MC Fireside Chats – November 13th, 2024

This is MC Fireside Chats, a weekly show featuring conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and outdoor hospitality experts who share their insights to help your business succeed. Hosted by Brian Searle, the founder and CEO of Insider Perks. Empowered by insights from Modern Campground, the most innovative news source in the industry.

Brian Searl:

Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name is Brian Sero with Insider Perks. Super excited to be here with you always for our second week episode focused on glamping. This is one of our last weeks, Chris, that’s going to be focused on glamping. Chris and Angel are my regular guests on the show. And is somebody playing like piano music? Am I imagining it? What’s happening?

Angele Miller:

I did just hear- Not I, not I. I just heard something too.

Brian Searl:

That’s very strange. Okay. Anyway, I may or may not be on drugs. We’ll address that after the show. But super excited to be here for another episode of Glamping Focus Discussion. You know, it’s one of our last episodes. I think we’re going to refactor the shows in 2025 to be more kind of topical based on, you know, one is going to be on reports and analytics, and one might be a deep dive. And so I can’t remember where we’ve put you, Chris, and Angel in that kind of lineup, or if we’ve even finalized it. Excited to do that like we’re gonna have a new co-host with me in 2025. He’s gonna be on all the shows And I think we’re gonna like do this really long form. I don’t even think we’ve told you guys this I’m gonna do this long form Chris So we’re gonna like start the podcast and we’re just gonna like go until we’re done talking. Oh

Chris Jeub:

And so it could be like a three hour Joe Rogan podcast.

Brian Searl:

Obviously with not any talent, like we’ll be a lack of talent. So, um, but yeah, I think that’s interesting, right? Because we always have this, this, the situation where like we get into these interesting discussions and we want to continue it. And mostly it’s when I’m not talking, but we do. And then we always have to wrap up and cut ourselves off. And we know that people’s time is valuable, so I want to let people drop off. And if you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. But if we have something that we’re talking about that’s interesting, why not just go until we’re done talking about it, right? So I think it’ll be interesting to see where that goes in 2025. We’ve got a couple of special guests with us here. Chris Hudak from Escapade. He corrected me before the show. I probably shouldn’t say that. Also, for anybody who watches the show, they know I pronounce everything wrong. So Escapade, pay attention to that name, memorize it. There will be a quiz at the end that Anja will be handing out to all of you. And Matt Small from RVI, right? RVI? Is that correct? Correct. Yes, RVI. Okay. Welcome, Matt. Do you guys want to briefly introduce yourselves? And then before we get into the show, please introduce yourself as well. I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that. I bet you that’s Christmas.

Chris Hudak:

I don’t know where that’s coming from.

Brian Searl:

I guess I hear that, can’t you? Like, come on. You guys know I’m not hallucinating, right? I’m going to change my voice. Anyway, sorry, please Chris.

Chris Hudak:

That’s all right. Uh, so I’m Chris Hudak, uh, founder and CEO of Escapade Trailers. Uh, we’re a manufacturer of, uh, small off-road campers. Um, we live in the premium space of teardrop trailers, all composite one piece trailers, all designed to go off road.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Excited to drive kind of, or dive kind of into that with you, Chris, and see all the things that you have to offer. Uh, Matt, you want to introduce yourself?

Matt Small:

Yeah, hi, Matt Small with RVI. We’re a national planning and landscape architecture firm. I lead up the outdoor hospitality group within RVI and really started with my love of camping in the outdoors in Colorado, and I’m excited to be here today and share a little bit about some of the work that we do across the country in the outdoor hospitality space in Atlantic.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Excited to have you here, Matt, and dive into kind of what you do. I have like big hopes and dreams in my head of like waterfalls and lagoons and all kinds of things you design.

Matt Small:

Oh, yeah.

Brian Searl:

It’s done some crazy stuff. So. All right, good. I want to talk about crazy stuff. I like crazy stuff. Chris and Angel, you want to introduce yourself or a current guest? Yeah. Angele. Oh, Zach is in the back room too, but he doesn’t have his camera on. There he is. Go ahead. Sorry.

Angele Miller:

Hi, everyone. So for me, I’m Angele Miller, and I’m located in Atlantic, Canada, in the province of New Brunswick. And we have a glamping resort here that has geodesic domes, mirror cabin, tree house, and even a big lobster fishing boat accommodation, Nordic spa, yoga meditation center, and different activities. And for us, we’re also franchising our glamping resort all over North America.

Brian Searl:

This is what I need. I need Angele’s places everywhere so I can just, after a hard day of work, I’d have to find the time because I never stop working, but I just want to go to Angele’s resorts and maybe Zach’s Bahamas place too.

Chris Jeub:

I’m Chris Jube, the Glamping Guy, and I own Monument Glamping here in Monument, Colorado, and I host the Glamping Guy podcast, which I had 11 guests on there. Zachary, you’ve been one. Angele, you’ve been another. And I’ve interviewed glamping masters is what I call them. And I also do YouTube videos and stuff. Helping landowners develop safe, legal, and profitable glamping operations on their private property.

Brian Searl:

Chris, what does one have to do to become a glamping master?

Chris Jeub:

Just run a glamping operation.

Brian Searl:

Make a little bit of money at it. You don’t even have to make a lot of money. I really hope you’re building waterfalls and stuff. And Chris, I’m really hoping you’re going to be like, there’s this kung fu program you got to go through. Yeah, no, no, no, no. You got to go under low bars and crawl through. We just got on the night vision.

Chris Jeub:

No, no, no. Just running a glamping operation. I mean, there’s a lot of people that I really feel like we’re in kind of a renaissance of land ownership. I just taught a class on ADUs, additional dwelling units or auxiliary dwelling units. And there’s kind of a movement going on where landowners are allowed and land use law is moving in that direction to allow for additional or auxiliary dwelling units. And I think glamping is kind of a flavor of that, where we’re being, with the right special use permits and things like that, that’s what I do. But then other municipalities and things, Colorado just passed laws, California just passed laws, primarily out west, Texas almost passed a law to allow landowners to offer rentals on their property. And glampers, glampers are all over that.

Brian Searl:

So this is the whole state you’re talking about they passed laws recently?

