my career even today. And so, yeah, I would say that it exceeded my expectations and just really opened my eyes to amazing experience that a job could bring.

Jason Elkins (31:34.521)
Good job.

Jason Elkins (31:46.873)
Very, very, very cool. So, all right, so, you can go into as much detail as you want, but what caused you to leave that job and move on to the next thing? And what was the next thing?

Maddi (31:58.328)
So I decided to leave because I was really looking to continue to grow as a marketer and was asking for promotion and that time I really valued the ladder climb and the title change and things like that. And I decided that I was gonna go out my own for a little bit and consult.

A lot of people told me at that time I didn't have the experience to do consulting for public relations, but I felt the pull to do it. And I loved the concept to be able to really like work from anywhere and kind of just decided to take the leap. I was able to attract other travel tech and like travel related clients the entire time. I started freelancing for hotels and resorts and

mostly us based companies, but it was an amazing experience. And one of those was RV share. One of my clients was RV share. And that was just through connections of some people who previously had worked at home away. I moved over to RV share to run and grow that company. Cause it was a very similar marketplace to Urbo and a very similar playbook. so I started working for them and eventually they talked me into going full time with RV share and.

It was a great move. RVshare has been another very fulfilling role.

Jason Elkins (33:30.157)
Yeah. So were you, so from the time you started the freelance thing, maybe until now, presumably you've been working fully remote with, you can work from anywhere you want basically, right?

Maddi (33:42.122)
Yeah, so RVshare, I mean, it was one of the reasons that I agreed to go full time with them because you did not have to be in an office every day. They were already a fully remote company. The executive team of a few of them are based in Austin, so I still get that interaction if I want, but we're allowed to work from anywhere.

Jason Elkins (33:59.8)
Mm-hmm.

So you could take off and travel around the world, do the full on digital nomad thing if you so chose, which is great. And so when you started being able to work remotely, you were doing the freelancer. How did you take it? Did you fully take advantage of that flexibility or tell me what came up for you? Because there's a lot of people that kind of, I want to go travel, work remotely, and then they get the remote job and they. Other things come up. I'm just kind of curious what came up for you. Did you?

Maddi (34:09.325)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (34:32.185)
fully embrace it or what did you learn from that time?

Maddi (34:35.662)
Yeah, I was on the road quite often. It was probably when I was traveling the most and I would work remotely. I had signed up for a company called Home Exchange, or you can like do the home swapping. And there's a new one now called Kindred, which is kind of still building up their community. But I, you you could swap.

Jason Elkins (34:51.8)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (35:01.966)
homes with people simultaneously or it would be a credit-based swap. And so I did that a few times, went and stayed in Denver, LA, New York, and just kind of worked mostly domestically though. My family also doesn't live in Texas, so was nice to able to go visit family and friends in other locations. My work also took me to destinations. I had a hotel I was representing in Charleston, so I spent some time there. I was in New York a lot naturally because it's a big...

Jason Elkins (35:20.409)
Mm-hmm.

Maddi (35:31.19)
media hub. And so yeah, I got to like, bop around a lot and work remotely. And that was super exciting at the time.

Jason Elkins (35:39.651)
What's the, maybe what is one or two of the challenges that people don't maybe consider? I mean, one is you had a home already. So I hear you saying, talk about the exchange thing. It's like, you're maintaining a house. You've got a mortgage payment. You've got a certain set of utilities and stuff, which can be a limitation to just take it off unless you can get free accommodations, comped or whatever. But there's also, I've been traveling full-time for three and a half years and I've

Maddi (35:53.358)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (36:10.071)
had a few surprises that I didn't really expect. So I'm curious, like, what did you run into that maybe people would think, God, that'd be amazing to be able to go do that. But what are a couple of things they should consider before they sell their house?

Maddi (36:11.758)
Thank

Maddi (36:22.926)
Yeah, I was fortunate at the time I just had a small apartment so I was home shopping just my apartment. I never got in trouble for doing that so that was lucky. And I would say, you know, maybe it was more just challenges about being on the road. Like I did find that to be able to uphold, you know, a good balance of like mental health, physical health.

a home base is something that ended up being more important to me than I thought because at the time I thought I was almost working myself up my way up to being a full-time nomad, hopefully going international, working all over the world. And although, you know, that's still something I aspire to be at some point in my life, I think that having that home base, I just found I was more of a homebody than I realized. I think that, you know, having

Jason Elkins (37:18.787)
Yeah.

