My family has camped for as long as I can remember. As a kid, it was a fun excuse to sleep outside and kick over rocks to look for bugs and build fires. As an adult, I realize that it was one of the most economical ways to spend time out of the city. Most essential gear, like a cast iron pan, sleeping bags, and some mismatched assorted cutlery, could be purchased from Goodwill for a few dollars. Most of the time my brother and I slept outside on vinyl outdoor three-fold patio chairs instead of on the ground.
More than an economical getaway, camping was often an event that incorporated much of my extended family. My aunt owns property around Ash Fork, Arizona, and every year the land owner's association would throw a party, to which we were all invited. Aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins trekked up north in minivans and motorhomes to make a proverbial wagon circle to escape the Phoenix heat.
Flash forward 20 years, and I'm a father of 4 with a 2004 Coleman pop-up trailer trying to give my kids a similar experience of playing (mostly) unsupervised in the forest, looking for bugs and peeing on trees. A solid group of my friends have capable rigs, and we often go camping together, but there is another cohort that repeatedly states that they don't have the gear or don't have the means to purchase or store the gear. Doing some Google Trends exploration revealed a predictable pattern of people searching for information on camping with families and renting camping gear.
Looking at the nearest location for renting gear, it was obvious that we were outside the service area for the established companies providing this service. The next obvious step would be to look for companies that delivered gear, and the result was the same. We were outside the delivery area. Now, there is a service that will mail you gear and you mail it back, but anyone with young kids knows that plans can change at any moment, and you're one meltdown or "jump, jump, crash" game away from scrapping plans and just trying to survive the weekend. No option provided day-before or day-of rental solutions.
All this context is to say, there is a gap in the market for providing camping gear and accessories to northwest Phoenix and adjacent cities. Moreover, there is not a focus on entry-level packages that cost about the same as a hotel room. And, like a hotel room, doesn't require you to clean the gear before returning it.
I hope that anyone who gets an invitation from a friend to go camping or anyone who wants to test it out and make sure their kids and/or spouse enjoy the outdoors before committing to purchase gear has a low-barrier option to say "yes" to the opportunity. Our product offerings will continue to evolve over time to provide additional creature comforts that elevate camping from the more Spartan images if the past (12v refrigerators are a game changer over ice coolers).
If you're outside our service area, or you want a piece of gear that's not listed on the site, please send us a message on the contact form. I look forward to enabling more people to experience and fall in love with the forests and deserts that our state has to offer. Maybe you'll end up with a similar experience of waking up and being nose-to-nose with a cow sniffing you (that really happened to me).
-Jesse
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