Chris Jeub:

Yeah, back in May this year Colorado passed a law that it forbids municipalities from restricting ADUs. Uh, so, and counties are exempt from that. So I’m, I’m kind of out in the county. So I had to go a different route with a special use permit to be allowed to do this. Uh, but, uh, cities and municipalities by 2025 need to start allowing that. So someone with a, you know, an acre in town could put a container home in the backyard and start renting it out starting next summer.

Brian Searl:

But it has to be within the borders of what is considered a city, like what’s considered a city.

Chris Jeub:

cities or towns, municipalities, you know, so they have incorporated areas. Yes. Incorporated areas. Yeah. Yeah. And California, Idaho, Washington, it’s where that, that Western corridor of all done this to call it California, I think was the first one to do it a couple of years ago. But the idea is, is that the, the, the city planning laws of a hundred years ago that were kind of forbidding the factories from setting up right next to the houses. I mean, there was some reasons for these laws. But we just live in a different time now and we live in a housing crisis. And the states with unaffordable housing are coming up with more creative ways to make that housing affordable.

Brian Searl:

But is it restricted to like other restrictions around it where like, obviously, glamping can cross that line, but that’s perhaps an unattended consequence or.

Chris Jeub:

I’m sure there are there’s specific restrictions to that. I’m giving you just the bird’s eye view of it. Yeah, sure.

Brian Searl:

I’m just trying to understand, like, Zach, do you feel like that makes your job somewhat easier if these laws continue to be passed or is it minimal impact or.

Zach Stoltenberg:

But I generally look at it, everything has a silver lining. And I think, as was mentioned, the laws of unintended consequences, there’s probably a double-edged sword in there. In some cases, depending on what somebody wants to do, yeah, it probably helps us as an industry as a whole. And then you’ve got to look at that slippery slope argument, too. If we get some bad apples, we get some bad operators, people in there, that’s going to build pushback. And for legitimate operators, people like Chris, Angel, that are out there that have gone through that process, done things right, done it the legal way, they’re going to be paying for the sins of those that are sort of that fly by night, that look at that as a loophole, and I can get this through, and they can’t stop me anymore, and that sort of thing. I think that’s one thing, and I hear Ruben talk about this from AGA often, is that as an industry, we’re evolving, we’re progressing, getting a lot more sophisticated with it. And I think we’re starting to see some of these changes in states, legal protections and things put in place for landowners. But I think as an industry, we still need to maintain that, that kind of sophistication and that we’re, we’re a legitimate industry. We’re doing things right. We’re doing it by the book. We want our guests to have unique, memorable, incredible experiences in a safe environment. And, and we want to, you know, go about doing that the right way.

Brian Searl:

A hundred percent. I want to talk to, I think Matt first is we’ll just talk like landscaping is obviously critical for a safe environment, right? We don’t want people falling off cliffs. We need nice slope, gentle. So before we do that, Zach, do you want to introduce yourself real quick since you came on late?

Zach Stoltenberg:

Yeah, sure. I’m Zach Stoltenberg. I’m a licensed architect and director of the Outdoor Hospitality Studio for Clockwork. We’re based in Kansas City. Over the last six years, I’ve designed probably in the neighborhood of 75 different glamping, camping, luxury RV resorts, anything outdoor hospitality related. And we help people navigate that planning zoning process, do master plans, design units. We have partnerships with a lot of different people in the space that do all the wonderful things that we don’t do. And we’re always excited to help people start that journey of designing and building and opening their own glamping resorts.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. As always, thanks for being here, Zach. Appreciate it. Matt, so let’s talk about, I keep looking like that because Matt’s hidden behind my camera. Like I’m very bad with names, Matt. It’s not just anything. So Matt, tell us about your company, how you got started.

Matt Small:

Yeah. So, you know, RBI as a business started over 40 years ago down in Austin, Texas, and really has grown over the years. It started off in kind of the big, in the master plan community space. Um, and over the years, um, has gotten more and more entrenched in traditional hospitality. Um, some of that is a crossover. We work with a lot of companies, uh, to build, to build out hospitality programs and deliver those as part of their communities. Um, and an extension of that through our offices in Florida, um, and in the Sunbelt States in Texas, Arizona, uh, we’ve gotten more and more involved with hospitality. Um, over the last four or five years, we’ve been immersed in the Sun Outdoors program, helping to deliver that across the country as they brought more and more communities and resorts online. And then we’ve also worked with some of the other larger incumbents in the space, in the hospitality space for outdoor hospitality. And just kind of echoing what Zach and Chris were saying, I think it’s you know, it’s a, it’s a changing space and it’s an exciting time for glamping. Um, and, and also, you know, we’re seeing it as well with the folks that we work with. It’s also a time that, to kind of pause this a little bit and understand that, you know, maybe what we got away with four or five years ago, times are quickly changing. And I would say as a whole, you know, there’s more awareness of glamping and, um, what it is, how it’s working. And it’s important that we, kind of have a plan of attack, if you will, as we start new projects and get going on new developments, that we are following the rules and we’re going through the right process.

Brian Searl:

Now, are you just focused on glamping? Are you glamping in RV resorts as well?

Matt Small:

We do it all. I mean, the reality is a lot of the folks that we work with, we work with folks that often have large acreage. So we’ll work with people that have 500, 600,000 acres. And in a lot of cases, we see blended resorts, if you will. So the big push we’re seeing is there’s a glamping component, there’s an RV component, there’s even the Villa Home component, you know, kind of the MH side. So we’ll see a lot of different components. We do work with small glamping operators as well, down to the 15 to 20 unit sites. So we kind of cover a lot of ground, you know, in the industry.

Brian Searl:

Is it fair to say that you kind of, your company kind of got into this as a result of COVID or was it planned or?

Matt Small:

You know, it was, it was, um, through an engineering relationship, um, that was doing a lot of the outdoor hospitality work for Sun. Uh, we were brought into the fold with that. And that was one aspect of what we were doing, um, was, was doing so much work with Sun. Um, but it also was just, um, our work on the traditional hospitality space. And I think Glamping is well positioned to be a disruptor in the industry. I know a lot of others have talked about that. But when you think about what the next generation of travelers wants, Glamping offers it. It’s a unique experience. It’s connected to the outdoors. Definitely tends to be more on the sustainable tract with in terms of programming and experiences. I think the traditional hospitality folks are starting to say, OK, this is, you know, the Glampian offers a lot of things that is a lot harder in a traditional hospitality environment to offer.

