MC Fireside Chats – January 14th, 2026

Brian Searl: Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground, excited to be back here for our first episode with this group together for 2026. Got a lot of interesting things to talk about today that I’m excited about. We have a couple of great special guests, Kate Morel and Charlotte Cleveley—did I pronounce that right?

Charlotte Cleveley: Almost. Cleveley.

Brian Searl: Cleveley. Okay. All right. That’s actually easier to say than Cleveley, so I’m good. All right, Cleveley from Apple Farm Glamping. We’re going to talk to them about their different business operations and things they have going on. Then we have two recurring guests who will introduce themselves shortly. Everybody can, Zach and Jeremy, welcome back guys. We have a couple of people missing today down at the Tampa RV show and Scott Foos is just traveling for work. But we’ll have a good show. We’ll talk about what’s coming up in 2026 and some of the good things that we have on deck to do. So let’s go around and introduce ourselves briefly. Zach, you want to start?

Zach Stoltenberg: Sure. I’m Zach Stoltenberg. I’m the associate principal for architecture for LJA. We’re a multidisciplinary design firm specializing in outdoor hospitality. So we help people build glamping resorts, campgrounds, luxury RV parks, boutique hotels, experiential stays.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Zach. I have a question for you and Jeremy when we’re done introducing everybody that might be interesting for you guys to answer back and forth. Jeremy, go ahead.

Jeremy Johnson: Yeah. Hey everybody, my name’s Jeremy. I own Camp Kona Hills Campground in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is currently 15 degrees with a wind chill of negative 17 here. So we are not open at the moment, but hoping better weather comes soon.

Brian Searl: I think it’ll get there. Somebody was telling me, I think Mark Koep was telling me earlier today that it’s 50 degrees in Colorado, which I know is weird for us and me and the Canada and the UK people too. It’s not really 50 degrees Celsius, but he said it’s unusually warm in Wyoming. They’ve seen some RVs traveling around, so that’s interesting.

Jeremy Johnson: We do have snow. So for those people that are looking for winter recreation, it’s here. There’s about, I think we’ve had almost 150 inches so far.

Brian Searl: Nice. Okay. We have Lake Louise by us for skiing, so I’m not a skier, but my girlfriend is and other people are. So you’d have to convince her to leave that behind. They’ve been having a good year, day for powder this year, so. Charlotte, please introduce yourself.

Charlotte Cleveley: Hi guys, I’m Charlotte. I’m the owner of The Apple Farm Glamping and Camping. We are Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK. So yeah, we’ve been running 10 years now. We are a working farm, so that was how we started. And we started off with bell tent glamping. We then added in your traditional camping and we just now aiming to go all year round. So yeah, we’re normally shut at this time of year because it’s eight o’clock at night and it’s pitch black and it’s not the greatest of weather. But we just put two shepherd huts in, so we’re now looking to go all year round with those as well.

Brian Searl: Okay. Awesome. Thanks for being here, Charlotte. Excited to learn more about your property. Kate?

Kate Morel: Hi there, Brian. Thank you for inviting me again. I started in 2002 running a formal bed and breakfast and put a fancy tent up in our front paddock for friends and families. And we got laughed at because we put beds and rugs and all the rest of it. But fast forward to 2010, I helped launch one of the world’s first glamping agencies called Quality Unearthed. Then I left that and became an independent consultant. So I help outdoor hospitality companies and sites to get their business model and their design right before we help launch new sites as well. And I started a company called Creative Structures, which imports all of my woods together, but it also offers a little membership guide for people as well.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thanks for being here, Kate. So Kate told me I had to stay on track today before we started the show. She’s like, “You gotta talk about guest experience. You can’t get off track, Brian, like I always do.” So let me throw out this question to, I’m interested Zach and Jeremy to hear your thoughts and obviously Charlotte and Kate, you can weigh in too.

We’ve been digging into a lot of data early in 2026, the end of 2025. We’re going to do some industry reports with Insider Perks on some really interesting data. And some, we’re going to bring back our reports from Modern Campground to MC Hospitality Highlights. The first one is going to be looking at the booking window and stuff like that.

But I have this AI agent that posts for me on LinkedIn for Outwired, the other podcast that I do. And it posted this really interesting thing—most of it’s really interesting because I don’t think about it—but it posted this really interesting take on RV sites, where it compared the ADR that you would get from a luxury premium rig, like a 30, 40, whatever Foost with slide outs, premium patio, furniture, all that kind of stuff, versus the ADR you get from taking that same amount of land and splitting it into two or three Sprinter van sites.

And it was interesting to me because the Sprinter van sites at $45 a night—was what it made up in the article, I don’t know if that’s realistic depending on your area of the country—three of those were more than the one pull-through, and less hassle, and less site development, less concrete, less patio, less whatever else. So that’s—I’m curious with the architecture guy and Jeremy, the guy who’s building things that are not for the big huge rigs, think of this stuff.

Zach Stoltenberg: I would say, I’ve done all of those. And I think the thing that AI misses is guest. And specifically guest type. The owner of that 42-Foost Prevost, they’re willing to spend $100, $150 a night. But they want premium accommodations with that. They want nice amenities, they want clean bathrooms, nice showers, grounds keeping, maintenance. They want to be around other like-minded people with similar scale and quality of rigs. And so you can generate revenue off of that, but it’s also a much more expensive build because it’s not just the site, it’s everything else about that resort that’s going to attract that particular customer demographic.

One of the things that we’ve always struggled with in looking at the Vanlifers is it’s a very different customer base. And to be really blunt with it, they’re cheap. The reason somebody buys a Sprinter van is that they don’t want to have to pay to play in a space. They don’t like paying for overnight accommodations. They will boondock, they will find public lands, places that they can park for the night. It’s a go-anywhere type of rig and vehicle.

