Seated in a customized Mercedes Sprinter van at a Seattle park on a recent sunny day, Johannes Ariens and his vehicle caught the attention of an older gentleman out for a walk. The man poked his head in the van with all sorts of questions.
“I have been admiring your vehicle ever since you parked here,” the man said. “Did you get it in Seattle? How long have you had it?”
Ariens happily answered the man.
“Wow. It’s truly heaven on wheels,” the man said.
Ariens is out to deliver that slice of heaven to more people.
As the vanlife phenomenon and the quest for unique travel continues to attract adventurous consumers, Ariens’ new Seattle startup is hitting the road with a plan to change how people access sporty vehicles.
Route Line is skipping the peer-to-peer model that some companies have elected to try, and it’s not interested in being another app that helps you figure out where to park your RV. The company is instead pinning its hopes on a membership model where users pay an initiation fee and monthly dues to gain access to premium vehicles such as Mercedes Sprinter vans or pickups with bed campers.
Ariens is the founder and CEO and he’s got experience figuring out how people want to travel these days. He was a co-founder and the CEO of Loge, a hospitality startup that offers overnight motel and camping accommodations catering to surfers and other outdoor enthusiasts that launched in 2017.
“Overland, RV, and camp are currently experiencing unprecedented demand and insane amounts of innovation on the product side,” Ariens told GeekWire just a few days after he’d picked the Sprinter up from Overland Van Project in Portland, where it was turned into a high-end adventure vehicle complete with sleeping space for four and other RV touches such as bath and kitchen amenities.
Route Line is partnering with Overland to build out a fleet of vans and it’s also teaming with Yakima, Wash.-based Scout, which makes a line of pickup truck campers.
“There’s just a ton going on with really, really innovative manufacturers,” Ariens said, adding that access is where the innovation has not caught up.
Route Line’s model is very similar to boat membership companies such as Freedom Boat Club. The thought, whether it’s a pricey boat or a $250,000 custom Sprinter van, is that it makes more sense for many people to just pay a monthly fee to be able to use it rather than spend the money to own it. The amount of time most people actually get away to camp is also part of the equation.
Route Line has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Seattle-based venture capital firm Fuse as well as other investors, family and friends. The company employs four people and is hiring for a number of positions from fleet to platform tech and will use outside contractors to work on brand and marketing.
Ariens is excited by the unusual amount of new customers coming to the space, with very different consumer demands than legacy RV customers.
“These customers are 20-, 30-, 40-year customers,” Ariens said. “They’re coming in their 20s and 30s and they’re gonna be there until they’re in their 70s. And it’s a very, very sticky consumer business.”
Does he credit the pandemic with sparking that interest, as others have done around shorter-range travel and camping overall?
“I credit the pandemic with pouring gasoline all over the fire that was already lit,” he said.
The membership model will differ from Seattle-based Cabana’s rental option. That startup raised $10 million this summer and offers outfitted Ford Transit vans for around $200 a night. Elsewhere in the outdoor travel space, Portland-based The Dyrt is among those helping people figure out where to stay.
Route Line memberships will be between $300 and $600 a month, and the initiation fee will be somewhere between $3,000 to $6,000. There are some small per-use rates and users will be able to have 10 days reserved on the books at any one time. There will be 50% off daily rates if a user wants extra days and other member pricing benefits.
Route Line’s fleet of vehicles will grow in accordance with membership growth, and there will be a wait list. Ariens is already thinking Austin, Texas, could be a good second market after the Seattle region.
Referencing the man at the Seattle park with all the questions, Ariens was smiling from ear to ear.
“What we experienced is going to be the key to our growth strategy — extremely aggressive referral program,” Ariens said. “You sit in a ski area parking lot with one of these as a member … you can’t go somewhere without someone wanting to get the whole rundown.”