Brian Searl:

Okay, so talk me through this, Matt. Like, let’s say, let’s pretend I am a landowner, right? And I own, I don’t know, 100 acres in the middle of Texas, like in the middle of nowhere, there’s nowhere around. So I clearly need to build like this great destination to bring people here. They’re not coming here because of Austin or Houston or anything else. So I got to be the resort. What’s, uh, you know, I, I’ve heard of Matt, like, his company’s great. I’m going to go hire him. What is the. 1st, step in the process to figure out, like, how do I turn my land into something that can attract hundreds of thousands of clambers?

Matt Small:

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think, um, others on the call probably echo this, but. I always want people to have a detective mindset. We need to dig in and understand the big opportunity. I think there’s a tendency to get excited to do a business model, do a performa, start picking out the units that I’m going to put on the land. But until we understand kind of what the site is, the constraints, some of the opportunities behind it, the history, who our target guests might want to be, you know, partner with some of the leading analytics companies in the glamping space to get in and do some market research. When we get ready to dive into a project, we want to have as much of the information as we can to really complete a big picture assessment of what the opportunity is. And also going back to that landowner and saying, not just from a business perspective or a target market perspective, or a entitlements perspective, but what does success look like for you? Sometimes we dive in with folks and they haven’t really painted a picture of what they want success to look like. Is it a lifestyle business that you’re going to manage and own in perpetuity? Is it something that you want to divest of down the road? So there’s a lot of questions that are important to us to really understand the big picture before we can talk about moving forward in a meaningful way.

Brian Searl:

All right, so let’s say you’ve had those conversations. Let’s say, you know, I want to manage the business. I want to turn it into a full-fledged resort. I’ve got the capital. You’ve done the market study. Everything looks great. And we talk about landscape architecture, right? How am I going to make this piece of land attractive from that standpoint?

Matt Small:

Yeah, I mean, for us, it’s once we get through that research phase, the next part is really kind of the ideation phase, right? And that’s the super fun stuff. What’s the story that we’re going to tell that makes it unique in the industry, right? What are we going to do to have the brand and the story come to life and connect the dots in the built environment? So with the right industry research, we can really start to hone in on who the buyer or the consumer is, who our guests are going to be, what are their needs, what are their desires, and what unique programming are we going to offer in the built environment that the competitors don’t have. To me, that’s one of the coolest things we do as landscape architects is connect those dots. So I mean, it’s really hard to say every project’s different, but maybe it’s a rattlesnake farm with a lazy river and a miniature golf course. We let the market research and the consumer profiles And a lot of the insights that we get, you know, partnering with leading folks that provide us that information and working with the entrepreneur to say, okay, here’s two or three options that we could go down based on the data. Here’s the different cost scenarios associated with that. And here’s what it looks like. You know, here’s the pods for glamping and here’s the amenity zones and here’s the arrival sequence. getting all of the pieces and parts to layer in on the site.

Brian Searl:

I think it’s interesting, Zach, and I’d love for you to ask a couple questions, because it feels like some of that is a crossover. And I know you have a lot of experience in branding, right? It’s interesting to me, the one thing that I like, I picked out a lot about that, right? But the first thing you said was the story. It’s important to tell the story of what makes you different, right? What’s your brand? What’s your story? What’s your identity? And I know the people that probably work with you and the people that work with Zach probably aren’t having that issue because you guys are coaching them to create that, right? But there are so many people who do, you know, and we’ve talked to so many clients, like mostly in the RV resort space about, you know, now the economy is questionable and now it’s no longer good enough to just have a miniature golf course that everybody else has or just have a swimming pool that everybody else has. You’ve got to have a brand, you got to have a story, you got to have a difference maker. You got to know how to tell it to the market that you should be telling it to. So Zach, any thoughts?

Zach Stoltenberg:

Well, I think there is crossover, and there should be. We work very closely with landscape architects, with civil engineers, land planners. Every project is different, and different projects have budgets that allow for a larger consultant team. And some of our smaller stuff, we do those things in-house. But I think that some of the things that we’ve talked about previously, authenticity, consistency, the importance of guest experience leading everything, it kind of leads to almost a necessity in that crossover. That, yes, your site plan, where things are located on your property to take advantage of a view or waterfront or some of those things, That needs to convey into the unit type and the unit design. We’re just finishing up a project in Tennessee right now, outside of Chattanooga. It’s absolutely gorgeous. And there’s tons of rock and boulders, and there’s almost three miles of the most beautiful Christine creek you’ve ever seen. And we design units that have a lot of rock features in them because we have rock on the site. We design units that cantilever over the top of that stream and really immerse guests in that and being able to lay down in bed at night and hear the water running over, around you, beneath you. And so when we approach design, it has to be consistent, and all that has to tie back to a unifying brand. And so I think the best design results come when all those individual disciplines work together very closely, and your site plan matches your space creation zones, the unit types that are there, take advantage of the landscape features, and all of that ties back to a consistent brand identity and guest experience. So yeah, there’s always going to be crossover.

Brian Searl:

What if I could do anything? Please go ahead. Go ahead.

Matt Small:

Yeah, I just wanted to add to that too. I think that whether it’s a 10-unit glamping or a two-unit glamping site all the way up to a thousand units in a big master plan resort, there’s always trade-offs. It’s never perfect. Like you never start off with A to Z and it’s a straight line. It looks more like a squiggly line that goes back and forth. And so with strong brand principles set day one and having a confidant or a consultant that you’re working with to help kind of ask some big questions and have the brand principles, you can always come back to those. So I always encourage people, have a story, have a goal, have a target in mind. How are you going to differentiate? What are the unique things you’re going to offer? And then as you start working through the technical execution of that, you always hit bumps in the road, but you can always come back to your brand principles and you can make evaluations and pros, cons, trade-offs based on those brand principles. Because at the end of the day, Not everything can happen the way you want it to, but if you stay focused on impact and differentiated position in the market, you’re probably going to come out ahead.