And so really all you’re going to maybe capture out of a Vanlifer is someone who’s already done that for four or five days and they’re like, “Okay, we’re going to bite the bullet. We’re going to spend for tonight because I haven’t showered in a week and I really want someplace that has a hot shower. We need to empty our tanks. So we’ve got to stop in someplace where we can empty everything, refill all of that.” But they’re generally not a multi-night stay. They put that bigger tax on resources, utility infrastructure, all that piece of it. And it’s a very low ADR in that.

They’re also a much smaller percentage, although growing, of overall RVs. Those smaller rigs, they’re just not as common as the bigger towables or the Class As. But I think the idea of valuing ADR for land use area is something that comes up for me oftentimes when we’re talking with glamping clients. And that’s a very easy way if somebody owns a campground and they’ve got 60 or 70 RV sites, for them to wrap their head around why they should be paying attention to glamping.

Because that same RV site that they, you know, a well-appointed one, nice, good high peak demand area, $75 to $100 a night for that site. Explaining that on that same amount of property or even on an existing RV site itself, we could come in with a really nice appointed glamping tent that rents for double, maybe triple what they’re getting for an RV spot right now.

The other thing is demographics. We look, we believe all the numbers that come out of reports like the KOA, 92 million camping households in the US. A small fraction of them, I think it’s around 10, 12, maybe 15% actually own an RV. A majority of campers in the US don’t own an RV and they’re looking for somewhere else to stay. So that’s the other piece of that is not only will a glamping site generate more revenue than an RV site, there’s a lot more people in that, there’s more campers that are looking for that type of a site or accommodation.

Brian Searl: What do you think, Jeremy?

Jeremy Johnson: Zach, on your last point there, I definitely agree that there’s a lot more people looking for something that’s not an RV site because the numbers speak for themselves, right? Like 10%, I think you said 10% of people own an RV.

Zach Stoltenberg: I don’t know exactly where it’s at, close to that. It’s a small percentage of overall campers.

Jeremy Johnson: So I, Brian, I think going back to your point, maybe it’s not, or back to your original question, maybe it’s not just like Sprinter van people specifically, but it’s that other 90% whether they’re Sprinter van people or truck campers or tent campers. I mean, Brian, I think my overall opinion on this, because we’ve talked about it, but I do cater to anybody except for RV people. Those are the only people I don’t cater to.

Brian Searl: Which is why I was fascinated to hear your opinion on this.

Jeremy Johnson: Yeah. And I do charge $45 a night and it’s the middle of January in Northern Michigan where we have 150 inches of snow and I’ve got bookings rolling in today for July and August. So like that demand is absolutely there, at least in my area. Again to another one of Zach’s points, some of those people might do anything in their power to not camp at like a pay place, especially if you’re west of the Mississippi where you got BLM land and you can boondock for free.

I’m in Michigan where we have lots of state land, but that concept of BLM camping really doesn’t exist where I’m at. And so like we end up just being in an interesting place. And I remember when we first were getting ready to open actually in late 2024, I made a Reddit post on the Vanlife subreddit about our campground opening. And a lot of the Vanlife people, there was about, I’ll say it was like 80/20. There was a lot of positivity, but it was only maybe 20%. And then the other 80% was people like Zach was talking about where they were like, “Why would I ever pay to camp? I have a van that I can boondock in.” But they’ve never visited Michigan and they don’t realize that free BLM land doesn’t exist here.

So I think there’s a location element to it that matters a lot. That setup might not work in Oregon or Wyoming or Nevada, but it will work in the Midwest and the East Coast in particular, at least in the United States. And then the last thing I have to say is you can’t stuff these things right next to each other. So I don’t know that it’s a one-to-one equation of remove one RV pad, get three Sprinter van or glamping sites because those people want their privacy too. They don’t want to be stuck right next to each other.

And completely agree with Zach. I’m probably, I have 40 sites today that are all tent, van, and car camping. But I’ll probably take half of those in the next one to two years and upgrade them to glamping sites to realize that higher ADR. I’m at, again, $45 a night for a basic camping site right now, but if I put a rustic off-grid cabin or yurt or one of these upgraded experiences in there, at least in my market, I can be anywhere between $150 to $200 a night with something like that.

Brian Searl: Yeah. I think that’s—again, there’s all kinds of problems with the social media post—but I think that’s the idea is like behind what we’re putting out on Outwired specifically is let’s start a conversation, let’s debate it. Let’s see where that takes us. Maybe we’re thinking of doing different things and different conversations that we haven’t had before.

I do think it’s interesting though that since the pandemic—and you can correct me if I’m wrong here, Zach, cause you’ve been involved in more of these builds than I have—but it feels like on the outside that since the pandemic, we’ve been more, so heavily focused on luxury in specifically the RV market—let’s push aside glamping for a second—that we’ve left behind some of those middle campers in a lot of the developments. Is that fair or are we just not hearing about the middle market developments?

Zach Stoltenberg: I think it’s in direct response to that guest experience piece. In the early days of hospitality, RVers were content with partial hookup sites or 30 amp service or—people, a lot of sites didn’t cater to anything that was more than that. And so there really was a, I don’t know, an acceptance of it until you started seeing some operators that really started raising the bar. Upgrading to 50 amp service, upgrading to larger sites that are further apart, incorporating electric vehicle charging, doing really nice resort style pools.

And especially in areas that are saturated. You know, we know those parts of the country, especially that, that southern band of the US, at least from my market, where they get basically a year-round season. You’ve got a lot of campgrounds, a lot of RVers who are there, but the places that made those upgrades and those spends, everybody wants to stay at the nicest, the newest, the latest, the greatest. So the places that were making those investments and raising that bar continued to be really strong.

Over the last couple of years as the market started to stabilize a little bit and we’ve seen some drops, the people who are feeling that crunch are not those people that reinvested in their properties and brought in new things. It’s the people who are still sitting on a property that they bought in 1982 and haven’t done a darn thing to. And they’re not upgrading. So I think really the biggest change in that has been it’s a direct response to guest experience, guest feedback, and that rising consumer demand.

