About DirectRV

The Short Version

I'm Alan Miller. I've been in the RV and vacation rental industry since the mid-1990s. I built this site to share what I've learned — without the affiliate marketing lens that colors everything else you'll read online.

The Longer Version

In the mid-1990s, I built ownersrental.com — a referral service that connected RV owners with renters. Owners listed their vehicles, renters found them, and I connected the two. The transactions happened directly between them. It was one of the first services of its kind on the internet.

I also worked with vacationhomes.com and competed in the vacation rental space from 2002 through its successful sale in 2005. Between RV rentals and vacation rentals, I've spent three decades watching how people rent recreational assets — what works, what breaks, and who gets squeezed.

That ownersrental.com referral model? It predates RVshare (2013) and Outdoorsy (2015) by nearly two decades. The concept of connecting owners directly with renters wasn't new even then — but doing it on the internet was. I've watched the space evolve from hand-coded listing pages to billion-dollar platforms with venture capital, dynamic pricing algorithms, and service fees stacked on service fees.

I've watched platforms promise owner-friendly economics and then steadily increase their take rates. I've watched renters get hit with fee structures that would make an airline executive blush. I've watched the content ecosystem around RV rentals become almost entirely affiliate-driven, where the "best RV rental company" is whichever one pays the highest referral commission.

Why This Site Exists

I got tired of it.

Every time someone asks me about renting an RV — friends, family, strangers at campgrounds — I find myself giving the same advice: ignore the comparison articles, watch out for these fees, ask these specific questions, document everything.

DirectRV is that advice in written form. It's the conversation I'd have with you if you sat down next to me and said "I'm thinking about renting an RV."

What I'm Not

I'm not a journalist. I'm not an influencer. I'm not running a review site. I don't get paid to send you to any particular platform or company.

I am someone who has spent three decades thinking about how the RV rental market works, who it serves well, and who it exploits. I have opinions, and I back them with specifics.

About Online Brands LLC

DirectRV.com is owned and operated by Online Brands LLC, my company focused on domain portfolio management and web properties in the travel and outdoor recreation space. I hold several premium domains in the RV and vacation rental markets, which reflects three decades of involvement in this industry — not an overnight affiliate play.

Contact

If you have questions about RV rentals that aren't covered in the guides, or if you think I got something wrong, I'd like to hear from you. Reach me at [email protected].

DirectRV.com — Fortuna Foothills, Arizona