Brian Searl:

Zach, I don’t know if you know, but you’re frozen on my side. I don’t know if he’s frozen for everybody else, but it’s a very flattering picture in case. But in case you want to, I don’t know, refresh or something like that. If he’s frozen for everybody else. Um, but anyway, um, like, I think that. You know, 1 of the things that really interests me is this thought process. Right? And I think that. It’s valuable for a second to explore the, how do I begin that process? Because not everybody has access to a matter, has access to a Zach, right? And certainly, if you are ambitious enough and have plans to be in this for the long term and not just flip something really quick, and not to exclude the flippers, there’s market for that too, right? But I am interested in your thought process and how you unpack some of this stuff, right? So it’s, I think it’s, And I’m not minimalizing this, but I think it’s easier if you’re over a creek, you know what your attraction is, right? You know, you want to bring people close to the water, you want to do all that. You know, I think it’s harder in my example, unintentionally perhaps, of the field in the middle of Texas. I mean, let’s say I partner with Jerry Jones and it’s like, my quarterback sucks, he’s injured. There’s a billion dollars, do whatever you want with it, right? Where do you start with that? Like, I think of it like, did you guys ever play Rollercoaster Tycoon when you were a kid? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You’ve got the plot of land that had, like, the giant rock there and you’re like, I really want to build a coast there, but I can’t move that rock. Then you’re constrained. Right. But when you had the field and you could dig and go up, down, whatever way you wanted and sculpt the hills, then the sky’s the limit. Right. So if you had a client come to you to do that, like, what does your vision look like? Like, what if you could build anything that what would it be?

Matt Small:

Um, I mean, I, for me, I think it, I always encourage people if, if, if you have to start and you have to bootstrap and you have to kind of, you know, do it on your own for a while after bootstrap, you have a billion dollars. All right. So if I could do anything, um, that’s, that’s, that’s a great question. Um, one of the reasons that I am really keen on glamping is I, I do believe that, um, it’s the one niche within real estate and within hospitality that can help tell a story and connect with people in a different way. And I’m personally really passionate about leaving the climate a better place, leaving the world a better place. And I, you know, my goal is to help entrepreneurs and glamping folks tell the story of how they’re connecting to the environment and how they’re connecting the place in different ways. And, you know, on the coattails of regenerative travel, how can we bring people to a resort and educate them and immerse them in new experiences that they can take back to their communities and give back and, you know, look at positive climate initiatives that they can bring back. So if I had a billion dollars, I would probably start there. I don’t know what all that looks like just yet. You would start there.

Brian Searl:

How much are you going to spend, Matt?

Matt Small:

Billion, maybe a billion, maybe a billion. If it’s Jerry Jones, he’s got money. No. So I do think that it’s, I love the, the concept that we’re doing this on some commercial projects that we’re working on where it’s a hospitality mindset, but it’s, it’s driven around community engagement and programming things like, um, urban agriculture, community gardens, farm to table, um, pollinator habitats, native habitats, and creating a, a learning academy, if you will, or an immersive learning environment that people could come and visit and go on vacation, but they’re learning and they’re participating and just kind of a different immersive way of thinking about spending your time.

Brian Searl:

Saving the earth and educating people. Beat that, Zach.

Zach Stoltenberg:

No, I agree with Matt. I think one of the One of the emerging trends that we’re seeing, I’ll call it like a subsect of glamping. And we’ve all talked about the terms, you know, what is glamping, right? And I favor the term experiential hospitality. But I think there’s a subsect within that, that if I had to put a name on it, and I’ll coin it right here, I’m gonna take credit for forever more in the future, it’s transformative hospitality. There’s an emerging desire for people to come out and have these experiences, but to leave impacted, to leave changed, to leave with a new skill or something that they’ve learned. We’re seeing a focus, I would say really a lot more in this last year, where even among existing glamping operators, they’re realizing, they’re listening to their guests, they’re taking that feedback seriously, and they’re looking to deliver a more immersive experience. They’re saying, we’ve already done the easy stuff. We put up the swing, we’ve got some Instagrammable photo spots, we do campfires and s’mores every night, and we’ve got luxury accommodations, we’re meeting all the basic needs. How do we take this further? How do we create something really unique? A couple of examples that I could throw out. One of my clients from the last year, they did a mushroom hunting experience at one of the places that they stayed. It was a heavily wooded tree property, and they went out with a guide, and they walked about three miles on this trail. And as they went, they found wild mushrooms. And they learned what they were, and which ones were safe to eat, and which ones were not. And they came back. I met with them maybe about a month after they had done this, and we were walking their property through the trees, and they were telling me what all these mushrooms were. And I was like, you guys sure know a lot about mushrooms. And then they were like, yeah, we did this whole thing like a month ago. And so I think that desire to leave transformed. We’re also seeing it on the health and wellness side. where a lot of resorts now are focusing on these connection retreats, right, where they want families to come out and reconnect and be screen-free and leave with a stronger bond as a family unit after a 24, 48-hour stay at these resorts. And so I love what Matt brought up, and I think that it is something we’re going to start to see more and more of. But if I had a billion dollars, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m inspired always by other operators that are in the space and people that are doing new and exciting things. If you’ve seen Outpost X, it’s like the wildest, craziest glamping resort you could ever imagine. It’s sort of a burning man meets glamping. And I’ve seen some of his concepts and ideas for new stuff. They’re trying to bring on a jungle site sometime in the next year, and then a live-action Viking camp, where staff would be in period dress and everything. I think really the sky’s the limit of what we can do. And that’s one of the reasons I like the outdoor hospitality industry is there’s just no rules. There’s no guidelines. You can do whatever you want. And if you’re sticking to your brand, you’re connecting with people, it’s resonating, it’s working, it’s going to be successful.

Brian Searl:

I agree with you. I don’t know if you guys can hear me. My screen just froze, and I have a tab in front of me. So I’m just going to keep talking.