You know, when glamping started, there were folks pitching tents in their backyard and putting it out for a hundred bucks a night and they were getting it. And I’m glad they did because that was laying the groundwork for this wonderful new emergence of this new industry. But today, that won’t work. People want full facilities, flush toilets, bathrooms. And so now what we’re seeing is operators who started with those more primitive models, they’re now upgrading their existing units. And new folks who are coming in, in a ground-up build, the folks that we work with, they’re not even trying the primitive model because it’s destined for failure. You can spend five grand and put up a tent, very primitive, nothing in it, that never rents out. Or you can spend 25 grand for a much higher level sort of accommodation, build a $65,000 bathhouse, shower house, and you’ll get bookings. Or you can spend 150 grand on an incredible tent that has bathrooms and everything in it that rents for three times what those other ones do and books out a year in advance. And so I agree that there’s been a change in the focus and definitely an overall raising of the bar, but I think it’s in direct response to guest feedback and people valuing that experience and being willing to pay for having a better experience.

Brian Searl: Yeah, I’m completely with you on glamping. Like there’s no debate in my mind there. I’m just wondering is there a ceiling on the number of people who can afford $100 plus a night luxury RV sites? At some point. I’m not saying we’re there yet, but is there a point where it gets to that? And as these people keep developing these, like they’re better guest experience, but as Jeremy’s proven, you can design a park with better guest experience without luxury RV sites.

Jeremy Johnson: I don’t know about in the UK, but in the US, I think we’re got to be close to approaching that. I know that like almost similar to 2020 when things were quite uncertain in the US, I think a lot of people are planning to take more vacations that are more domestic, a little bit closer to home and probably spend a little bit less money. I think there, there probably always exists a certain level of demand for the luxury stuff, but I can say that at least on our end, we haven’t seen a decrease in demand for our bare bones basic sites because people are looking for it.

And whether it’s a monetary thing or not, some people just want that experience. We’re even getting inquiries from groups like the Boy Scouts who are looking for a more rustic experience because the state park 45 minutes away from us has upgraded their facilities so much that it’s too modern for these Boy Scout groups. They’re like, “This isn’t camping anymore.” So I think there’s like an aesthetic side of it too that people are probably, it’s the pushback against some of the modernization and maybe they don’t want 5G connectivity when they’re camping.

Brian Searl: I still remember like we started, like I started Insider Perks by driving around to different KOA campgrounds. We were doing videos back then. I still remember the Point South KOA in Yemassee, South Carolina, was the only campground I ever stayed at in the—and we were going to private at that point, right? We weren’t going to state parks—the only campground I stayed at where they let me build my own ground fire. And I still remember that. It was like 2012 or something. But that stuck out in my mind because I like doing that. I can build a fire with a flint and steel and I can do all that stuff, right?

Jeremy Johnson: Yeah. We had, I mean, we’ve got, we had a lot of people up here that were bringing their kids camping for the first time in 2025 and they wanted them to have that like very rustic remote experience. And I remember going to talk to people as I do my like evening rounds and they’re like, “Yeah, like we’re building their first campfire. They’ve never built a campfire before.” And that was pretty cool.

Brian Searl: Kate, do you have any knowledge of the Sprinter van market over in the UK or anything like that? How does that compare to glamping?

Kate Morel: Campervans.

Brian Searl: Caravans, but they’re still Sprinter vans, I think, right? Like I don’t know.

Kate Morel: Not so much. I work with some certification organizations, camping and woodland champions, what have you, when it comes to caravans. They’re still—I gotta agree with Jeremy there—there are a lot of people that really don’t want all the bells that come with full-on glamping sites. I think we’re quite a little bit polarized in terms of people wanting flushing toilets and facilities and six or seven, maybe even eight years ago, sites that didn’t offer that started to suffer. So yeah, there is something actually. Something people think it should be primitive, and people think it should be luxury. So it’s both ends of the market really. And yeah, but some people do not want that full-on glamping experience. So I think for different places that are at the development stage, it’s—the UK is a lot smaller. All of our European countries are a lot smaller. A country that I find a little bit different to work in when I’m outside of Europe is Australia, which is a bit more like America. And the catchment area is bigger, I think, and that varies quite a bit as well. Because the catchment area is so much larger. Whereas here in the UK and Europe, people don’t travel so far. The catchment area is much smaller. Anyway, it’s, I think it’s, I don’t know whether it’s easier or harder to work out what your guest demographic would be, what your ideal guest profile would be, and the level of accommodation amenities and luxuries that you offer. I can’t help there, Brian. I can give you no money here on running off piece.

Brian Searl: I don’t know about that. Yeah, ask Zach how the tangents that I can go off on sometimes that don’t mean anything or have any value to anybody. I think you’re right, like the whole world is debating over the, the word glamping means. I don’t think that’s ever going to change, but let’s for purposes of this show just define it as outdoor accommodations of some kind.

Do you feel like the UK is ahead of—and I have a reason for asking this—do you feel like the UK is ahead of the rest of the European market? If we define glamping as outdoor accommodations. Or do you think they’re the same or do you think they’re behind?

Charlotte Cleveley: Yeah, no, I think we are a little bit, I don’t know, just to use the phrase “ahead” makes it sound like we’re beating everybody else at the game. I think it’s more developed. So the market is more developed. France is more developed. And we’ve got Italy and Spain, Portugal up there, and Greece that are catching up in terms of saturation point. We’re at saturation point in UK and maybe in France getting there as well. But the rest of Europe is, there’s still opportunity. In the UK actually, if you get your business model right, it’s a saturated market.

Brian Searl: Yeah, the reason I ask is I was last year at the end of the year, I was in Croatia for the Croatian Camping Conference and then I went to France for SETT in Montpellier. And I’ve known Simon Neal from Camp Map over there as a regular guest on our podcast. And what I discerned from all those conversations that I had over there, but also with Simon, is that glamping in Europe is mostly a function of the glamping, like they don’t have independent glamping sites anymore.

