Go West Motorhomes are a Canadian motorhome rental company, although no one in Canada actually calls them "motorhomes" - they're known as "RVs", or "recreational vehicles". Go West have offices in Calagary, Vancouver and Toronto. They also sell RVs, but I'm assuming none of you are in the market for a new Canadian RV.
We rented an RV from their Vancouver branch in British Columbia.
-------------Website-------------
Go West's websites are a little confusing. I personally found them and booked through www.motorhomesworldwide.com, which is, ironically, an Australian agency, although I didn't realise it at the time. That website has lots of information, specifications and pictures of the various RVs available, and also deal with some other companies in Canada. The advantage of using this website is that they'll quote you in a range of currencies, including pounds and euros.
However, if you want it straight from the horses' mouth, you can also find them at www.gowestcampers.com, and a slightly different site at www.go-west.com. You can deal with them direct, but the quotes will be in Canadian dollars (which are roughly 2.3 to the GBP).
------------Vehicles------------
Go West offer a range of vehicles. The smallest are Kombi style van conversions. The largest are the size of a bus, and larger than the flat I was living in at the time! Most are standard style motorhomes - where the cabin is actually integrated into the home bit at the back. Even smallest are bigger than the small ones you see pottering around on English lanes - they don't need small ones in Canada because everything is BIG there, including the roads!
Our van was a little unusual - it was described as a 10 foot truck camper, and I chose it because it looked like it was the smallest one on offer. Boy, was I wrong. What it actually was was a Ford F250 super turbo charged diesel V8 utility truck with a camper on the back. It was absolutely enormous - 3.85 metres tall, 22 foot long (see the photo attached - I'm 6 foot tall and hubby is slightly taller, to give you a sense of perspective). I never managed to find out what particular fragment of it could be described as "10 foot". I was frankly quite terrified when I saw it - it was my first experience at driving on the "wrong" side of the road and hadn't expected to be doing it in a monster-truck. However, it was an automatic, and it turned out to be a doddle - the only tricky bit was remembering how high you were, when driving near overhanging trees. Conveniently, the height was written on the mirrors, so you didn't have to remember it.
There are some differences between the truck campers and standard motorhomes. With the truck camper, you cannot access the camper bit from the truck - you have to go to the door in the back. With a motorhome the cabin is open to the back, which is more convenient in wet and cold weather. On the plus side, however, the bed above the cabin in the truck camper is much larger and has much more head room than in the motorhomes. There was no construction work necessary before going to bed each night. In the smaller motorhomes, there is far less head room above the cabin and you can't sit up properly on the bed, and so most people end up using the double bed which gets made from assembling the dining table each evening, which I think would get very annoying.
----------Costs-------------
The costs vary according to type of vehicle, where you're going, what time of year it is and how long your trip is. The general pricing structure is broken down into seasons. Off Season (Jan-early June and late September to December) is the cheapest, then there is Shoulder Season (mid-June to mid July and mid August to mid September), and the High Season. This is very generous, particularly for British Columbia, because the weather there is so mild that travelling in May and June is lovely.
They charge a daily rate for the bare RV, depending upon the season. Then there are all the extras - insurance, cleaning, mileage, gas (for the cooker), chemicals for the toilet, bedding and utensils etc. Unless you live there and can easily bring your own kit, the extras are all pretty much necessary.
They also offer other add-ons, such as bicycles, inflatable canoe, camping chairs, TV, and baby seats. There are also additional costs for additional drivers (other than spouses), one way rentals and US border crossings.
I've attached an image of their 2005 brochure, to give you an idea of costs.
I found the system of quoting a bit confusing, but this is probably more the agency's fault than Go West's. I would send a list of requirements to the agency who would email me back a standard form quote, which I found very confusing.
We hired our RV for 10 days. The daily rate plus the standard extras came to a total of CAD 847.40, which was about £400. As it turned out, due to some confusion with the agency this quote hadn't included mileage, and we had to pay an additional CAD 0.30 per km, which added around £140 to the total bill.
We also rented an inflatable canoe and camping chairs for a few dollars a day.
We had to pay most of this in advance, and only paid for the mileage and the extras on arrival. Upon arrival, we also had to leave a deposit of CAD 1,500 (approx £720) and a cleaning deposit of CAD 150 (approx £70). These were both charged to our credit card and then refunded upon return.
Comprehensive insurance was included in the cost - the excess was around £720. Unlike car rental here in the UK, they did not offer an excess waiver policy. I had looked into getting one before I left, but could only find annual policies for Canada, rather than single trips. Luckily, we didn't need any recourse to the insurance policy. Such a heft excess does amazing things to focus the mind! In addition to this, the insurance did not cover collisions with stationary objects, nor any collisions when reversing if there was no-one guiding the driver (more later). It was actually a condition of our rental agreement not to ever reverse the RV without a guide!
