behind the counter x Saskia
La Karavana | The outdoor hostelbus, Netherlands
This week behind the counter, we are excited to have Eileen, Jolisa, Lisa and Saskia, who are not just super cool humans who had the courage to make their dreams come true, but they’re also proud co-owners of La Karavana, the outdoor hostelbus!
Join us as we pick their brain on the super cool concept of creating a “mobile hostel on wheels”, the inspiration behind it, the uplifting journey so far and the challenges they faced on the way.
How did you all meet? and what was life like before?
Initially, we started off as four people which included myself, Jolisa, Lisa and Eileen. Jolisa is actually my twin sister, so we first met each other 31 years ago in our mother’s womb, haha. Luckily, Jolisa and I share the same work ethics and we enjoy similar things.
Lisa and I met each other in 2016 at work; we were working behind a bar at an event place somewhere in the Netherlands. We soon started hanging out and we travelled together too. One day we came up with the idea of hosting people and then from two, we became three when Jolisa came aboard too.
Eileen popped in a bit later, but it’s been a success and it’s super nice working together. Eileen’s actually a friend of my sisters. They worked together at a festival and they’ve been on trips together too. Jolisa works as a travel guide for organised trips for mentally disabled people and Eileen joined her once when they needed someone to cover for another guide that was sick and couldn’t join! This was a success!
Eileen and Lisa didn’t know each other before, so we all actually met each other a week before we signed up to be a company.
Lisa’s not with the company anymore but she was there right from the beginning for almost one and a half years, right before we went on our first trip, so she’s been a huge part of our journey so far. She’s now focussing on her jewelry business and couldn’t combine the two anymore.
The hostelbus is a very unique hostel concept. What was the inspiration behind it?
The inspiration actually came to me when I was travelling in 2019. I was sort of in contact with a company that had another similar concept and I was meant to be the host at that hostel.
It was a bus as well and they wanted to sell the bus because they stopped the company and just start living somewhere in a house instead.
A couple of minutes after I got to know, I thought to myself, “Why don’t I just buy the bus?”
Of course, that turned out to be quite expensive but I already had the seed planted in my head by then.
I knew it would have been nice to start a hostel but I don’t like to be stuck in one place, I like to keep moving. Everything kind of felt right, made sense and came perfectly together.
I realised I could actually start a hostelbus myself, which is sort of the perfect combination of running a hostel, working, traveling as well and having adventures and stuff. So that’s when I started looking for teammates and then we ended up with the four of us.
We all sat down to assess how much money we needed? Is it even realistic? and we started making a plan, about what we need like driving license for trucks and research about permits.
So we wrote it all down and after that, we asked ourselves, “can we actually do this?” and the answer was yes! We decided to give it a try and then we found the bus on the Dutch eBay site!
What were the challenges you faced when you were getting the ball rolling? How has it been so far?
I think the biggest challenge so far was more with the building process. We had a lot of water leaks, and there was water everywhere seeping through the windows and gaps. That took months for us to fix and if you don’t fix the water you cannot start building because otherwise all the wood gets wet, dirty and spoilt. So I think that was our biggest challenge.
As for the permits, it’s like a concept that no one knows, so that was also an advantage in a way because there are no rules, really.
Sometimes it’s also difficult because, for example, the insurance companies don’t really understand what we’re doing like they ask us — are you a company? Are you a hostel? Are you a van? What do you want to get insured for? So there weren’t many people that wanted to insure us, so the insurance along with the water leak were the biggest challenges. So now there’s only one company that’s willing to insure us, but they end up asking for a lot of money.
What are the kind of trips guests can opt for? How does it work?
Guests can either book a single bed for one of the organised trips or a group can book the entire bus. It works both ways.
So you can either come to us and say “hey, I’m a group with seven people, for example, and I want to do a trip, let’s say, in this particular province of Netherlands,” so we customise and actually make a trip for the group, because we obviously, know a lot of places in the Netherlands. Based on their interest, we suggest the activities like mountain biking, kayaking, etc (since we are mostly outside and we like to do outdoor activities). The trips we create are also great for solo travellers too and it’s really nice to see that in a couple of days, they all become like family.
So we sort of make personalized trips, but we also have our own trips. For example, in march we’ll go to Groningen, which is a northern province of the Netherlands and we’ve already chalked out that trip and we’ve included activities like kayaking, sailing and climbing too. So people can, just like a hostel, book one bed or they can book three beds and also opt for the experiences and activities they are interested in.
We really want to go abroad this year because last year we were limited to the Netherlands and because of the COVID situation it was more difficult to go abroad. However, this year we will go abroad and we’re thinking about our next destination and will probably finalise it within the next 2 weeks. The trips abroad will be longer, of course, about 7 -10 days. So again, you can just book a bed on one of the trips we’re already doing and they are going to be available online in the next month for the coming year, 2022. You can also just email us or call us and say “hey! I want to do a weekend or a week, can you create a trip for me and my friends?” and we’d be happy to tell you all about it and book it for you.
All-in-all though it’s been a super great journey already for almost two years now and there’s so much positive energy we get from it, it’s really nice!
What is your personal philosophy about hospitality?
I think for us, the ultimate goal is for the people who hop on the bus to feel inspired, and to believe anything is possible when they get off the bus. We want people to feel good and know that you don’t need to wait to do something, you just need to do it; it doesn’t matter how big or small.
Like we figured we’re not experienced builders or something and we didn’t have a driving license and other things, but we kept going and kept learning and now we have our own hostel bus!
So for us, the reason why we do what we do is to bring people together and for people to inspire each other and also for them to sort of see the world in a more beautiful way.
Besides inspiring people, we’d love to bring people to beautiful places, get out of the ‘rat race’ for a while, slow down and explore! Then hopefully by doing that and just chatting to us and other travellers, they get inspired to not only do what is expected of them, but also what they want to do themselves.
I just hope that when people get off the bus that they’re super positive and would recommend it to other people they know, because it’s important for people to feel comfortable with us and feel like they’re part of like a family!