There are some outliers for sure. But most of the glamping properties, which they’re defined as like mobile homes, really nice luxury cabins for the most part, are attached to caravan sites, camping sites in Europe. And so that kind of was very interesting to me because we’ve taken a different approach as we’ve talked about here on this show and other places where we have standalone luxury glamping sites. There are certainly lots of campgrounds and RV parks in the United States that have added glamping, but to many people, I think you would maybe agree with me, Zach, like that’s a different target audience. Right? For the most part?

Zach Stoltenberg: Yeah, I think they’re different customer bases. There’s certainly, I think in the mixed model, one of the great things about an existing RV park or caravan park that wants to bring in people that don’t own RVs, adding some of those accommodations is a great way to bring in additional revenue or connect with a wider customer base. But I think that that is still in the accommodation model. It’s a place to stay, right? I think the standalone glamping sites or a luxury RV park, that is the destination. That is the appeal. And that, that’s going to be a higher ADR. That’s going to have that bigger amenity spend.

A cabin at an RV park, you may get, or at a campground, you may get $150, maybe up to $200 a night. When we look at some of the most outstanding properties, I just saw Forbes released their top 10 list for, or Travel and Leisure, one of them, end of the year everybody does their top tens and there was a top 10 list on there. I think six of the ten properties are over a thousand dollars a night. So why can they do that? It’s because you’re not camping next to an RV. These are unique destination type locations. These are extremely high end units. These are short supply. There’s maybe 10, 15 units and they’re a quarter of a mile apart and have privacy and incredible views. And I think that customer base that’s looking for that and willing to pay for that, those top tier models, that’s completely different than somebody that will rent a three bed cabin at an RV park that they can stand with their kids. It may be like was discussed, I want to build a campfire. I want to do S’mores. I want my kids to have some of that camping experience. My wife said she won’t stay in a tent. We don’t own an RV.

And so one of the things I love about working in outdoor hospitality is there is no one answer and there’s no wrong answer. Everybody can do, you know, whatever they think is best. And as long as we’re following back to that guest experience and creating something people want, you’re going to be successful.

Brian Searl: Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head with luxury and uniqueness because that is what most of these properties that I saw at least in Europe were. They were luxury camping sites with… there’s a… there’s one in Croatia, Zach. They called Aminess. They have a couple different locations. They have private pools on every RV site. Never seen that before in my life, but we should bring that to the US at some point.

Zach Stoltenberg: Pools, no. I’ve done hot tubs.

Brian Searl: No, a private pool. Like you stepped out of the—yeah, it was like a 10-Foost maybe pool on every single RV site. So that was interesting. They were charging I think like 300 bucks a night for it. Euros. Anyway, it was right by the coast though. It was beautiful location. But I think that you hit the nail on the head because they have a lot of, they call them mobile homes over there, but they have a lot of the luxury cabins that are really high end. They’re sandwiched close together to each other inside the camping sites, caravan parks, whatever Europe calls them. But they’re, they’re luxury, right? They’ve got full service restaurants. They’ve got water parks, they’ve got multiple pools. They’ve got, right? And that’s the difference I think is that the people aren’t just there for that cabin next to an RV feel. Would be my sense. What do you think Charlotte, of all this stuff?

Charlotte Cleveley: It’s really interesting listening to the perspectives. Obviously there are vast differences to the UK, but also a lot of similarity. Listening in on the conversation with RVs versus Sprinter vans, which you definitely went across to Kate. And she said there’s different types of people. So we do, we call it off-grid grass camping. So we are, as I said, we’re a working farm and we really are very much rustic, back to basics. We don’t do caravans mainly because of the access. So that was the reason we didn’t. And it interesting how that shaped the type of campers that we get.

So we do your normal campers. We will do campervans. We do get like the bigger campervans in but not motorhomes. So we very much tend to be the type of family that does want the campfire. So each of our camping pitches has its own fire pit there ready for them to go. We’re very off-grid, we’re very rustic. So with the bell tents, there’s no electricity. So I think it’s about knowing who and what you are as a site and what you offer and making sure that matches your guest’s expectations and then creating the experience that goes round that. A lot of our guests definitely come to us because of our farming background. So they’re really interested in the animals. We’ve got a really good location with three miles outside Stratford-upon-Avon. We’re very central in the country. So yeah, it’s really interesting to see the differences, listen to the differences that you guys have over there and then thinking about, not a lot of that’s really that different over here too. Yes, it’s just slightly different ways of doing it. Or maybe I’m now running off topic as well.

Brian Searl: No, it’s impossible to do that on this show. Don’t worry. From glamping, what’s, what do you guys focus on for guest experience there?

Charlotte Cleveley: As I said, our main focus probably is the fact that we are a working farm. So the name gives it away, The Apple Farm. It was originally a commercial fruit farm. My dad, I lived in Australia for 14 years working in sales and marketing. I came back to the UK just over 10 years ago. And my dad in his wisdom bought a derelict fruit farm because my mom likes making jam. So it was meant to be a hobby farm. He doesn’t want a derelict fruit farm. We are also beef farmers. So we very much enjoy the crossover with hospitality of getting people into the farming environment and telling them all about what farming is and then bringing that back into the guest experience as well. So we offer hampers, meats, etc. from the farm. We do our own apple juice. We do farm tours. We do farming experiences. So that’s really the lines that we go down.

Brian Searl: What, what’s one thing you would like to do from a guest experience standpoint that you haven’t been able to do so far?

Charlotte Cleveley: I would love to, we would very much like to have a micro dairy on site so we can produce small volumes of milk, eggs, cheese, that kind of stuff, really bring that back into the guest experience. Maybe even have a little cafe on site and do the whole circle of the guest experience. Would love to do.

Brian Searl: You get that set up, I’ll come over and be a paying customer. Like cause that’s what I look for. I when I travel and obviously there’s different, there’s so many different niches and buyer personas and demographics and ideal customer profiles and people who will do different things. For me it’s the unique experience. And I’m willing to sacrifice some of my comfort. Like not a lot cause I’m old and I have a bad back. But I don’t really have a bad back, but I am old.