Chris Jeub:

Your screen’s the only one freezing I I can see everyone beautifully is everything’s going great Hey, I got a couple thoughts on this brian if you don’t mind the yeah, I was gonna share the the yeah post x website That’s when it froze on me. So yeah, matt matt said a few the word story came up. I read a book, uh, maybe two years ago, matthew dicks, uh the uh story worthy very good read And then it helped transform a lot of what I do at Monument Glamping, because I mean, I’m kind of I’m subtly surprised at how many people want to know my story as a glamping operator of how this this came about. I tell it a lot ever since I read that book, because I’ve people want to know the story of the host and of how this came, how this property came about. But then they want to share their story, too. I’ve the best guests, I would say, that I’ve had. And, Jill, you probably agree. The best ones that come on the property are the ones that kind of come with a good story. And I could share one. We just got two feet of snow last weekend. And we had somebody stay in one of our outfitter’s tents. And it was great. They just got dumped on. And it was an active duty guy living in Japan. He picked up his girlfriend in Iowa and drove out here during a blizzard. And they insisted on staying here because I got a full cancellation policy and everything is like, you sure you want to stay here? And it’s like, we’re getting dumped on. It’s like, no, he comes in here with a two wheel drive. You can’t even get out of the place and just have a ball. And, um, and we got to know them and they, they, they, well, I just shared a little bit of their story, active military. He’s here in the States for a while. And he’s, he’s, he’s taken a cross country trip out into the mountains and, uh, and just having a ball. Um, and we got to share our lives with them. We gave, we gave them a little, uh, pack because they couldn’t get to the store because they were, they were snowed in. So we made them some, uh, some stew and some, some little vittles and a cooler and stuff. We gave it to them and they just, they just loved it. And. They went out by the time they did get able to get out. They went out and bought a bottle of wine. They knew we made our own wine. We gifted them with some of our wine. We told them the whole story about our wine. You see how that story just keep kind of weaving into that guest experience. And I love what you’re saying, Zach, the whole transformative. They left a very nice note in our manual. And, and who knows, they might be back again, but they’re, even though they’re from Iowa, those are the kinds of guests that that’s, that’s a, that’s a five star guest. You know, that that’s like, we, we feel very touched that we got to help them have a wonderful time together here in Colorado. And, and they, you know, respectively. They feel like they blessed us just by us having them on their property and digging them out of the snow and things like that. It was just, it was just wonderful. So Storyworthy is that book. And that actually has, I teach a lot of people to do that in their own, even in their business plans, kind of lead with a story, a stale, old, ugly, formal spreadsheet-ish type of business plan should lead with a story, especially in the glamping industry. How did this property come about? Why is it so unique to the area? How are we impacting the community businesses and the commerce that goes on? Or if it’s on the boonies, how are we bringing people here to tell a story of the area? All that stuff, it’s all in the story, man. I think that’s what That’s what travelers want to know is the story. I, I like to know that when I go to go to, you know, visit an area and I want to know, you know, who are the, who are the, uh, the, the founding fathers of this huck down, whatever, wherever, even if it’s out in the boonies, I wanted to kind of know what’s going on. That’s the kind of traveling that I like to do. And I, I think glamping people, uh, like to do the same thing.

Brian Searl:

Yeah, a hundred percent agree. I want to get to Chris real quick and, uh, I’m going to try to hang in here as long as I can. I don’t know if I refresh the browser, if it’ll actually stop the stream. So I’m just going to sit in here and see what happens with Chris from Escapade. Uh, do you want to tell us a little bit about your company?

Chris Hudak:

Yeah, I feel like I should sell liability insurance because you’re talking about rattlesnake farms and mushroom hunting. Like I think the liability insurance would have been a better play than travel trailers. So, my wife and I started Escobar in 2016. Basically, you know, it’s a pretty normal story, right? It’s like we were looking for something on the market that didn’t exist. We were traveling at the time, doing a lot of mountain bike racing. decided to build our own trailer as we traveled in that trailer for a couple years. We had a lot of friends asking, hey, can you build us one? And really started pretty organically with a product that we had built for ourselves. From 2017 to about 2022, we grew to 80 employees. Launched a new product in 2021 which is kind of an evolution of the teardrop trailer Using composites and really took it to the next level And so what we’re seeing You know as it relates to glamping is a lot of what you guys are talking about is this these people who are seeking experience And so most of our customers are saying hey, we really want to experience the Alaska Highway or maybe the Baja. We are avid mountain bike racers and so we want something that we can travel with our mountain bikes and sleep comfortably. And then we do have customers who are starting small rental businesses. We have one in Moab which is called Red Rock Base Camps. She uses public lands to host her guests, and so works closely with the BLM on their campgrounds, brings a trailer to that campground, and allows guests to stay there, so offers kind of that glamping experience on public lands, which is really amazing. Those people in Moab are seeking, you know, probably canyon lands and arches and hiking and biking and all the things that Moab has to offer. Then we have other experiences like Breck Brewing offers a orchard experience where you can actually stay in a peach orchard and stay in a trailer and that trailer is set up in the orchard and so you have places like that or you know hip camp based experiences and then we offer Glamping experiences through us where you can actually just pick up a trailer from Escapade in Colville Utah and then take that wherever you want you know and so I think that the mobility of the product really adds to something or can add to the experience for you know smaller type entrepreneurs.

Brian Searl:

But I think the first thing that sticks out to me, and I’m sure it’s different for the people who live and breathe glamping every day, is you’re not billing yourself as an RV. You’re billing yourself as a glamping experience. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Hudak:

So why? That’s my first question. Because I refuse to wear a white bun down shirt and a suit. No, we’ve separated ourselves from the RV industry, mainly because how we look at RVing or look at the experience, you know, we really look at the experience in a holistic type way. We create deep relationships with our clients and our guests and continue on that relationship well after the purchase. And so really, it’s a longer life cycle than I think most RVs. And the way that we look at the product is very different than modern RV industry, where it’s a disposable capital good. We create something that’s going to last a lifetime. And so we just try to separate ourselves a little bit.

Zach Stoltenberg:

1. I’ve got two things with that.

Brian Searl:

Please, yeah.

Zach Stoltenberg:

I mean, one, I think to the point of, is it an RV or not? This goes back to that earlier brand discussion, right? Understanding your customer, who is your target market? Who are we building these for? And I think the teardrop, the overlanding, That demographic, it’s the adventure seeker. It is somebody that wants that immersive nature experience. You don’t buy an Escapade to go stay in a campground next to a 42-foot Class A motor coach. You buy an Escapade because you get your basic necessities, those creature comforts, and you can stay on BLM land at the edge of Moab. And so I think, you know, understanding your brand, knowing who that customer is and knowing that they’re not an RVer, I think that’s consistent. So it kind of echoes with what we were talking about. But a couple of questions I had for you. One, and you kind of hit it at the end, you maintain that relationship with your customers. Do you have a club?