-------------Arrival------------
One nice touch offered by Go West is their free transfers. They will pick you up from any hotel in downtown Vancouver and drop you off when you return the vehicle. This is good because whilst the rental office is relatively central, it's not near any public transport, and so would require taxis otherwise. We stayed in a hotel they'd not heard of before but that didn't cause any difficulties.
When we arrived at the office, we were greeted and directed to our RV and told to have a look around while we were waiting for the appropriate staff member to deal with us. This gave me some time to pick my jaw up off the ground and recover from my initial fright at the size of the thing we had rented!
The staff are multi-lingual, speaking French, German and Dutch at least.
The woman who helped us was absolutely marvellous, and I felt like bundling her up in a suitcase and taking her with us. I think she was Swiss, but she spoke perfect English. They tell you when booking that it takes an hour and a half to get your RV, and it really does.
We were shown around the interior of the RV, and every little thing was explained. They assume you know nothing whatsoever about RVs, which is good, but they manage to instruct you without making you sound like a complete moron. The van came kitted out with almost everything we could ask for - bedding, including spare pillows and blankets, towels, dishes, cutlery, pots and pans etc. There was a full size cooker and oven with extraction fan, a microwave oven, a large sink, table and chairs and plenty of cupboards to stow everything away. There were two wardrobes with hangers for clothing. There was a heater, air conditioner, 2 way fan and CD player.
There was a chemical toilet and internal shower, and enough chemicals and cleaning gear to last the trip. We were shown how to fill, empty and clean the tanks.
The tour included how to drive the thing, including instructions on how to use a column shift, which I hadn't used before. A large folder containing all the instructions, including troubleshooting guides and emergency phone numbers was provided. Finally, we were taken around the RV and every tiny little mark was noted on the rental agreement. Two sets of keys were provided.
In the office we paid what was left outstanding. There had been confusion about what was included in my quote, and they were very good about making sure I wasn't being charged twice.
The only little niggle I have is that they don't provide a lighter for the cooker. I was a little annoyed about that, because the girl showing us around had had one to show us how it worked. She later tried to sell us one, and I had refused, thinking there was already one in the van. Given how comprehensive the kit was otherwise, I thought it was a little odd not to include something so necessary.
Like most rentals, they require the RV returned with a full tank of petrol. 2 tanks of propane gas were included in the rental cost, and we were not required to replace these. In order to get your cleaning bond back, they require you to leave the water tank full, the waste tanks empty and the van clean. The RVs must be returned between 9am and 10am. They give you the addresses of local RV parks and recommend you stay in one on your last night, so you're not driving too far. The park we stayed in had a proper RV washing station, and it cost us around $5 and half an hour to clean the van down before returning it in the morning. We were refunded the whole of our deposit.
The other nice touch they offer is to keep your suitcases - we were travelling light so didn't use this service, but we noticed other people unpacking and then leaving their empty suitcases at the office.
They give you directions to the local supermarkets and where you can park easily. They also provide maps, ferry timetables and loads of tourist information brochures.
-------------- The RV---------------
Our RV was a year old, and our rental was the first of the season. We had only one problem with the RV during the trip - the water heating system didn't work. After much experimentation we decided that there must have been a valve or tap somewhere that hadn't been opened when the van was taken out of storage after winter, because the gas was firing properly. We didn't find this a problem, because we simply boiled the kettle for washing up, and we never used the shower in the van at all, because we stayed at campsites the entire time. As it wasn't a problem, we didn't bother calling them to come and fix it. Had we been intending to camp outside the campgrounds, we would have had to call them.
We had no other reason to call them during the holiday, so I can't review their call out service.
As it turned out, the rental of the chairs was not really necessary - every single campsite we stayed in had a picnic table for each van and we could have got by easily without them. They would have been more useful if we were camping by the side of the road.
The inflatable 2 man canoe was pretty much a complete waste of time - it was just a toy, really, and when the two of us were in it it just went around in circles, because it had no keel or rudder to keep it straight. We struggled with it in a couple of beautiful mountain lakes, but probably would have been better off with the money. It wasn't expensive
--------------Returning the RV------------
Returning the RV was straight forward. They were very busy, so we had to wait awhile. We were actually half an hour late, but no one complained. Someone inspected the van, then we completed the paperwork. We had to pay for some mileage, which was deducted from the deposit. We were then given a lift back to our hotel. The van inspection was done without us present, but I assume that if there were a problem they would have showed us what they were charging us for. They encourage you to leave any unused groceries behind - whether for the staff or the next renter I don't know, but it's nice not to be wasting things.
-----------------Recommendation---------------
Renting an RV is a relatively cost effective means of travel. All up the 10 day driving holiday cost us around £700, including petrol. £70 a day for 2 people for travel and accommodation is really quite good value.
I would definitely recommend Go West. We found the service and attention to detail largely excellent (except for the lighter!) They were incredibly friendly, and they go out of their way to make sure that everything you might possibly need is covered. The van was immaculate, had everything we needed and was very easy to drive.
Driving is really the only way to see British Columbia - I highly recommend it!