And so like when we were in Ireland last at the end of last year, probably September, something like that. We were, like that’s all I was looking for. Whether it was Airbnb or glamping sites or it ended up being unique bed and breakfasts cause that’s all there was when we were traveling along the island around the edges for a while. And we went to Northern Ireland and regular Ireland. But we were always looking for something unique. And so I was willing to trade off some things like that. Like I have bad eyesight. So like when I take my contacts out at night, like I can’t see five feet in front of me, right? It’s all blurry. I have had bad eyes since I was in first grade, so I figure out how to navigate it like some kind of weird bat creature or something.

But anyway, so we stayed in a castle, like a little Airbnb castle with two rooms and a nice old tower in Southern Ireland. And I remember like the bathroom was like down seven steps down the, we had to go around down the thing and then open the door and there was a latch on it. It was completely pitch black and you had to go in and it was plumbing. But you had to figure it all out. And it’s not that much of a thing to give up. But the point is that there are trade-offs that people are being willing to make, I think if you can get a really unique experience. And it doesn’t have to be a castle obviously, but something that somebody put some thought and love and care into to make it different.

Charlotte Cleveley: Yeah. I think it’s definitely, I think one of you guys said earlier, gone are the days where you can plonk an accommodation of whatever you tickles your fancy. You can’t just put an accommodation down now and expect to fill it. You’ve got to create the experience that goes with that now. And that’s what will bring people back. There’s so much we would love to do. But that’s definitely where our repeat customers come from. They come, they came for what we gave them, not necessarily the fact that it was a bell tent. It was about the experiences of all.

Brian Searl: With one caveat, you can put ’em side by side if you have a really good view, I think. We saw that in Ireland, like if you’re right by the ocean or like on the Aran Islands or in Croatia and you can see the Mediterranean Sea, then that’s your experience. Still not about the accommodations, that holds true, but.

Charlotte Cleveley: Sorry, say that again?

Brian Searl: I said it’s still not about the accommodation. It’s about the view. So it’s like what you’re saying holds true, but that’s the exception I think where you can have that and not focus so much on the what traditional guest experience, if you want to label it like that, or what we’re talking about.

Charlotte Cleveley: Yeah, I think so. Comes with a built-in view.

Jeremy Johnson: That’s one place where I see the US being still very much behind the UK and Europe in general. Like that uniqueness. We’re at a point, at least where I’m at and what I see, I feel like we’re at a point where people are thinking still that they can just put up like a glamping tent or now maybe more of a dome or even the glass houses. They’re thinking, “Oh, I can just put up a glass house and people will come. It doesn’t matter where I do it.” As soon as there’s 15 glass houses in one region, it loses that novelty, right? And so then it becomes more about the experience. And I think we’re, at least from my perspective, we’re just starting to get there where people, like Ben Wolf comes to mind with his farm project down in Florida that he’s working on. We’re just getting to that farm camping/glamping mixture. Like that’s just happening here.

And then I think about at least in my region, like a place like Viroqua, Wisconsin, which is like pretty much the organic farming capital of the Midwest, which is sounds like a very weird thing to say. But the accommodate, like amazing organic farms in the Driftless region, amazing farm to table restaurants, but then the accommodations are like few and far between. We brought our RV down there, which it’s not even an RV. It’s a truck camper with a fiberglass shell and it’s 24 feet long. And we couldn’t find a place to camp for the night with our 24-Foost truck camper. We actually had to rent an Airbnb that was like privately owned and not even part of a farm. It was just like kind of a one-off RV. Like we would have loved to stay at a farm and we would have loved to find a place where we didn’t have to spend 500 bucks a night to rent an Airbnb when we had a camping vehicle with us.

Zach Stoltenberg: I think we’re seeing some things like Harvest Hosts is a good example, right? That launched and it’s partnering with farms that are willing to allow somebody with an RV to come in and stay on their night, stay a night or two, and there’s no cost to it. So just with the projects that we worked on, even recent stuff that’s in design. I worked on probably five or six different different properties where it was incorporating that farm, building out a farm experience and really intertwining that with everything. One of our sites that we did in Texas, they wanted to have goats and mini Highland cows and and they wanted guests to be able to interact with those animals.

So we literally have sites where you have your site and there’s it’s fenced on three sides, but the animals can come right up into your site. We’re working on one down in Arkansas right now that is a functioning cattle ranch. They’re going to maintain 30 to 50 head of cattle on this. And so we’re looking at designing the barns and some mini barns and bringing in some covered wagons. And there’s a restaurant on site that they want to incorporate a whole kind of farm to table experience for guests where when you’re eating dinner that night, 90% of what you’re eating was grown on the property.

And so I think there is a focus starting in that. The one thing I will say I think when I look at UK versus US, I do think the UK really led the charge in a lot of those things. I think the US market is catching up very quickly and in some ways it’s probably surpassed. But I also think those customers and the demand, the guest experience is very different in those two.

Brian Searl: I was looking up on my phone here, we’re doing a bunch of pricing breakdowns and stuff we’re going to release for Insider Perks. I was asking it for different stats about glamping. I was distracted and not paying attention. It says overall glamping from our data, which we’ve got data from about 2,300 campgrounds and RV parks and glamping sites in North America. The median price is $145 a night. The average is $159.75. Says the average price for a treehouse, which is arguably I would say that’s more unique, right? $239.45. A glamping cabin is $210. A pod or capsule is $194. A yurt is $142. Vintage Airstream is $140. Teepee is $136. Safari tents $135 and your bell is $118. So I think that speaks to the amount of like extra money you can get from putting thought into something that and maybe, I don’t think treehouses will ever be not be unique cause they’re a lot harder to use. But or harder to build. But that speaks to I think that what we were talking about, the uniqueness. Yeah, Zach?

