Ask a family why they love travelling in a Robeta campervan, and you rarely get an answer about floorplans. You get an answer about mornings. About the kids forgetting their tablets exist. About feeling like a smaller, calmer version of your normal life.
We spoke with two Robeta families who live that feeling in completely different ways. The Metličar family bought their Helios a year ago and now can't imagine a holiday without it. Jani and Teja Jugovic – better known as influencers Cool Fotr and Cool Mamacita - rent a Robeta every summer, by choice, and have never felt the need to change that. Their stories look different on paper. The feeling underneath is the same.
The Feeling, Not the Features
Both families, when asked about what they loved most about Robeta, reached for the same word: freedom.
“Freedom, peace, the whole family feeling connected, a simpler life, and the ability to adapt."
That's the Metličar family, describing what they value most compared to any other kind of holiday. Ask the Jugovic family the same question, and the answer lands in almost the same place:
“Freedom, and the luxury of having everything you need already with you."
Neither family talks about specifications first. They talk about what happens once the specifications disappear into the background — when a campervan stops being a vehicle and starts being simply a place where the family is that day.
Owning a Robeta: The Metličar Family
When we ask the Metličar family, a year into travelling with Robeta, which moments on the road stand out most in their memory, they don't point to a place or a moment:
“It's not really one moment, more a feeling on the road, when we're more relaxed, calmer, happier — all four of us enjoying our own kind of "switching off", laughing until tears run down our cheeks."
They travel with two children, and their Helios rarely stays parked in one place for long. Given the choice between a static base and moving from stop to stop, the answer was immediate: "Travelling from place to place, discovering the world, wins every time.”
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Ownership brought its own small rituals. After their very first rented trip, before they'd even bought a Robeta of their own, the family bought camping mugs printed with "HAPPY CAMPER" — mugs that found their place, quite naturally, in the kitchen of the Helios they went on to buy. It's a small detail, but it says something bigger: the feeling arrived before the ownership did.
Ask them what they'd point to as their favourite campervan-specific features, and they don't hesitate:
"The pop-up roof, and the step for getting up to the bed at the back of the campervan."
It's a small piece of hardware, but when asked separately which detail seemed unimportant at first and turned out to matter most on the road, they named the exact same step again. A year of daily use has a way of revealing which design choices actually count. And for a family climbing in and out of a rear bed every night, a well-placed step outranks almost anything on a spec sheet.
Life on the road has also taught them a few tricks of their own. Their favourite: they've repurposed the small bin drawer by the door to hold flip-flops instead of rubbish, so shoes are always exactly where they need them the moment they step outside.
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Why Compact Size Wins
The Metličar family is also clear about why they chose a compact campervan over a larger motorhome:
"A campervan is far more agile and mobile than a motorhome, and you can take it almost anywhere. Our own rule is that a campervan shouldn't be longer than 6 metres, because that's the best compromise between comfort and agility. And a pop-up roof is non-negotiable, since there are four of us."
That agility shapes how they explore once they've parked, too. A smaller footprint means more places stay reachable in the first place. And if the van isn't allowed somewhere, they don't force it: they find a suitable parking spot instead, then take their bikes, rarely public transport.
Not everything is picture-perfect, and the family is candid about it. With two kids, the van is rarely as tidy as it looks in photos, and there are always a few children's things to shuffle out of the way. The first months also came with some teething problems of any new vehicle. Their advice for first-timers is practical rather than romantic: learn the basics before you leave — how to fill the water, empty the grey water, empty the cassette — and adopt the rule that, in a campervan, less is more.
A year of real use has also given them a clear wish list. Nothing dramatic, mostly small conveniences: easier access to the storage under the rear bed on their Helios, a pull-out cabinet by the back door, and a small spice shelf on the kitchen wall. One wish remains unresolved: the family is still on the hunt for an external grill, since, as they put it, the husband misses classic grilled meat.
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Renting Every Summer: The Jugovic Family
The Jugovic family made a different choice, and made it deliberately. After years of static mobile home holidays, they wanted more movement without losing any comfort — and found that a rented Robeta gave them both:
"Not being tied to one location, being able to move spontaneously between places, while still having practically everything an apartment or mobile home would."
Their own approach to getting around on location is a little different from the Metličar family's — less about bikes replacing the van, more about picking the right base to begin with: they always look for a campsite with a shop nearby, and bring bikes along for the rest.
Renting hasn't stopped them from developing routines of their own. They cook almost entirely outside — a barbecue, a pizza oven, an induction hob — and pack lighter with every trip. Where their first trips were more static, they've since become, in their own words, more adventurous from one trip to the next.
Ask what compromises they've made for the size of the van, and the answer is short: none. "In the end, the campervan is mainly for sleeping and driving; everything else happens outside,” and that's exactly what they like about it.
For families weighing whether to buy or rent, the Jugovic family experience is a useful data point: four years in, they've never felt the pull to own. Renting, for them, isn't a stepping stone to ownership, it's simply how they've chosen to travel.
Not Sure Which Fits Your Family? Try It First
The Metličar family's Robeta story didn't start with a purchase. It started with a two-week trip in a rented Helios. The campervan won them over so completely that, when the time came to decide, they didn't hesitate, even though buying meant taking out a leasing agreement for the first time in their lives. They recommend renting first as simply the fastest way to find out whether campervan travel actually fits how you live.
Two Paths, One Feeling
One family bought their Robeta after a single rented trip. The other has rented every summer for years and sees no reason to change. Neither is the "right" way to do vanlife — they're just two families who found, in their own way, the same thing: a slower rhythm, fewer screens, and a version of the holiday that feels less like a getaway and more like coming back to what matters.