Maddi (37:22.094)
yeah, a space where that you call your own, that you send your mail to, that you have a doctor and, you know, friends and just like you have somewhere to come back to that, that you feel that sense of security was more important to me than I had realized prior.

Jason Elkins (37:39.609)
Yeah, I've had a very, very similar experience. It's when I started this, I had my identity like, OK, I'm a nomad now. I'm never going to own anything. Everything is if I can't fit it in my suitcase and carry it, I'm not taking it. And after about three and a half years, I'm like, I actually just moved into I'm still it's an air. It's kind of still like an Airbnb thing, but it's an apartment.

I've planned to be here for a while. And I'm like, ooh, this feels kind of nice. I'm not sharing a kitchen with a bunch of other digital nomads, or I'm not staying in someone's house, family's house, and feel uncomfortable sitting on the couch watching TV with grandma. So I can relate to that. And a big one you mentioned, and we don't have to go very far into it, is that mental health thing.

Maddi (38:08.898)
Yeah.

Maddi (38:20.533)
Yes, yes.

Maddi (38:28.568)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (38:29.133)
you know, that can be much tougher than people think because they're like, man, that'd be amazing just to be in a different city every week. And boy, it's tough when you've got constant decisions like, where am going to get my laundry done? Where am I? Where's an ATM? Where's, you know, and I've been mostly doing international, so that holds another level as well. And it's pretty cool because you get to see a lot of things. So it's a trade off. So all right.

Maddi (38:42.35)
you

Maddi (38:55.618)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (38:57.867)
So, and how long have you been working full time with RVshare?

Maddi (39:02.126)
So I've been at RVshare for now six years. You know, one of those was on a consulting basis. And then I went full time with them right before the 2020 pandemic. So it's been a rollercoaster.

Jason Elkins (39:14.441)
All right, so let's talk about that. What was that like?

Maddi (39:18.728)
definitely extremely interesting. you know, of course, I think everyone has their COVID-19 pandemic story. you know, I had gone full time as the head of communications for this brand and heading into March, you know, we just saw a huge drop off in bookings when everything shut down and everyone canceled their trip plans and you know, our business that was

starting to grow and thrive, literally went flatlined, like zero was coming in the door. So, you know, as part of the leadership team and everybody was looking at each other, like, what do we do? And I had been kind of, you know, at home and like looking on line. And I think all of us felt a sense of how do we help our community and where can we show up in different capacities? And, you know, people were

sewing masks for first responders and I don't have a sewing machine so I can't do that. But what popped up on my Facebook was there was a grassroots group that was doing RVs for MDs. So they were finding RV owners that would offer up their RV so that doctors and nurses could social distance from their families after their shifts at the hospital. So a lot of these owners were parking RVs like

Jason Elkins (40:40.601)
That's cool.

Maddi (40:42.496)
in their driveways so they could still come home at night, but they still had space between their families. And I was like, well, we could help with that. RVshare has a network of 60,000 RV owners. let's, yeah. So let's get some communication to our owners and get this out the door and we partnered with them and, you know.

Jason Elkins (40:55.417)
Who else could help with that more, right? Yeah.

Jason Elkins (41:06.871)
Because they don't, because they're not traveling, they're not using their RVs, probably, I mean, some of them may be doing the same type of thing for distancing, but other than that, it's not like they're turning away rentals.

Maddi (41:16.96)
Exactly. Yeah. At the time nobody had it hadn't quite quite yet clicked that RVs were safe and reliable way to travel during that time. So it was right before that. so they were allowing others to use RVs and the media picked it up. then all of a sudden RV share was kind of a headline news, like across the U S which was music to PR gal's ears. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (41:23.843)
Well, I was going to ask you where that went. Yeah. Yep.

Jason Elkins (41:41.145)
You're the communications director. wonder how that happened. Good job, Matty.

Maddi (41:46.39)
And so that was kind of our first big break, if you will, with like breaking into kind of mainstream. And then shortly thereafter, May, June timeframe, people were sick of being at home, locked inside, the weather was warming up across the United States, and people were looking to get outdoors. And they turned towards RVs to be able to facilitate those trips. So we had

a record-breaking booking year and that continued for many years thereafter. think people just saw the value in RV travel. It was no longer just your parents' retirement plan. It was on social media. It was coming to the forefront that there were these hashtag van lifers out there that would live in their vans full-time and have experiences.

they were kind of the leaders of this trend because they knew the ins and outs and the tricks of the trade of staying at national parks and parking on public lands and getting like free camping spots. And so that buzz on social media picked up. So it was really this like perfect storm for RV share. I would never want to repeat it, but it was a perfect storm in terms of promotion for our service and building awareness for RV rentals. And people really.

wanting to explore the outdoors in an RV.