Zach Stoltenberg: I think another thing that can’t be ignored in this conversation, and I want to hear from Kate and Charlotte on this. We can talk ADRs for revenue, but that should be just one small piece of it. One thing that I think a lot of the operators that we worked with, a lot of folks I’m friends with who own resorts and operate resorts in the US, one of the things that they all do really well are add-ons. Other things. So I’m going to toss out his name and I hope he’s okay with it. Matt Keller with Ramble. Like he’s got a beautiful property outside of Atlanta and last year they built a floating sauna unit on the property. And he has beautiful sites. He’s got some treehouses, he’s got tree tents even. Incredible accommodations. But the floating sauna was an add-on and he allows guests to book that separate. So they’re paying for their stay and then they’re also paying for a sauna experience. I think that can be done with some F&B components, even with partnerships with off-site activities, excursions. I’ve got clients that they partner with a zipline course that’s down the road or an ATV jeep tour operator that, you know, is nearby that will come and pick guests up right at their property and bring them out. And there’s revenue to be generated in this business outside of just the overnight accommodation.

On the RV side, they’ve known that for a long time. When we work with existing RV parks that are doing a remodel or expansion, a reposition. That’s one of my questions I ask always of their manager. We go down the aisle of the store and we’ll say, “What do you do the best within the store? And the top two revenue generators for an RV park?”

Brian Searl: The first one I’m sure you can guess.

Zach Stoltenberg: RV parts?

Brian Searl: No, we’ve all meant, you mentioned it earlier.

Jeremy Johnson: Firewood. Showers.

Zach Stoltenberg: You can’t charge for showers.

Brian Searl: Well you could.

Jeremy Johnson: Some people do.

Brian Searl: Wouldn’t be a good idea, but you could.

Zach Stoltenberg: Firewood is number one.

Jeremy Johnson: Firewood.

Brian Searl: Okay. All right that makes sense. All right.

Zach Stoltenberg: Firewood is number one, ice cream is number two.

Jeremy Johnson: Okay. I’m surprised coffee isn’t number one.

Zach Stoltenberg: Again, I think you can’t charge for that. I think if I stay at a place and they don’t have coffee sitting for me in the morning, I’m never staying there again.

No, and like I had a conversation with a manager and she said, “Yeah, we sell a ton of firewood. It’s makes up most of our revenue sales.” And I said, “Tell me about how you’re selling it.” And she said, “Well it’s a problem. Like right now we hire high school kids and they drive around in a golf cart for three hours every night and stop at every site and see if they need any more firewood.”

And they charged by default everybody who stayed there. They wouldn’t, they nothing was included. It was just, hey, if you want firewood you have to buy it. And I said, “How much do you sell a bundle of firewood for?” And I think it was seven dollars. I said, “Here’s what I want you to do. Raise the cost of your nightly rates by 10 bucks and include the first bundle of firewood with it.” You’re actually selling it for more than what you’re doing and it’s there and it’s included. So the transaction doesn’t change. It’s that guest experience and it’s a perception of value.

If they’ve already got it, they’re going to start a campfire with it. And when when the wood’s burning and it’s going and as a parent, I’ve got four kids. If my kids are all sitting around the campfire and we throw the last piece of wood on and I know it’s only 6:30, I’m going to go down to the store and buy more because we’ve already got the fire going and I don’t want it to go out.

And so I think that’s really, those are the things from a guest experience perspective that I always focus on and when we’re working with a client or an owner, those are the questions I ask because the transaction doesn’t have to change. It’s just the way that it’s presented. And she looked back at me and she goes, “So I don’t have to pay two kids to drive around in a golf cart on their cell phones for three hours?” And I said, “No. It’s going to be in the site when they get there. If they don’t use it, you already sold it. Like it’s paid for.” And she goes, “Well if they leave it somebody else will take it back to their site.” I go, “It’ll be gone.” The duck on the June bug, they’ll pick those sites clean as soon as somebody moves out. And I said, “Yeah, but who cares? You already sold it. You sold it for ten dollars.”

Kate Morel: Yeah. That’s a bit of a contentious one here with glamping site owners. We always, well most places will include firewood, kindling, firelighters as a starter pack. I’m in a bit of an ongoing battle with one of my clients who still insists on locking all of his wood away from the guests. And having stayed on his site and suffered freezing cold with my children around one of the campfires, it was stacked like two Foost high with padlocked cages and we sit within five feet of it. It was like a bonfire not a campfire to keep warm. And we ended up having to go to bed at about nine o’clock because it was freezing.

And I said, “Where’s the wood?” He said, “Oh, you have to ring me up and I’ll bring it down.” And I was like, “No.” And he missed a trick there because it was free. And a lot of, I don’t think it teaches people to respect our natural resources. Wood is the rarest material in our universe. It’s not diamonds, it’s not gold. It is wood. And it might look as though it fell itself, it doesn’t cord itself, chop itself and stack itself so it costs money. And I think the more we, the more we find ourselves disconnected with the natural world. I don’t know what it’s like in America, but here in the UK we have terrible problems with guests and fire because most people have central heated houses. I’ve got my log burner, my log burner has gone out. We’ve been talking actually. But a lot of people don’t understand how to light or maintain a fire.

Zach Stoltenberg: Well, I think that’s also a change between the primitive and the luxury. That more rustic kind of what you guys have, what Jeremy has, that’s a fun guest experience. When you move to that luxury level, those guests want to flip a switch and turn on a propane burner that’s in their unit.

Kate Morel: Fire.

Brian Searl: Yeah, I bet you there’s a I bet you there’s a bigger market than a lot of people think for luxury rig owners who would be willing to learn how to start a fire with a flint and steel. If you offered like a really interesting class or course or something, right?

Jeremy Johnson: Yeah. I think saunas are a great example of it. You if you’re having a sauna as an amenity, you want that wood-fired sauna experience. There’s an attraction to that. We looked at, I actually have an electric one in my basement, but that’s because it’s in my basement. I’m not going to have a wood fire in my basement, but it’s not the same as like an outdoor wood fire. And the propane experience, I don’t know if you’ve ever done a propane heated sauna before, but it’s not even close. You’re like, what what is this? This is not the experience I signed up for.

