Quirky Campers met up with the extraordinary campervan owner of the lovely Iris, a Bristol based campervan and Quirky’s first ever Accessible Campervan. Iris has been wildly popular since coming onboard with us last year, so we had a few questions for Iris’ owner Cody, to see how things have been going.

Q. What’s your favourite thing about your campervan? 

The fact that it has worked so well both for our family and for all the other guests we’ve had since we joined Quirky. Our eldest daughter has complex medical needs and building it was a big gamble, we didn’t know until it was ready whether it would work for her, and thankfully not only does it work, but she absolutely loves being in the van, as does our other daughter. I also feel proud of having built it all myself. And having heating! It still feels like such a luxury to come back to a warm and cosy van on a wintry day.

Q. What’s the most popular feature in Iris?

It’s probably a tie between the drop-down electric bed and the rainbow paintwork. She gets a lot of compliments for both.

Q. We absolutely love the look of Iris, what inspired you to go with that design? 

The layout is the result of wanting to be able to accommodate five people and a wheelchair. It meant we needed a big open space with plenty of room to move around but with three clearly defined areas – the dining space, the kitchen and the kid’s area at the back.

Visually, I chose the rainbow because the van was conceived of and partly built during the pandemic. Like many people we feel huge gratitude to the NHS for all the support and care it has given our daughter.

Q. What drew you to campervan life in the first place?

My first taste of van-life was driving from the UK to live in Southern Spain when I was four. I’ve always known people who lived in vans, and I converted my first van shortly after I passed my driving test. Before having children, we always spent our summers touring the Pyrenees in a converted van.

Q. What made you decide to rent out your campervan with Quirky Campers?

We want other families with disabled children to be able to have the outdoor adventures that Iris allows us to have, so our intention from the beginning was to make her available and suitable for as many families as possible. As we are based in Bristol we’d heard good things about Quirky Campers and when we approached them we were blown away by how enthusiastic Lindsay was about our idea. I think if she’d not been so positive about it, we might not have had the confidence to take on what was an ambitious project for our family.

Q. What’s been your best experience with renting so far? 

We have enjoyed all our guests so far, but we particularly love it when children stay in the van as they seem to enjoy staying in Iris so much.

But the absolute best feelings have been when we’ve been able to give a family with a disabled child the holiday they’ve always wanted to do but never been able to because no van like Iris has existed until now. We were recently contacted by a local family who’d been looking for years for an accessible campervan to take their medically complex son away in. They were so excited when suddenly they came across Iris. They are currently on their way to Lake Garda with their son and we’ve been getting some incredible updates! Like us they are outdoorsy people who’d had their wings clipped by having a son that uses a wheelchair, so it’s such a pleasure to know they are adventuring in Iris.

Q. Have you checked out any of the other campers on our site? Was there any that really drew your attention?

Frida has always been a source of inspiration.

Q. With your van being so popular, do you still get a chance to get away on your own road trips?

Iris got booked up for the summer so quickly that we almost missed out entirely on our own summer holiday and only managed to get four nights away in her. But at least we spent three weeks driving to the South of Spain earlier this year.

Q. If so, what’s some of your favourite spots or roots to travel to?

We’ve been enjoying going to the New Forest in Iris as it’s very accessible for wheelchair users and has some amazing campsites, as well as plenty of four legged creatures for our other daughter who is currently horse mad!

Q. Finally, what’s your dream road trip you hope to go on in the future?

We’re planning on doing another three week trip next year to Ireland, we particularly want to see the West Coast. Though we have friends and family dotted around so it might end up being a circular trip of the whole island.

If you’ve been inspired to start planning your own adventure, you can book the game changing Accessible Iris or Iris only with Quirky Campers.

If you’ve been inspired to create your own campervan conversion, why not rent it our with Quirky Campers?

Author

Laura Hammond

Laura is a professional copywriter and is the in-house writer at Quirky Campers, where she combines her love of campervans, travel and writing! When not writing she loves to find new adventures surfing, hiking and cycling.