Chris Hudak:

Do we have a club?

Zach Stoltenberg:

Do you have a club? Do you do like group meetups, gatherings for you? Yeah, spot and say, Hey, we’re all going to come here. We’re going to meet up, bring your escapades. We’ve got space for 40 or 50.

Chris Hudak:

Yeah, so we have an owner’s group that’s actually run by owners. Escapod supports that group. We’ll do meetups at larger events like Overland Expos. And then we also have a little bit tighter knit of community, what we call the pod guides. They’re actually part of our sales process as well. So those are customers who own a trailer that really enjoy meeting people and creating community. And so the sales team will connect. Let’s just say, Zach, you have a trailer where you’re located. We’ll send potential sales to your location and you can actually show that trailer, get a commission. And that group’s even a little bit tighter as well. So they get updates on the product and kind of what’s coming down the pipeline and that kind of stuff.

Zach Stoltenberg:

So then my second question is, would you ever consider some kind of a branded partnership with resorts, with owners. So if we had glamping operators, people like Chris that said, you know what? I’ve got some space over here. I could put in some power and water hookups. And we’ve got a beautiful natural site. And yes, I have glamping tents. I’ve got domes. I’ve got tree houses. I’ve got yurts. I’ve got whatever. But we’d happily host a couple smaller estuapods or teardrop groups or something like that. I could put three or four sites in here. Yeah. Would you ever consider doing a branded partnership where you could put that out to your customer base and say, hey, we’re building a network of resorts and properties that are open and welcoming to you guys?

Chris Hudak:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that we’re always looking for, you know, shared community, right? And I think we would love to be able to say, hey, listen, these are great places to go with your Escapade. We have sites that are designed for, you know, trailers of this size and really be able to share that community and places to travel and experience. Absolutely.

Angele Miller:

I have some questions. Oh, sorry.

Matt Small:

You go, I’ll throw it out there and then I’ll be quiet. And then it might dovetail to some of those questions. But Chris mentioned something that caught my ear and it’s something we see a lot. That’s the crossover space, right? A lot of crossover, non-traditional groups that are embracing the concepts of glamping and the experiences of glamping. And I wanted just to point out, I think that the glamping entrepreneurs of the world can be the leaders with this. Groups like the breweries, groups like, you think about if we’re in the business of selling experiences, and the escapades are one way to have those experiences. What are all the tangential crossover businesses that could partner with glamping folks that would provide those experiences and make it that much more rich. I mean, you know, the possibilities are endless. We’re seeing it with some of the big name brands, clothing brands, entertainment brands that are like, hey, wow, if we just plug into Glamping, all of a sudden we’ve doubled our opportunities in the marketplace.

Chris Hudak:

Yeah, I think breweries are a perfect example. It’s like have a few beers and a nice place to sleep.

Brian Searl:

I’ll take that. Yeah.

Chris Hudak:

Yeah. Sounds great. Wineries do it. We do well with wineries as well. You know, they obviously have the space and the land to host a small camper. No problem. I mean, they’re oftentimes in some of the most beautiful parts of the country. The campers themselves require very small, very small, like footprint as it regards to services, right? They’ve got water on board, they’ve got power, they’ve got everything they need, so they’re all self-contained. So we see a lot of landowners using them on their existing pieces of land because they don’t need those larger capital expenses to get services in.

Brian Searl:

Makes sense. So Zach, two things, transformative hospitality, and if this idea comes to fruition, how much commission do you want off this?

Zach Stoltenberg:

No, I’m following in the footsteps of those that came before me. I may have found a label for it, but no, I think it’s something that we’re going to continue to see more and more of, and I hope it grows.

Brian Searl:

Like I 100% agree with you. Like it’s just from a transformative hospitality and not even outdoor hospitality, even though that’s what we’re generally talking about. Um, you know, I just taking an example from my own travels of going to Slovenia and discovering their wine country and coming back and drinking more wine instead of the typical whiskey. I did like, it’s a, it’s a transformative experience because I learned more about the wine. I understand it. I know next to nothing about it still, but I know more than I did when I left. Right. And so in some ways, like, I think that’s probably one of the, Less well thought out examples that you’re talking about, but it’s transforming your experience, right?

Zach Stoltenberg:

Yeah, and I think a good point that was brought up that Matt mentioned to those partnerships, you know, there’s there’s so many opportunities and I tell this to a lot of clients that we work with. You don’t have to create every experience on property. And sometimes it’s better not to. Look at what’s there. Look at who’s around you. When you have that brewery that’s two miles down the road, work out a deal with them, put together a beer tasting, a flight where they get to go down, tour how they make it, and sit down and do a tasting with five or six different kinds of beer, and learn about it, talk with their brewmaster, figure out what they like. We’ve talked about coffee experiences. We’ve done whiskey tastings. You don’t need to build a zip line on your property to create an experience. If you’ve got a zip line 20 miles away, you need to facilitate it. You need to let your guests know that it’s there, that it’s available. Even put a referral link or a booking deal on your website to where they can book that at the same time. they book their stay with you. So I think those partnerships and those opportunities are one of the things that make successful glamping operations more successful.

Brian Searl:

Well, I think that’s something that we need to talk more about in this industry, right? Like not just glamping, but outdoor hospitality as a whole, although we’re focused on glamping today. I think that people don’t realize, they don’t even think to think that if that makes sense. Like I just came back from an Ojai conference that had lots of great education in it, right? But you hear the same kind of things that you do every year, like Wi-Fi is an amenity. Of course you need a playground if you’re trying to attract kids and here’s how to do swimming pool maintenance and certification. But there’s no Zach standing up there. I think you were there in Kansas City, right? But there’s no Zach or anybody else standing up there and saying like, Like, think about outside the box, right? Like, you don’t have to invest $100,000 or more in a water park if there’s a wonderful community pool down the road that you can partner with, or the brewery, or all the examples that you’re giving. I think people just don’t think to think. Is that fair?