Jason Elkins (43:09.625)
So really, your experience, you showed up at the right time, the right place, and had a much different experience than I'm sure a lot of what we'd call traditional travel operators, tour operators. Most of the people I've interviewed on this show did not say, oh yeah, our business was great during COVID. We got a lot of publicity. People realized how great our product was, and they wanted more of it. So that's interesting.

Maddi (43:29.773)
I know.

Maddi (43:38.592)
Yes, I think it was RVs, Zoom, and QR codes really thrived.

Jason Elkins (43:43.019)
Zoom. Yeah, right. Zoom and maybe some like DoorDash or Postmates or whatever. of those. Amazon. Yeah.

Maddi (43:48.532)
Yeah, so we were definitely one of the lucky ones. so yeah, we just saw our business almost 10x itself within a few short years. And I think just RV travel come to the forefront of like travelers minds when they're really looking to get outdoors. And you know, my job has really come into communicating and building awareness for the experience of RV travel. I'm sitting here.

today with you because I've kind of put myself on the front lines. I have loved to experience RV travel myself. I hadn't really done that before 2019. wasn't something that was on my radar. Sure, I've gone tent camping a handful of times, but to be honest, it wasn't necessarily for me or something I wanted to do multiple, multiple times. But similar to the other jobs I've had within the travel industry, RVshare gives a travel stipend.

Again, I'll be the first one to raise my hand for a free trip. And so I've gone on many RV trips, rented many RV rentals and have had some incredible experiences. And I just love to talk about it because it's, I think it's an amazing way to travel.

Jason Elkins (45:03.779)
Yeah. I have so many questions, and I know you have answers for every one of them I'll try and start with. I think as the communications director, you're ready for pretty much anything I'm going to ask you. know. I think the thing I'm curious about, like, the person who's never rented an RV is kind of on the adventure, likes to get out, likes to explore.

Maddi (45:17.262)
I know.

Jason Elkins (45:31.225)
You probably know what are the common misconceptions or the things that surprise people. So help that listener that's like, might be interesting. But what are the common things that you want to share with them? I don't know what to ask the question. I'm not a communications expert. So go ahead. Take over.

Maddi (45:44.438)
Yeah. The most common things are, you need a special driver's license to drive an RV? No, you do not. Do you need insurance and or car insurance to cover you to protect you through, you know, driving a moving vehicle? Yes, you do. And your car insurance will not cover you like it would a rental car.

So RVShare, and one of the perks of booking through RVShare is that we have built-in RV rental insurance. So within the booking process, you'll go to an RV listing, kind of make sure it fits your needs, and then once you go to book, it then has you opt in for RV insurance, which is about $19 a day for the average package.

Jason Elkins (46:37.625)
But if you already, if you already have it, let's say you've got your own RV somewhere. So you already have some sort of RV insurance. Is that something?

Maddi (46:44.428)
So you would have, you still have to have RV insurance to rent someone else's RV. If you have personal insurance for it, I don't think that'll transfer on to our platform. However, if you are an owner of an RV and you're renting your RV out, it does cover you. So it's, it's a little tricky when it comes to the like nuances, but you.

Jason Elkins (47:03.833)
Okay. All right, but it's not a barrier that's gonna get in the way, like needing a special driver's license or anything crazy. Okay?

Maddi (47:11.982)
Correct. Yes. And you know, there's different ways to really dig your toe into it. A lot of people are worried about driving a larger RV. Obviously there's a ton of different types of make the models. Some of the easier ones to drive are class B RVs, which are, you know, the van life type RVs where it just has, you know, two driver's seats and then a bed in the back and usually a kitchenette and a big sliding door to exit. So kind of like sprinter van style.