Brian Searl: Yeah, we like they had I remember in Ireland we didn’t get to go stay at one, it was sold out, the one I found. But it was a place called Galgorm that had wood-fired hot tubs too that I really wanted to try. Like I’ve tried one, there’s a place in Canada here that has one that we didn’t get to to light up, but it takes forever to heat up. People don’t want that hassle. But I think it’s a balance. I think you like going back to the fire too, like I think they don’t want to start a fire, they want to flip a switch because they think you gotta put a bunch of newspaper in there and it’s gonna cause a bunch of smoke and they don’t know how to stack. But if they knew how, I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t want to do it every time. I don’t want to start a fire every time with flint and steel but.

Jeremy Johnson: We might be lucky in Northern Michigan that we don’t have that problem. I don’t know. I’m glad that the closest metro is four hours away.

Zach Stoltenberg: From a design perspective, a lot of times we try to do both. The practicality of putting a wood stove in a bell tent, where all of those valid points that you guys brought up. Someone has to know what they’re doing. Has to know how to start it. Has to know how the dampers work. Otherwise you’re going to end up with a tent that just reeks of smoke, right?

In that application an electric heat or propane heat or something that turns on with a flip of a switch may be better. But when we do the communal campfire down at the base camp area and we set out the S’mores buffet with all the different toppings and fixings and whatever you want to do your S’mores. And that we do every Thursday, Friday, Saturday starting at 7pm. Everyone’s invited down if you’re staying for the weekend, you come down. And that one where your manager, your host, your whoever is going to come down and facilitate that whole thing. That’s the real fire experience. And sitting around a campfire and getting to meet other people. And just just like Charlotte was saying earlier, the reason they have return guests. People come out, it’s not for the accommodation, it’s for the experiences that they had there. So I think from a design perspective, we always, we want both. We want to deliver the experience, but we also want to to deliver that convenience and a quality guest experience.

Brian Searl: Sure. Okay, let’s wrap up. Go ahead, please. No, go ahead.

Kate Morel: No, I wasn’t gonna wrap up. I was gonna say something else. But continue first before I say that.

Brian Searl: When it comes to guest experiences and add-ons, I love that you threw that into conversation, Zach, cause it’s been in my mind since we started really. Is we we I don’t know whether you would agree Charlotte, as we maybe we’re moving on really in the UK from saunas and things like that. Moving more into sort of the, I see, I’m advising my clients anyway, to look at how to work with the land more. So we’re looking at installing land art and hazel tunnels and experiential ways cause we keep using this phrase, I don’t know if you use it over in the States a lot. Glamping sites over here says we reconnect with nature. What does that actually mean? Because if you leave people to their own devices, very often they will revert to using a phone. So I’m piloting schemes with some sites this year to actually get engage with nature and it will be an add-on experience. But we’re also running, I’m doing a little upskilling thing with with Vicki. I’m teaching people how to run their workshops as well. So craft workshops for guests and other local people coming onto the site and learning how to do and make things. And yeah, collaborating with other local activity providers as well. Anything that’s on brand and ties in with the overall design aesthetics and the experience you want to offer your guests. I I get very excited about this subject obviously because the world’s your oyster. If you can’t find it, make it up. I love oh, Thelma and Louise. Thelma and Louise? Thelma’s Essex? They’re a kind of yard style of company and they’ve converted this outbuilding into a fashion. And they’ve used reclaimed stuff and they’ve used this theme of Thelma and Louise. Just check out the wall, girls, you’re welcome. Fabulous. Because they’ve just made something up. The world is our oyster. I love that hospitality is. You can just do and create any experience that you want.

Brian Searl: Yeah, you just have to be willing to, and you have to curate it for people. Go ahead, Charlotte.

Charlotte Cleveley: Yeah, definitely. We just, as we put shepherd huts in, we just had some really cool guys down the road that have built me two beautiful oak framed bridges and trees that we actually had dropped where we wanted them. And they’ve built me what will become a living hedge round the side of it. So I’m planning on having some info on that kind of stuff with the guest comes to that hut and then we will offer the opportunity to add into it. Cause you can literally just keep adding into the hedge. We’ll have some willow there available for them and they can put a little bit in themselves so they can add their tiny little touch to what we did. So yeah definitely back to nature, the farming, the rustic, that kind of thing. I think people are on board with that now.

Brian Searl: Awesome. All right, let’s wrap up the show. We have a tradition that we started at the end of last year I tried at one of the conferences. I thought really worked well and that’s just everybody asking each other a question. So what we typically do is we’ll pick one of our special guests. Let’s start with Charlotte. And Charlotte, you can ask either Kate or Zach or Jeremy a question. You pick who you want to ask a question to. And then whoever you ask a question to, they’ll keep following on. But if you ask a question to Zach, nobody else can ask a question to Zach. It’ll be a process of elimination. Charlotte, who would you like to ask a question to?

Charlotte Cleveley: Zach. So, Zach, how did you end up doing what you do now?

Zach Stoltenberg: I wish I knew. I fell into it. Like I’ve done a bit of everything with my career. I had an opportunity to work on my first RV park back in 2016. An awesome client. I got connected with several other people in the industry. I think we did a good job on the design of that, but I didn’t know any better. And so we we did some unusual things and some things that you don’t see in typical RV parks. And it got a lot of attention from potential investors, other developers. And I started getting phone calls. And people were like, “Hey we saw what you did on this one. We have property in Arizona. We have property in Oklahoma. And we want something that’s not rows and rows dominoes of RVs. We want something that works with the land.”

So I really, I started on the RV side and then anybody who was in RV was paying attention to glamping and outdoor hospitality. So then that kind of took over. Now probably 60% of what I do is experiential stays and 40% still RV parks. But yeah, I love where I’m at. I love do what I’m doing and we built an incredible team of all different disciplines. We got landscape architects and planners and we just brought on an interior designer right at the end of the year. And we’re doing incredible projects all over the world. But yeah, if you’d asked me 15 years ago if I ever thought I’d be a outdoor hospitality architect, it wasn’t on my radar. But I think I’ve always been an outdoorsman. I grew up, I was a Boy Scout, I’m an Eagle Scout. I grew up camping with my family. I love being outside. And so I I think I probably always had the personality for it. I just figured out a way to make it my job now.

