By James O'Hern, General Manager, Quirky Campers NZ ยท Updated 11/06/2026
In short: Quirky Campers NZ works with likeminded campervan owners across New Zealand. We handle the bookings, payments, marketing, insurance and customer service so you can focus on your van, the handover and looking after your guests. This page answers the questions owners ask most... what we look for, compliance, how insurance and private-use work, what you can earn, and how to get started.
Thanks for thinking about hiring out your campervan with us! If you'd like the fuller story first, our guide to hiring out your campervan with Quirky Campers NZ walks through what we value and what's involved week to week.
A bit of honesty up front: we say no to more campervans than we say yes to. We're a small outfit, and the business works because owners, guests and the Quirky team all look after the experience together. One thoughtful five-star review lifts every owner on the platform, and the opposite is just as true. We like to give you a straight answer on whether your van is a fit, rather than sign up anything with four wheels.
Handcrafted, individually built campervans finished to a high standard. Style matters, but it can't be only style. A Quirky van needs character and substance, so it has to be reliable, practical and safe as well as lovely to look at. If you're not sure whether yours fits, our blog on easy ways to quirkify your camper is a good gauge.
One thing to flag: we list vans and buses only. We aren't able to take coach-built motorhomes or towable caravans.
The owners who do best tend to share a handful of traits. You don't need every one, but our top performers are most of them:
If you're after something completely hands-off, we're probably not your platform. The relationships between owners, guests and our team are the point, and they're a big part of what sets us apart.
Being near a spot where lots of trips start and finish helps with bookings, but there are no hard and fast rules. Auckland and Christchurch are our two biggest centres thanks to their international airports, and we do well in Hamilton, Wellington, Nelson, Dunedin, Wanaka and Queenstown too. If you're somewhere else, have a chat. Where there's a great van and a great owner, we're usually confident we can find great customers, and you might even be the first Quirky Camper in town.
For most people, yes. There's no escaping that running a van takes real time and effort, but you set your own pick-up and drop-off windows, so you can keep handovers to evenings and weekends if that suits you. Because New Zealand is a long way to come for many of our travellers, most bookings are made weeks or months ahead, which gives you plenty of notice to get organised.
No, and this is a recent change worth knowing about. You no longer need your own Transport Service Licence. Quirky Campers NZ now holds an NZTA Transport Service Licence that covers every van on the platform, and we take legal responsibility for the safety and compliance of the fleet. That's a cost and a piece of paperwork you used to have to sort out yourself, and now you don't.
Your van still needs to be road-legal and safe for hire. Here's what we'll need in place before your listing goes live. We track the expiry dates and chase you in good time, so nothing lapses while your van is out on a trip.
| Certificate | What it is |
|---|---|
| Certificate of Fitness (CoF) | A six-monthly commercial safety inspection (instead of a Warrant of Fitness). Around $100, depending on the size of your van. |
| Vehicle registration (rego) | Current registration so your van can legally be on the road. |
| Green self-containment certificate | The green sticker standard: a fixed toilet, fresh and grey water tanks, and rubbish containment. You'll need this for freedom camping. |
| Gas Safety Certificate | Only where applicable: for any fixed gas appliances such as a cooker or water heater. |
| Electrical Warrant of Fitness | Only where applicable: for any van with a 240V campsite hook-up. |
Useful background reading: VTNZ on the Certificate of Fitness, the New Zealand Self-Containment Vehicles register, and WorkSafe NZ on gas and electrical safety.
If you're partway through a build, or thinking about buying a van with hire in mind, get in touch early. We can give you an honest steer on what's needed before you spend money.
All our vans are certified self-contained to the green sticker standard, which means a fixed toilet on board. That's what lets guests freedom camp legally in many parts of the country. If you'd like to see how it's pitched to customers, our 2026 freedom camping guide and our vans fit for freedom camping are both worth a look.
No. We provide fully comprehensive insurance for your van while it's on hire, through Vero, one of New Zealand's largest insurers, with 24/7 AA roadside assistance included. The cost is built into the rental price, so you don't arrange or pay for hire insurance separately. You can see exactly how the cover is presented to guests in our campervan insurance guide and on the customer FAQs.
While your van is on hire, accidental damage to the vehicle is covered under our comprehensive policy, along with third-party liability. Guests choose a protection plan at checkout (Ready Traveller, Relaxed Traveller or Carefree Traveller), and the excess for any damage sits with the customer based on the plan they picked, recovered from their security deposit or card where fair. Minor marks and any extra cleaning are covered by the customer's deposit and our cleaning charges, not by you.
We manage the claim and the conversation with the customer, and we'll keep you in the loop throughout. The one thing our policy doesn't cover is lost income while your van is off the road for repairs, so it's worth bearing that in mind.
Yes on both counts. You control your own availability calendar, so you can block out the dates you want the van for yourself. (The more you keep free for guests, the higher your returns are likely to be, but that's entirely your call.) Our fleet insurance covers your own private use of the van as well as customer hires, so for most owners there's no need to run a separate personal policy alongside it. If you have an unusual setup, it's worth checking the specifics with us first.