You know, those are like driving a minivan. It's really not that hard and they're great for adventuring. They usually come with some, you know, suit of off-roading wheels and amazing, you know, different off-roading perks like solar so that you can run your electricity off-grid. So that those are some of my favorites. Other things we offer is over 60 % of our RVs are actually delivered.

to the destination. So you're probably thinking quintessential RV road trip, multiple stops, cross country. That's a bit ambitious, especially for a first timer. So things that people do is actually have the RV owner deliver an RV to your destination. So say you want to go to Zion National Park, you're going to be there for five nights. You want to try RV camping. You can book a campground spot, have the owner bring in the RV. They'll drive it in, set it up for you, hook it up.

All you have to do is show up to enjoy it and then when your trip's over, you leave, they come and grab it. So it's really not for you to maneuver and the owner will walk you through, you know, how to turn on the lights, to make sure the toilet's flushing correctly, how to use the kitchen sink, whatever. So it's very turnkey and almost like renting a cabin at that point. So that can definitely bring down a lot of barriers for folks.

Jason Elkins (49:08.601)
Yeah, because I'm imagining people are like, I just think of like dump stations. Like I've never really, I've been in an RV, you know, for a weekend with grandparents or whatever, but it's like, yeah, dump stations. You mentioned solar, like the sinks, the cooking, it's just probably could feel a little overwhelming.

Maddi (49:14.445)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (49:32.789)
I would imagine for some people. But even if you are going to rent it and drive it around, I mean, I'm sure you guys have standards for the owners to provide some sort of like owner's manual. my goodness. It sounds like I'm getting a call. I don't even live here. I mean, I live here. It's an Airbnb. Someone's out at the front door. I'm going to, I don't edit my episodes. So give me just a second. I'm going to go make that stop.

Maddi (49:45.518)
Yes.

Yeah.

Maddi (49:57.07)
you

Jason Elkins (50:17.561)
actually will edit that because he's because he's probably gonna do it here again in just a minute so I'm gonna say the word edit so I can go back and search for it edit edit edit edit

Maddi (50:24.735)
no.

Jason Elkins (50:31.917)
give him just a second. So the delivery guys come here to this building and if the person that they wanted to talk to doesn't answer they just call everybody because they think we all just know each other and I'm gonna run upstairs and get them for them. anyway.

Maddi (50:37.228)
Hmm.

Jason Elkins (50:47.959)
Okay, so I'm going try and tie this together so when I edit it goes smoothly here.

Jason Elkins (50:57.977)
Okay, so does the typical owner provide some sort of like owner's manual videos? What is that? What should somebody expect if they rent an RV and they're a little overwhelmed by all that stuff? Or should they just start small?

Maddi (51:11.564)
The RV owner is your best resource when renting an RV. They are gonna be the one that understands their rig the best. And so yeah, they do provide an owner's like manual of sorts. Some even have it digitized on YouTube so you can watch YouTube videos before you head out or you have those in your pocket on the road. You have direct contact with them if anything were to break down or you have a question about how to turn on the air conditioning.

Um, and so they are such a great resource and RV share through our platform also provides like 24 hour customer service and roadside assistance. So you really do have just like a lot of resources for you. Um, but I would say like most of the time when you are going to rent an RV, you get there, you do a walkthrough, you can even do a test drive with the owner to make sure you feel comfortable driving. And yeah, I think there, there was a learning curve, but.

you know, once you kind of get over that hump, it's really, it's, it's not too intimidating.

Jason Elkins (52:16.637)
I'm like you mentioned that the owners, you know, let you do a little test drive, but again, people plan their whole vacation around this. They don't want to figure out the day they get there that, my goodness, I can't drive this thing. And I suspect you know about enough about the industry. Like if somebody really wanted to go see, can I drive a...

I don't even know the sizes, a 25 foot RV, 30 foot RV. Can I drive it? How would I figure that out without renting one? there like, is it common to go to like in it? Can I go to an RV store and say I want to test drive an RV? I guess. I mean, how does that work? I mean, the person will have to make their decision. How do they make that right by the salesperson? I'm not suggesting you show up and say, yeah, I'm thinking about buying an RV. Can I drive this one?

Maddi (52:54.7)
Yeah, yeah, you could.

Jason Elkins (53:06.072)
I'm not sure I got to think about it and walk off the lot. I'm not sure that's ethical. I couldn't do that. But if I went in and said, this is what I'm doing, and can I give you $50 or whatever to let me do a test drive? I don't know. What's your advice?

Maddi (53:06.669)
Yeah.

