Dad knew what to do after an expensive vacation disappointment

A father accidentally turned a holiday disappointment into a successful business. Tom Davies, 35, from Crosby, traveled to Iceland in 2017 with his wife Kayleigh and son Harry, who was six months old at the time.

There was one thing the family felt disappointed about on vacation. Speaking to the ECHO, Tom said: “We went on a trip to Iceland – me, my wife and six-month-old. I traveled in a caravan.

“I paid a fortune for it, but it was hell to say the least. The ride was still great. On the back end, I thought in a nicer van with a little more comfort, it would be even bigger.”

They were disappointed with how little work had been done to improve the caravan, with an old-fashioned interior and basic amenities. Around the same time, Tom was preparing to leave his father’s manufacturing business to strike out on his own, but his original plans had fallen through.

He said: “My background is in engineering. I had been working for my father since I left school. It got to the point where it was clear that my old boy wasn’t going to retire anytime soon. I wanted to do something of my own.

“I wanted to renovate a property but the one I had chosen was a listed building. It became a headache because of it. I withdrew from the project. I was leaving work in a few weeks.

“I thought about buying a van, building it up and flipping it. I never set out to become a business. But the first van sold quickly.

“Then I did another one. That customer had a rental company. After that, customers came knocking on the door through word of mouth and social media.”

Camper Camper was founded in late 2018 and is based in St Helens. Since then, hundreds of people have seen their basic empty vans transformed into luxury vehicles ready for road trips around the world.

One of their clients was Piers Linney, an entrepreneur on the BBC’s Dragons Den. Like many other customers, he equipped his caravan with underfloor heating and solar panels so he could sunbathe on the roof.

However, Tom’s biggest highlight was transforming his own caravan. Together with Kayleigh and children Harry, now eight, and Joseph, two, and nine-month-old Elsie, they traveled around Europe, visiting France, Italy and Switzerland.

Tom believes that skepticism about caravan holidays, including from his wife, who was “never that adventurous”, has dissipated in recent years. He said: “Obviously Instagram helped. The lifestyle people post about van living helps.

“When I started this, not many people were doing it. We were quite different. I was doing unusual things.

“Travelling in a camper van was seen as ‘degradation’. We now install off-grid heaters, showers, king-size beds and electrics, meaning you can use the appliances anywhere. You can use a hair dryer when you are on the side of a mountain.

“The difference between us and a typical caravan or motorhome company is that we do things that are a bit more modern. We do things a little differently. We make all the furniture by hand. We paint everything in house.”

The company now employs a few staff from its new base in Bootle and is able to run competitions to win personalized fans through Instagram, but Tom is hungry for more. He said: “When I first started it was just me. I was in a small unit in Rainford. We moved into our current unit 18 months ago.

“Now we have an online store where we sell parts, accessories and organize raffles. The learning curve is the technology, which is probably the biggest challenge. I have experience working with my hands. Technical things are harder to do.

“When you stop and think about it, I’m proud of myself for what I did. It’s always that thing though, I’m always eager to do more. I’m proud of where he is now.

“But definitely the point I want to take it to is the center point. The next thing would be a fleet of rental vans that people could rent.”