who are the new motorhome owners?

ReportageA very small interior, but incomparable access to the great outdoors. Nomadic life on tires is attracting more and more French people. Some have even chosen to make the motorhome their full-time home. They live there, work there, create new networks. But are sometimes frowned upon by regulars…

Four beds, a shower, a fridge, 26,000 km on the clock. And the happy prospect of improvised mop weekends or nature vacations with the family. At the wheel of his streamlined Chausson Welcome motorhome, acquired second-hand in August 2021, the author of these lines has joined the brotherhood of bitumen hedonists. Becoming a camper van owner means leaving the motorway, exploring the departmental roads and integrating an endearing community, now established well beyond retired couples. It also means integrating a community with changing faces, as evidenced by these encounters made during wanderings through France.

Amandine, Erwan and their baby: young nomadic family

At 543 meters above sea level, at the top of the Puy du Gaud, in Creuse, Amandine and Erwan (they requested anonymity) know that they have the most beautiful panorama of the valley. But not for long: they are only here to allow their loved ones to come up and admire their baby, at this new area for motorhomes, free and fully equipped, along which pilgrims pass on their way to Compostela.

Amandine and Erwan, seasonal workers living year-round in a truck with their baby, met in Les Vans, Ardèche, on May 20, 2022.

Because their machine – a long white truck bought from an event company overwhelmed by the pandemic and fitted out by them – is too big for the car parks of Bénévent-l’Abbaye. The next day, these thirty-somethings will head for the Ardèche and the Chassezac gorges, where a nautical base awaits them to liven up the summer season, bringing the kayakers and their equipment back to the starting point. “I worked for twelve months in a construction company, with five weeks off, and I didn’t like the routine. And then, changing activity every three months and therefore no longer repeating the same gestures, it allows you to mess up your body less »explains Erwan. During the rest of the year, he carries out extensions of houses in ecological materials, mainly across Brittany. His home on tires will lead him to where his next missions will take place. The motorhome has made Amandine and him a couple of nomadic workers.

Among the many upheavals caused by the pandemic is the French motorhome boom: sales are exploding in both new and second-hand vehicles. Indie Campers, a major rental platform, saw its business jump 150% last year. Craftsmen capable of transforming an ordinary van into a converted van are flourishing on the Web. Thus, more than 100,000 leisure vehicles were registered last year: a record. So much so that almost half of French motorhome owners have been there for less than five years.

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