Maddi (53:17.474)
Well, there's definitely RV dealerships, know, in every major city. Camping World is a huge brand that has a lot full of RVs. I'm sure if you went to, you know, seize and test out some of the RVs, you're probably welcome to drive them. I haven't personally heard of that use case. I've actually heard quite the opposite where people rent before they buy over 30%. Yeah.

Jason Elkins (53:42.809)
Yeah, I can. I suspect that could well, and actually that could be, you know, if if there's any possibility that you can legitimately say to yourself that maybe someday I'll buy, then yeah, you can go there, do the trust. Tell them I'm thinking about getting an RV. But in order for me to do that, I want to rent one for a week first to really make sure it's something I like. But before I ran it, I kind of want to drive one once. Can you help me out? And and if I do enjoy myself and I want to buy one, I'll come back to you. That that probably work, right?

Maddi (53:55.416)
Right.

Maddi (54:12.598)
Yeah, I think so. think there's definitely ways to make that work.

Jason Elkins (54:12.985)
Yeah, that works. Maybe I'm asking you things that just don't come up in your conversations, but all right.

Maddi (54:19.246)
No, I think people are very intimidated by that and probably look for ways. think you could also talk to the local RV owners, say I'm renting from Austin, I'm going to pick up here in my home city, so the RV owner might live down the road for me. So maybe I go do the walkthrough and test drive it before I book the rental. I mean, that's definitely a possibility. I think a more common use case is just making sure

you know, the RV you're renting meets your needs. So, you know, it's like not too intimidating if you're renting a van or a, you know, 20 foot class C RV, which is like what a stereotypical RV style that you would probably think. think renting, you know, a large class A motor coach would be a little hard for your first time.

And then like I said, a lot of people opt for delivery so they can get used to being in an RV maneuvering around an RV before they actually try driving it themselves.

Jason Elkins (55:23.413)
One of the things that has come up with a few conversations I've had with people that work around sailing is probably equally intimidating. I won't say more intimidating. I don't know. It depends on the person, I guess. But like, ooh, I'm intrigued by sailing. I'd love to learn something about sailing, maybe someday buy a sailboat and travel around the world. But they got to start somewhere. I don't think, well, maybe there's sailboats you can rent.

Maddi (55:52.832)
I know there are.

Jason Elkins (55:52.985)
probably the really small ones in a pond. But without having never been on a sailboat. And I've heard a few times go down to the yacht club and just go talk to people. And it's surprising how often you can get involved. I I realize that RV owners don't necessarily need somebody to help with their RV. But I also suspect there's probably social media groups, RV groups, RV owner groups.

Maddi (56:05.326)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Elkins (56:19.545)
that somebody could potentially get involved with and make some friends. I suspect there's people out there that have RVs that really like to go out on the weekends and use RVs. But maybe, I don't want to say maybe they don't have friends, but maybe they don't have friends. So maybe they join an RV group and people that don't have RVs get to go out and hang out with people that do have RVs. I saw that in Arizona. There's the ATV groups. There's people in the ATV groups that don't have an ATV.

Maddi (56:32.341)
Hahaha

Maddi (56:42.37)
Yep.

Jason Elkins (56:46.189)
but they come out and maybe they supply the beer and they ride around with people in their ATVs. So is that an option?

Maddi (56:52.472)
Sure. Yeah, RVing is a big community. It's a huge community mentality. The local campgrounds are usually well connected and have regulars that visit. And there are definitely resources online from different community groups to Facebook pages and things like that. think I found that there's a lot of RV travel influencers and people who kind of manage their own communities.

and have an RVing podcast with an RV Facebook group attached and they do meetups all over the country. there's definitely ways to get more involved within the community before you make like a purchase decision or, you know, start renting without having more knowledge.

Jason Elkins (57:38.873)
Okay. And I'm not sure as the communications person for RV share, I'm not sure. I'm just going to, let's see what happens when I ask this question. I'm sure you've got some stories that probably are funny because anybody that's been around Airbnb has stories of things that have happened in Airbnb's and all this stuff. Some of them Airbnb probably wouldn't want their communications director talking about.

Maddi (57:50.86)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (58:04.653)
But I'm curious if you have any stories or anything in particular that comes to mind that was kind of surprising, funny that somebody might, I don't know. What do you got?