Angele Miller:

Yeah, and you know, if you don’t mind, Brian, I’ll add to that, like the what you guys are saying, like Zach, the transformative hospitality. I mean, for us just to to feed on that, like that’s kind of how we built our resort to to become an award winning resort is because we’ve integrated that in every level. Just to give an example, like in our region, there’s a lot of oyster farm. So we’ve built private oyster chucking experiences. in the units and the oyster trucker will actually show how you can open an oyster because a lot You know, so part of being in that experience is what really, you know, brings the experience for the guests and makes it even more memorable and enjoyable. And the same when you were also saying earlier is to participate in those activities. So for us, like we’ve built pizza kits, but we don’t make it for them. We bring the best local sausage, hamburger with local farm, everything. So they have to make it themselves. and then grill it on the barbecue grill. And all those partnerships like from outside, we have a llama farm. that’s close to us and we’ve created a llama glamping experience where people can actually bring a llama, walk the trails, learn how to, you know, how they live and how to feed it. They get to feed it and then they get to glamp at night, you know. So there’s many things, like you said, is to really think outside the box and reach out to those local farm, local companies, you know, the microbreweries are really big growing. Also segment that’s in demand, you know, and sometimes a lot of those microbreweries, they’d be happy to bring a container style microbrewery, you know, close to you, even on your land. You know, like we’ve actually had a few local microbreweries that have pushed us on that aspect because it’s not expensive, it’s very simple, you know, it doesn’t need to be complicated, just a simple design, but it also elevates the experience, you know, even for them as a microbrewery, but for also a glamping operator. So yeah, so I totally, you know, believe that we’re really in this time today of the transformative experiential, you know, hospitality in glamping. And one of the thing I’d like to ask also, Matt, if you’re okay with that, what you guys are doing is like, do you see like any patterns are things that are kind of recurring and what you see as being successful in what you guys like. So when you’re building the glamping resorts, and you work with many glamping operators, are you seeing a pattern or a trend or something that’s kind of coming out as, you know, this has been proven to be successful, and it works no matter where you’re located.

Matt Small:

Well, it goes back to what everybody else has talked about. And that is what I’ve seen be the most successful is if we can get to that genuine, authentic story that connects to the place, right? It connects to the guests that want to be there. And that’s, what’s that unique story? What are those unique experiences? And if it’s different than everybody else, and it connects to your target market, then we’re seeing that as the key to success. And it’s the little details. So it’s, it’s everything you just said. I want to know more about the llamas. By the way, we had a client that we talked about baby goat glamping experience, but the llamas sound cool too. It’s the details, right? So if you’re going to have, let’s say you’re doing a family eco tour experience, right? It’s the big picture stuff of connecting them to a off property experience to go tour XYZ botanic gardens or XYZ, you know, nature preserve. and have a curated tour, but it’s all the little things you can do when they come back on the property. To me, if you’re going to sell unique experiences, it starts when you When someone’s looking at your property, the story you tell, the engagement before they even show up on property, are you booking the tours? Are you booking the little activities? When they show up to check in, are you giving something for the kids to do? If it’s a family eco tour that connects them back to the things that they’re going to do, right? Maybe it’s an activity guy. One of the things that we see, find some nonprofits, right? Find some local nonprofits or national nonprofits like National Wildlife Federation has a bunch of curated experiences for kids all about connecting to nature, right? And a lot of times those are those are low cost things that people can grab. On site, right? If you’re an eco tour focused, have a nature play area, right? Let the kids go out and play in the mud. And I know that’s scary for a lot of parents, but be intentional about it. Focus on every single piece that someone’s going to interact, we always call it like a day in the life journey. When I’m booking, when I show up to check in, when I’m on property, when I’m off property, all the little details that make it rememberable, right? So someone says, I remember that entire experience and it was unique. I know there’s folks that have talked about it at some of the AGA conferences and whatnot. Follow up with them, right? When you follow up with them, have that unique touch point that makes them remember that experience they had six months ago. That’s what we see being very successful, moving the needle for folks that are really killing it out there.

Chris Hudak:

I think if I can weigh in too, you know, just from an outsider’s point of view is, is that, you know, you talked about authenticity, right? Is like if you offered, uh, I think what you guys call it, the, uh, outpost X experience, maybe up in Alberta, it’s not going to work. Right. And so it’s gotta be authentic, but I also think that, that guests can sense passion too. And so like if the best gifts you can give as a gift giver is things that you’re passionate about because you’re like really enjoying giving this someone you know this gift to someone and I think that the experience is the same thing is like if you’re really passionate about You know, if you’re here in Utah, in the mountains of Utah, and you’re really passionate about horses and you’re sharing horse experience with your guests through trail rides and experiential touch relationships, then then the guest is going to feel that where if it’s like you’ve never had, you know, you don’t have kids and you’re trying to offer a playground and you have no idea what kids are all about and what they’re looking for. The guests are going to feel that, too. And I think that like It’s authenticity as part of the passion that you have for whatever experience that is too.

Zach Stoltenberg:

Yeah, I think it goes back to a hosted experience. Why are people moving away from traditional hospitality in droves and choosing to go glamping, choosing to go to some of these incredible locations and sites and have that immersive experience? They’re after a hosted experience, right? It’s not just, well, Give me your credit card. Here’s your your keypad. And you know hopefully we don’t have to talk anymore because if we do then that means something’s wrong. That’s I think it’s something from the beginning that has always set apart glamping and outdoor hospitality. When we look at some of the most successful operators you know they they have a very rigid structured way that you know from the time the guests Pulls off the road to enter their property. They’ve thought about what is that experience? What does it look like? Who’s the host? That’s going to meet them. What is that check in process? What is the education piece of that teaching them about their unit and. showing them where everything is so they’re comfortable and they have everything they need for their stay, being attentive. Like, it’s the service piece of it and the person, the forward-facing, you know, guest, experienced person is just as important as all the technical pieces of getting it right. And yes, if that person has passion, has, you know, a desire and they like taking care of people. And Chris, I know I hear you talk about this all the time, kind of that call to be a host, to host people and to take care of people. But I think that’s one of the big differentiating factors in black and brown hospitality.

Brian Searl:

For sure. Absolutely. Um, I don’t know if you guys can hear me. My whole screen is frozen now. I’m frozen. So I’m just hanging on here, but it’s really fun actually. Um, I think I want to wrap up the show here. I know we’re almost at a time. Uh, I do have one thing, like I think before I let everybody do their kind of closings and tell us where they can find out more about your companies and stuff, Zach, I’m interested in your thoughts of like, how do we, I think this is a need in the industry. Like I think, and I’m just singling you out because you brought it up, right? Obviously you’re not the only one but there are I think there’s a deep need to show off more of what’s possible in glamping would you Does that make sense like versus just not even just photos, but just show off What is possible how to think outside the box how to tell your story how to do your brand how to understand that? It’s not it doesn’t have to all be from a selection of five templated experiences that everybody else does Would you agree there’s a need for that?