Yes, but the booking needs to go through our system as usual to ensure you are covered. One thing worth knowing: friends and family bookings sit on our Ready Traveller protection plan by default, which carries a $3,500 excess and a $2,000 security deposit. So before you hand the keys over, make sure whoever's driving is comfortable with those numbers. Running it through the system has real upsides too: it captures the right driver details, sends the booking confirmations and reminders, blocks the dates on your calendar, and gives you a bit of useful formality if anything happens.
Vans get bumped from time to time, but it's relatively rare, and when it does happen you're not the one left out of pocket. Accidental damage to the vehicle is handled through our comprehensive policy, with the excess sitting with the customer on their chosen protection plan. We document the incident, manage the claim and recover costs from the customer where it's fair to do so.
Glass works the same way. A windscreen chip repaired during the trip is covered by us up to $120, and a full replacement falls under the customer's protection plan (covered in full for Carefree Traveller guests). You can read more in our guide to safe campervan hire, which covers how we look after both guests and owners on the road.
We charge an all-inclusive price to the customer and deduct 33% to cover everything we do: the insurance for your van on hire, the website and marketing that bring the bookings in, payment processing, customer service and incident support. You keep the other 67%. We know 33% sounds like a lot at first glance, but it covers a genuine amount of work and cost, and most owners find it more than pays for itself in bookings and peace of mind. If you bring in a booking yourself, through your own website or social media for instance, the deduction drops to 25%.
It depends on your van, your location, how much you make it available, and you. As a rough guide, owners take home somewhere between $8,000 and $28,000 a year. Last season our established owners averaged around $16,000 after our fee, with plenty returning north of $20,000. We've written a separate guide to owner earnings that goes into the detail properly, so we'll point you there rather than labour it here.
We run owner payouts twice a week, so you're never waiting long after a trip wraps up. For diesel vans, we also calculate the Road User Charges for each hire, charge the customer at the NZTA rate (no mark-up and no processing fee), and pass that straight through to you as part of your payout.
For GST, only if you're turning over more than the threshold, which is currently $60,000. Please check with an accountant or the IRD rather than take our word on anything tax related.
It varies a lot by season. Across the year, the average Quirky owner handles somewhere between five and ten bookings, with an average length of around 15 days. In the summer peak (December to February) you'll be busy with handovers and turnarounds, often two to four hours per changeover. The shoulder seasons are more relaxed, and winter (May to September) is quiet, which is the ideal time for servicing and the little fixes you've been meaning to get to.
A clear split of responsibilities is one of the things that makes the partnership work. Here's how it breaks down.
| What Quirky Campers NZ handles | What you handle |
|---|---|
| Listing build, photography guidance, pricing and owner support | Owning and maintaining your campervan |
| Insurance covering customer hires and your private use | Staying compliant with government and Quirky rules |
| Enquiries, bookings and front-line customer service | Handovers, walkthroughs and return inspections |
| Customer and owner payments | Cleaning and turnaround between hires |
| Website, marketing and customer traffic | Supporting your guests during the trip itself |
| Incident management and roadside issues | Your calendar and your own personal use |
As a minimum we ask you to offer bedding and towels, and to stock the basics: a few pantry staples, cleaning supplies, a first aid kit and a fire blanket or extinguisher. Beyond that it's up to you, so have some fun with it. Popular additions include awning tents, bike racks, paddleboards and fishing rods, and you keep everything you charge for those, commission-free.
Every van on the platform has a GPS tracker fitted. We provide the unit and pay the ongoing subscription, and you just arrange (or carry out) the installation. It's there mainly to help locate the van if it's ever stolen and to alert us in the event of an accident, and it quietly encourages good driving, which is good for your van and everyone else's. If you ever leave us, you can send the unit back or buy it at cost.
Within reason. The name has to be unique on our system (if there's already a Maggie, you can't have a second one), and we're a little picky because the name becomes part of your van's brand. A few rules of thumb that tend to work: single-word names of an actual person land best, steer clear of adjectives and anything inspired by the van's shape, colour or size, and please, no puns, unless it's a truly great one. A quick Google of your shortlist is always worth doing.
We'd love owners to list exclusively with us, which avoids double bookings and mix-ups, but we can be flexible at the start, especially so you can honour any existing bookings. If you do dual-list for a while, we ask that you advertise the van at the same fully-loaded price everywhere. If you've got any concerns about exclusive or dual listing, just raise it with us and we'll talk it through.
Most owners go from first enquiry to a live listing in about four to six weeks, depending on how ready the van is. It looks like this:
The best first step is simply to get in touch. We're happy to answer questions, look at photos, or just have a chat to see whether it's worth pursuing. If you'd like a sense of the vans we already work with, take a look at our current fleet.
Ready to talk? Send us a few photos of your van and a paragraph about you and its story, and we'll come back to you as soon as we can. Questions, photos, or just a chat, all welcome.
Email: campervansnz@quirkycampers.com
Call or text: +64 20 454 9364