Maddi (58:16.174)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's always RV travel and any type of like road trip travel, something could always happen while on the road. There's always a chance of that. RV share honestly is a really high satisfaction rate. We have 94 % five star reviews and the rest of the reviews are around four stars. are five, did I say five star reviews? And then, you know, I think people just are really enjoy the experience they have with renting.

through our v-share and of course small things happen like backing up into a gas pump and denting the bumper or getting a flat tire or the air conditioning breaking when there's a heat wave. And so all those things pop up quite often and I think it's all in how we handle it and a lot of times that is kind of on the owner to be able to get out there and fix it or find a local.

you know, RV repaired to get out and fix it quickly. And like I said, RV sure has some resources with roadside assistance. I have fortunately even never really experienced a big catastrophic event myself.

Jason Elkins (59:29.059)
I didn't say it'd be catastrophic. It could just be funny. I'm imagining there's like all of you sitting around like reviewing a report from something that happened and you're like, wow, what was that person thinking? It's not that the owner of the RV was involved or that you guys are involved or anything. It's just like, yeah, that person probably should not be renting RVs. We're going to refer them over to Airbnb or something like that. I don't know.

Maddi (59:30.956)
Yeah, like.

Maddi (59:38.339)
Yeah.

Maddi (59:42.99)
You

Maddi (59:52.802)
Yeah.

Maddi (59:57.794)
Yeah, the only thing I can really think of again, like I haven't really heard a lot of crazy, crazy stories besides just minor incidences that allow you to go on with your trip would be, you know, if they do get a flat tire or have some kind of engine breakdown, they just leave the RV like on the side of the road and kind of ditch it. And that obviously isn't the best good faith actor.

Jason Elkins (59:58.039)
Maybe there's nothing.

Jason Elkins (01:00:19.705)
OK, yeah, that would be a good one. Like, what were they thinking? Or I'm sure there's been an RV that has rolled down a boat ramp somewhere, ended up in a lake. I'd say, OK. So anyway, I was just curious if anything came to mind. What else? Because I know you've got some things that you think are really important that people need to hear if they're thinking about RVing.

Maddi (01:00:29.678)
you

Maddi (01:00:34.837)
heard of that one now.

Jason Elkins (01:00:48.141)
We've discussed a lot of things already, but I'm curious, what questions did I forget to ask? Should I have asked? Or what other things do you want to make sure people kind of know about either you, your life, your views on life, relationships, or just RV share in general? What do you got?

Maddi (01:01:01.838)
I know, know Jason, we've covered a lot. I would say, you know, I think just to round out RV travel, if you're somebody who's into any type of adventure, RVing should definitely be on your bucket list. There's so many different ways to experience RV travel. You know, I've gone and rented, you know, an Airstream, which are some of my favorites. They're the nostalgic like silver.

travel trailers and you know, hooked it up to my Volvo and went out to Big Bend National Park, which is one of the most. Yes. On my Volvo. Yeah. Well, it was an SUV. have like a. So it can pull, I think 3,500 and this was at a dry weight of like 2000 or something. Um, so a smaller one and we took it out to Big Bend National Park, parked on some public land and we're really the only people out there. Big Bend is a huge.

Jason Elkins (01:01:34.421)
On your Volvo, on your like Volvo car. But okay. Okay. Okay.

Jason Elkins (01:01:47.597)
Mm-hmm. OK.

Maddi (01:01:58.316)
dark sky location so you can see the Milky Way with your bare eye. It was just incredible. We've also flown to Salt Lake City and rented a camper van and went up to Bozeman, Montana and back heading through Grand Teton and Yellowstone. And so, yeah, just a fantastic way to experience outdoors and you just really get to kind of live in the outdoors with still having those comforts of a bed and a bathroom.

Jason Elkins (01:02:12.653)
That's a nice drive, yeah.

Maddi (01:02:27.148)
which are important to me. And so I think, you know, one other thing I will say is like a huge uptick in interest from the industry is people are renting RVs for events as well. They're taking them to NASCAR races or concerts, sporting events. And so we're seeing a lot of people use them in different ways. And I think that also opens up.

Jason Elkins (01:02:41.654)
makes sense.

Jason Elkins (01:02:49.475)
Can people, could someone rat one and go to Burning Man? I guess, I would think. I don't know if I owned an I don't know Burning Man. haven't been there, but I've got my ideas in my head. And I'm like, if I owned an RV, I'm not, you probably have to give me a lot of money to let me take, let you take, for me to let you take my RV to Burning Man, just based on the stories I have in my head. But, okay.

