JP and Christiaan Voogt joined Pippa Hudson on CapeTalk's Wander the World. Listen to the full interview and read what we said about renting a caravan in SA.
On Tuesday 4 August 2026, Pippa Hudson handed the Wander the World slot on CapeTalk 567 over to a subject most South Africans have a strong opinion about: the caravan standing in the garage. JP Voogt and Christiaan Voogt joined her on air for twenty one minutes, and the WhatsApp line turned into a national caravan confessional almost immediately. Childhood holidays. Rainy weeks in a four sleeper. One listener who still remembers a caravan waiting for her family at Hartenbos more than ten years ago.
The full audio is below, along with the parts worth reading if you would rather skim than listen.
Pippa set the problem up better than we usually do. A caravan is a serious amount of money for something that might be used a few weeks a year and gathers dust the rest of the time. Is it a sensible buy?
JP's answer was that he had already lost that argument with himself.
The whole idea sparked from me buying my dream caravan and parking it in the garage for three years. I used it once or twice. If I sold it I was going to lose money, so there had to be another way to make money from it.
He builds software for a living, so the second step was not a classified ad. It was a platform. Five years later Kampi has close to 400 campers listed around the country and has put more than 6,000 trips on the road. Off road trailers, road caravans, rooftop tents, motorhomes, and lately inflatable tents, which nobody saw coming.
Pippa asked why anyone would choose a caravan over a hotel or a self catering house. This is the line JP keeps coming back to.
No one lies in bed and dreams of a caravan. They dream of the freedom. The outdoors. The kids off their screens.
Christiaan added the version he uses on owners. People who love chalets and hotels are going somewhere to relax. Campers are going somewhere to be busy. You know something is going to go wrong, you know a tent peg is going to fight you, and that is exactly what breaks your head out of the work week. Kamp is werk, net lekkerder werk as die kantoor.
Say you want to take the family away in the Western Cape. You search by pickup area, not by where you live. That distinction matters more than people expect: if you are in Cape Town and heading for the Kruger, you do not have to tow a caravan the length of the country and back. Rent one near the park instead.
From there you filter. Dates, budget, type of camper, and the one filter South Africans forget about until it is too late: what your driving licence actually allows you to tow. If you got your licence after 2000 you probably hold a Code B, which caps you at a 750 kg trailer, and almost every caravan in the country is heavier than that. Flick the filter on and you only see campers you can legally tow. We wrote the long version in the EB licence guide, and the lighter campers live on the Code B page.
Pick a camper, send a booking request, and the owner decides. Most listings work on request rather than instant booking, and the owner has up to three days to answer. That is also when the two of you talk. Where you are going, what road, how many people. Owners say yes to trips they are comfortable with, and a chat usually settles it faster than a form does.
After payment, Kampi takes over the admin: insurance where the camper carries it, identity and KYC checks, and the paperwork if you are crossing a border. When the trip ends, we handle the breakage deposit and anything that needs to be claimed.
Fair question, and it went to Christiaan, who runs operations.
There is a vetting process. The vehicle has to be roadworthy, rentable and presentable before a renter gets it.
The part renters underuse: you can arrange to see the camper before you commit. Owners are generally happy to show it. If you are booking a two week trip through the Berg or the Kalahari, an hour in someone's driveway beforehand is cheap insurance against discovering on day one that the fridge is smaller than your cooler box.
Our departure checklist covers what to look at while you are standing there.
Two listeners, one question. Robin wanted to know about caravans already standing at caravan parks. Charles, back from the Kruger and admirably honest about it, wanted someone else to do the towing so he could move in.
The timing was almost suspicious, because we had launched exactly that a week earlier. Kampi Adventures is a separate stream on the platform where owners offer towing and setup, and where some campers are already pitched at a resort waiting for you. You arrive, you unlock the door, your holiday starts. There are tow and setup listings running now, along with full experiences that bundle the camper with the destination.
Both halves stay on the platform. Tow it yourself if half the fun is the towing. Let someone else do it if it is not.
Pippa asked what a complete novice should be warned about. JP's answer was not a warning, it was a habit worth copying.
People planning three weeks in Botswana or the Tankwa will often book a weekend first, in the same caravan they plan to take. They learn how it tows and how it works before they commit.
You find out what you actually need in one weekend. How much you can pack. How much light. Whether your partner needs a toilet inside at two in the morning, which JP happily admits is a real requirement in his house while he is fine falling off a rooftop tent ladder.
This is the whole argument for renting before buying, and we have made it at length in rent before you buy and renting versus buying a caravan in South Africa. Die Afrikaanse weergawe staan in ons huurgids.
Pippa put the pricing question the way listeners had asked it, and the honest answer is that the range is wide. Caravans start at around R400 a day. While we were talking she was scrolling the site herself and found a full four sleeper at R790 a day. Motorhomes sit at the top, roughly R2,000 to R3,500 a day. Her own read, live on air, was that even the expensive end still works out cheaper than a hotel stay or an Airbnb.
Owners set their own prices.
We guide you. We can say a caravan like yours in your area usually goes for somewhere between this and this. But you can list it at R8,000 a day if you want. That does not guarantee you a single booking. I am not going to tell you what your caravan is worth.
What we did not have time for on air is the rest of the number. Most owners charge a cleaning fee, a few charge for delivery, and every booking carries a refundable breakage deposit that comes back to you after the trip. Some campers carry insurance and some do not, so read the listing rather than assuming. The full breakdown sits on the booking screen before you pay anything, so add it up there instead of judging a camper on the daily rate alone. Owners pricing their own listings should read the high season pricing guide.
Christiaan made the owner case in one number.
If you camp one weekend a month, you use your caravan two weeks in a fifty two week year. For fifty weeks it stands in your garage.
That is the whole business in a sentence. Kampi has been doing this for five years now, which means the awkward parts have already happened to someone else and been built into the process: vetting, deposits, verification, claims. Owners who want the detail can start on the host page, and the listing health score guide explains why some listings get booked and near identical ones do not.
Pet friendly is the owner's call, not ours. Some owners welcome dogs, some do not, and it is stated on the listing. If the Jack Russells are coming, filter for it and ask the owner directly.
Nadia wrote in to say the best thing about camping is that it takes you where most people do not go, and named Beaverlac in the Cederberg, a valley outside Porterville with no electricity, no reception and no laid out sites. You pick a spot under the trees and that is that. It is exactly the kind of place a caravan or trailer gets you to and a hotel booking never will.
August and September are also Namaqualand flower season, and the Women's Day long weekend lands on 8 to 10 August. Both fill up faster than people plan for.
If the interview did its job, you are somewhere between curious and committed. Search for a camper near your pickup point, book a weekend before you book the big trip, and take the checklist with you.
If you own a caravan, trailer or motorhome that has not moved since December, list it. Ours sat in a garage for three years and became a company.
Thanks to Pippa Hudson and the CapeTalk team for the airtime, and to every listener who sent a message in. The rest of the coverage, including the News24 feature and the reviews two strangers wrote after testing the site, is collected in Kampi in the news. More about how the platform works is on our about page.