Zach Stoltenberg:

Yeah, I think there is. And again, this industry is emerging. It’s evolving so fast. And guest expectations, seeing some of these operators that are out there that are creating some wild stuff, today we look at it and say, that’s crazy. That’s wild. That’s nuts. I think three to five years down the road, that won’t be crazy anymore. It won’t be something that’s that uncommon. And so I think where everything is constantly evolving and changing and having the freedom and flexibility within an industry like this to do it, to allow for it to happen, I think we’re going to see more of it. And part of it, back to circle this all the way back to where we began with this, sitting down, coming up with those thoughts. And this was a question that was asked earlier. How would you tell people to get started if you don’t have a Matt, if you don’t have a me? You know, one of the things I tell people when we start working together, even before sometimes when I do an intro call with somebody, I’ll say, can you send me just some of your thoughts on and they’re like, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, just sit down. It doesn’t have to be organized. It could be random. You could do speech to text or whatever. Just send me one or two pages that talks about what you want to do here, what you think might work, where you want to go with this. And I think it’s a really helpful exercise for people who are just beginning that process to put together a narrative that just says, these are some of my thoughts. And then another thing that I often tell the people that we’re working with is, as an architect, as a designer, it’s always my idea to ask the question. And I’ll come up with numerous, numerous ideas. Some of them are good. Some are not so good. Some of them are things that make my client think about it. And they’re like, well, I don’t necessarily want to do exactly what you said, but it made me think about this. And what about this? And what about this? And I’m kind of fresh on it because I just spent the last two days on a site visit with one of our clients. That’s all we did for two solid days. We walked this property. We set up all the ideas we came up with. All these different things that we could do, we, we drove around, you know, surrounding areas, where are the closest places that we could eat? What is is it good? Is it not good? Is it something we want to, you know, hey, these guys are doing some cool. Maybe we can partner with them. And so, you know, I think there’s. When we work with people, that’s part of our process. That’s a part of what we do internally. We’ve done it enough. We challenge ourselves and our clients to go through that. But you don’t need a me to do that. Those are all things that you can sit down and do yourself.

Brian Searl:

Well, I think that’s the important thing. First of all, you want a you, right? But sometimes you can’t have a you or right, like you said, you don’t necessarily need one. But I think that’s part of what I want to communicate. Like I think we’ll have a conversation maybe like at the beginning of 2025 when I have some bandwidth, Zach, and not just with you, but I want to have it with some other people too. I’m interested in doing more of, you know, one or two of these shows, even of the glamping type style stuff, like on location, maybe at one of the properties you’ve designed. Zach, right? And we actually show this stuff because I think it’s one thing to talk about. I think it’s another thing to say like, look, this is what’s possible, right? Either with or without Zach, but it’s like, get your brain going.

Zach Stoltenberg:

I can refer you to some great operators that we’ve worked with that would love to tell their story and what they’re doing.

Brian Searl:

That’s what I mean, right? Yeah. And again, not just with you. I want to go to some other RV resorts and stuff like that. Like, I can’t travel the whole year, but even if we could get out and do six episodes of some kind of, like, a couple glamping, couple RV resorts, stuff like that, I just think that’s valuable for people to see.

Zach Stoltenberg:

Do a true fireside chat around a campfire at somebody’s resort.

Brian Searl:

Yeah. Well, I’m sure we got to get ahold of Miguel in Mexico, too, for the winter in Canada. That’s when I want to go. All right, let’s go around the room. Everybody kind of closes out just briefly. Tell us, you know, where they can find more information about you, your name, everything like that. Who wants to start? I’m frozen, so I can’t tell.

Chris Jeub:

Well, I’m Chris Jube, Glamping Guy. You can find my resort at monumentglamping.com or the glampingguystuff at glampingguy.com.

Brian Searl:

Thanks, Chris. Appreciate you being here as always.

Zach Stoltenberg:

I’m Zach, Director of Outdoor Hospitality for Clockwork. You can find us at clockwork-ad.com. I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all the regular social media channels. And if you got a question, if you got a project, it doesn’t matter. Feel free to reach out. I don’t charge anybody for a phone call. Love to sit down and chat, hear more about what you want to do, and if there’s something we can do to help you get there.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Appreciate you being here, Zach. Nigel?

Angele Miller:

Hi, so I’m Aja Miller, Creekside R&R Glamping and R&R Glamping Franchise, and you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. You can also send us an email directly to our website at creeksidernr.com. Thank you.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Thanks for being here, Aja. Chris?

Chris Hudak:

Hey there, Chris Hudak, CEO and founder of Escapod Trailers. You can find us at escapod.us. Best way to reach out to us. Thank you. Awesome. And last but not least, Matt.

Matt Small:

I’m Matt Small, RVI Director of Landscape Architecture. I’m on LinkedIn and Instagram. Probably easiest to drop me a quick message on email msmall at rviplanning.com. You can also go to rviplanning.com. We have an outdoor hospitality page there that breaks down some of the folks in our group that specialize in the hospitality space.

Brian Searl:

Awesome. Well, thank you all for being here. This is going to be a weird end to the show. Char’s in here. She’s going to try to hit the end stream for me backstage, but if not, that’ll just be kind of an abrupt cutoff, but thank you all for joining us. I really appreciate it. Uh, we’re looking forward to another episode talking next week, uh, with campground owners and stuff like that. Uh, just really excited to see where this industry is headed. Keep talking with, with all of you wonderful, brilliant people on the show who we have here every week and just getting new ideas and exploring new topics. So thank you all for being here and Char, go ahead. We’ll see you whenever we see you. Take care guys.

SPEAKER_03:

Thanks for joining us for this episode of MC Fireside Chats with your host, Brian Searle. Have a suggestion for a show idea? Want your campground or company in a future episode? Email us at hello at moderncampground.com. Get your daily dose of news from moderncampground.com. And be sure to join us next week for more insights into the fascinating world of outdoor hospitality.