Maddi (01:02:53.486)
Oh yeah, that's a huge, huge... That's a huge segment for us.

Maddi (01:03:07.628)
Yeah.

Maddi (01:03:15.021)
Yes.

Jason Elkins (01:03:16.833)
So I know that this, do have one more question and it's, I think the answer is, yeah, there's a lot of variables that depends to events, but just in general, you bump into somebody at a restaurant bar or whatever and you tell them what you do and they say, man, I've thought about doing RVing, is it renting an RV? And they say, is it expensive? How do you answer that question?

Maddi (01:03:40.75)
Yeah, so I think Renting RV, it does have a lot of puzzle pieces you kind of do have to put together a little bit. So there is a nightly rate to rent and that really varies depending on what type of make and model you're looking at. So it could be as cheap as like 50 to 80 bucks a night for a small teardrop trailer. It can be up to 300, 350 a night for a larger.

class A motor home and obviously when you get into that price range, it's like, would you rather stay in an RV or, you know, a nice hotel? But just kind of like I've seen across all travel verticals, prices have just gone up and so comparably RV travel is still relatively budget friendly. But then you also have to look at where you're parking it for the night. And there are so many different places that you can now stay with an RV.

And there's been a lot of investment in RV resorts that have resort style pools and access to the beach. And, you know, those could be another hundred bucks a night just to park your vehicle there. So that's when it could get a bit pricey, but there's also a lot of free places to park, free places to camp. State parks, national parks are extremely cheap as well. You know, it might only cost you about 12 bucks to get a camping site there.

And so I think when, depending on what type of trip you're taking, it could add up. But overall, our like a long weekend trip would cost you, you know, only about like 200 bucks a night for an RV rental, just the rental itself.

Jason Elkins (01:05:13.995)
Okay. Is RV share able to facilitate like the where to park it thing? Do you have an affiliation partnership with because there's there's other services out there that really are more focused on RV spots, right? Spots to park. I mean, how does that work?

Maddi (01:05:33.58)
Yeah, so today RVshare is just facilitating the RV rental. We do have partners with almost every campground provider. So whether that's like a KOA, Campgrounds of America, there's a ton of campground OTAs like Camp Spa. And then there's some really cool websites called like Hip Camp or Harvest Hosts that offer up unique places to stay, whether it's on somebody's private land or at a winery or brewery. And so

There are a bunch of different resources out there. I mean, my vision for the industry in the future and hopefully the near future is that those kinds of things become consolidated and it is more turnkey to book those different pieces of a RV trip in one check out.

Jason Elkins (01:06:13.369)
Okay, but when you say RVshare has partnerships, if I go to RVshare and figure, okay, I want an RV in this area, kind of figure that out, how does, like, are you giving me, here's some useful resources to go look for spots to stay, or am I completely on my own? here, hey, we gave you the RV, you're on your own. What does that feel like, do you think, for the customer?

Maddi (01:06:37.517)
you

Yeah, mostly just resources and suggestions of places to stay. On our listings, we encourage our owners to also promote places that they recommend and or that they have relationships with, maybe that they deliver. Yeah, deliver RVs to often because it's the area that they're living in and operating in. So yeah, it would mostly just be resources.

Jason Elkins (01:06:55.065)
because they're in the area.

Jason Elkins (01:07:06.201)
Okay, and then there's always Google. We figure out where to go find restaurants. We can figure out how to find stuff, right? And it's an adventure too. You don't have to have everything planned out, you? Unless you're going to Yellowstone in July. You might want to.

Maddi (01:07:10.327)
Yes.

Maddi (01:07:17.294)
you

Right, it's definitely part of the adventure.

Yes.

Jason Elkins (01:07:30.904)
because I

Jason Elkins (01:07:38.019)
wake up before they come out in the morning. anyway, Maddie, I really appreciate you wealth of knowledge and new ideas and things that I hadn't touched on before. So thank you so much for coming and sharing that with me and our listeners. we've got the link right to your website is in the show notes. So anybody that's inspired to go take a look, then do that. And we've got other people in the industry that I trust you've made some.

Maddi (01:07:38.286)
Yeah.

Jason Elkins (01:08:05.227)
Some good impressions on people today, Maddie. So thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. All right. Talk to you soon.

Maddi (01:08:07.63)
Yeah, thanks for having me on.