Brian Searl: Cool. All right, Zach. Who do you want to ask a question to?

Zach Stoltenberg: Uh, I will ask a question to Jeremy. I want to know because with the beginning of the year, 2026. What is one trip that you want to take in the next year because I know when you own a business you never take time off, you never get a break, you’re constantly working. So I want, I want to know if you could go anywhere, take a trip anywhere in the world in 2026. Where would you go and why do you want to go there? And then tell me what your plan is for when you’re going to go there in 2026.

Jeremy Johnson: Yeah, okay. If I could go anywhere, it would probably be somewhere in Central or South America right now. I like I said earlier, it’s 15 degrees out with a negative 20 wind chill so I’m craving some warmer weather at the moment. But I’ll answer it a little more realistically and for me actually the next trip I have coming, the next two trips I have coming up. One is to a beautifully designed Airbnb in Northeast Wisconsin by a group of architects out of Minnesota, David and his son Kai Salmela. So we’re going to visit that Airbnb because it’s just it’s a total unique experience. It’s high end, it’s luxury and we’re going at the end of February. We’ll probably get some cross country skiing in and some just like alone time in a beautiful place with me and my wife.

And then the second one in the springtime we’re going up to Sault Ste. Marie Canada, not Sault Ste. Marie Michigan, but on the other side of the border to the, I don’t know how to say the name of the river, but it’s like the Goulais or Galashious River. It’s right off of Lake Superior and again it’s just this like super unique experience, lots of cool accommodations up there. And really all the trips we have right now are for inspiration. As we look to build what we’re making and add in cabins and different experiences like Kate was talking about. We plan to add in, we’re working with a couple different groups to add in recreational opportunities, guiding opportunities. And then even like folk schools. I don’t know what you mentioned crafting in the UK, we call them folk schools in the US. That’s something that we’re taking a lot of time to go see what other people are doing in our region and understand and get inspiration from.

Brian Searl: All right Jeremy, Kate or Charlotte?

Jeremy Johnson: Yeah. Man, this one could go to either one of you. I’m gonna I’m gonna go with Kate though. We talked a lot about how I think the UK is a lot of people think the UK is ahead of the United States in terms of this industry. And so I’m curious like what are you seeing, what’s at the forefront right now in the UK that we’re not even thinking about in the US? We’re just getting into these farm stays and farm hospitality. What’s like the next thing that you guys are already on to?

Kate Morel: Oh, that’s a tough query because it’s I think we’re going probably more down immersive route. We’re already doing farm stays, we’ve done farm stays, we’ve had feather down farms 15, 16 years ago. So that’s kind of old hat for us. But I still, there’s an opportunity for more people to do that. A lot of farmers are looking to diversify here in the UK. I don’t know if anybody watched Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm program. Farmers having a tough time of it over here. We’ve got a lot of farm shops popping up, popping up everywhere. Yeah, it’s stuff actually re-learning people going away to learn something and to engage with the natural world and learn about it. So we’ve got massive, there’s a things like forest therapy are becoming very popular here. Forest bathing, learning about trees, herbs, bees, all that sort of stuff. Maybe that’s my slight prejudice because I’m a forest therapy practitioner at the moment, so it’s opened my eyes to this whole world that fits in beautifully with glamping as well. We’re doing research and everybody’s saying, yeah, that’s going to be a big thing over here. So really properly engaging with nature.

Brian Searl: All right, Kate. Charlotte.

Kate Morel: Sorry Charlotte. You definitely need to come to our place. We have hundreds of trees.

Brian Searl: Maybe that’s what she was going to ask you, if she can come stay. I don’t know. Kate to Charlotte. You’re the process of elimination. You have a question for Charlotte?

Kate Morel: I’m going to ask Charlotte, what’s your big development idea for your site this year?

Charlotte Cleveley: We have just been chatting to the same guys that did our benches and the living fences. We’ve just been drafting plans for a swim pond lake in so that we could have lake in… lake might be a bit grand. A swim pond. So that we could add that and it slots in not dissimilarly with what you were talking about Kate. I think people are more interested in nature, it’s how… We also, as a side to our accommodation, we also operate as a care farm. So we welcome people with all sorts of different abilities, different needs to the farm. Green therapy and getting back to nature, I think that stuff is to become a really big thing as well. So yeah, swim pond. That’s what I’d love to do.

Brian Searl: Wild swimming.

Charlotte Cleveley: Wild swimming.

Brian Searl: Wild swimming, yeah. That sounds interesting. I still like the places we went in Iceland that were more than the Blue Lagoon. They were the just more in nature and more in tune and more, yeah. Charlotte, where can they find out more about Apple Farm Glamping?

Charlotte Cleveley: So you can find us on theapplefarmglamping.com. You’ll find us on Facebook, on Instagram, a little bit on TikTok. So yeah, we’re round about. We recently featured on a Channel 4 program called Four in a Bed. So if any of you guys access any UK TV at all that was a good giggle. So go yeah, you’ll find us pretty much everywhere.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you for being here Charlotte. Kate, where can they find out more about what you do?

Kate Morel: On my website creativestructures.com, Brian.

Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Kate. I appreciate it. Jeremy, where can they find out more about Kona Hills?

Jeremy Johnson: campkonahills.com. Right on the website.

Brian Searl: All right. And Zach, where can they find out more about what you do?

Zach Stoltenberg: The company is LJA.com, but LinkedIn really probably one of the best places to to connect with me.

Brian Searl: Awesome. Thank you guys for being here for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. We went a couple minutes over. If you’re not sick and tired of hearing from me, I will be back on Outwired in about 54 minutes or so with Scott Bahr. We’re going to cover a ton of news with AI tech, robotics, stuff like that. And a bunch of different data that slices and dices things like why retail sales are down 12% in November for RVs and some other things like that. So thank you guys for joining us. Other than that we will see you next week on another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Take care. Appreciate y’all.

Charlotte Cleveley: Happy New Year everybody.