MC Fireside Chats – October 29th, 2025

Greg Emmert: And are we live? We’ll find out if we’re live. I think we’re live. Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. I am Bizarro O’Brian. That’s right. I’ve got the beard and everything. I dunno if anybody else remembers that. The cartoons when you were a kid, you’d go to Bizarro World and Superman would show up and you had a goatee anyway Scott’s not laughing at that joke and that’s all he is here for.

Scott Bahr: I was saying about the South Park. You should have used the South Park reference. 

Greg Emmert: Yes, you’re right. I should have gone that one. The the Indian Burial Ground episode from season two, I think. Anyway, I’m Greg Emmert, founder and principal at Vireo, a consulting firm that helps outdoor hospitality. I’m your co-host this week along with the illustrious Scott Bahr, who’s next to me.

I don’t know if on the screen it shows us over here or over here. This is a very Brady Bunch thing we have going on right now. Scott, nice to see you again. Thanks for being here.

Scott Bahr: Yeah, it’s great being a part of it.

Greg Emmert: And then we have David, Steph, and MacKenzie as well. And there and then there’s this odd person showing us the ground that he’s walking on.

We’ll maybe get in with him later. But David, Steph, MacKenzie. All really excited to see what’s going on with you guys. And then there’s a stalker down in the bottom right hand corner, claiming to be Brian Searl. Very backlit, very nosferatu looking. Sir, you might could use some pigment or some better lighting.

I’m not sure which one. Maybe both. But it’s good to see.

Brian Searl: You guys actually hear me?

Greg Emmert: I’m glad you could join us. Yes, I can hear you anyway. 

Brian Searl: Alright. We’ll see if this internet works. I’m in a tiny town called Rastoke in Croatia, so. 

Greg Emmert: Fair enough.

Brian Searl: Go ahead, lead the show, man. It’s all yours.

Greg Emmert: I was doing that and then you came on board. You just slowed me down. So.

Brian Searl: You said hi to me, man. I wanted to.

Greg Emmert: Anyway.

Brian Searl: Nice and acknowledge you.

Greg Emmert: Very nice to have our three guests this week. Everybody in the Glamping space, which I’m really excited to talk about. Why don’t we start with the person that’s at the top of my host notes, but we’ll start with we’ll start with Steph McDonald and Steph, why don’t you tell us a little bit about Quabbs Cabin.

Steph MacDonald: Okay. I’m Steph, as you’ve just said, and together with my husband Paul, we built Quabbs Cabin by hand on our sheep farm in the hills of Midwest in the UK. We wanted to create a place where people could slow down and reconnect and a bit of magic in the quiet countryside. So a cabin sits in the meadows and rolling hills.

Lots and lots of walks nearby. It’s designed for two cozy, romantic, dog friendly, all the home comforts and really trying hard to be sustainable, eco-friendly. And we wanted it to be warm and simple and inviting, and that was our vibe really. So that’s just about where we’ve come from. We only opened in January, so we are new to this.

We are doing a lot of firsts this year. But so far so good. 

Greg Emmert: Very nice. And where are you from? Where’s your where’s Quabbs Cabin located? 

Steph MacDonald: It’s in Wales, in the UK. 

Greg Emmert: Awesome. Oh great to get some international perspective. 

Steph MacDonald: Just over the English border. 

Greg Emmert: Okay. Just across the pond, right?

Steph MacDonald: Yeah.

Brian Searl: I’m from international perspective too.

Greg Emmert: No. You’re just a, you’re an American expat who happens to be traveling right now. That’s not the same thing. We’ll talk about that later. Quit, quit trying to take the attention away from the guests.

Then we have, let’s move to MacKenzie. MacKenzie, tell us a little bit about Wild Ride. I love this, by the way. I’m reading your notes and it sounds lovely. 

MacKenzie Whitsell: Yeah. Wild Ride is a Mustang sanctuary for formerly wild horses. And we’re located in Sterling, Connecticut. And so we are on 150 acres and we have all these beautiful horses running around. And we are a nonprofit, so we have a mission to educate the public and share their stories with the public and also fundraise to support them because of course horses are very expensive.

So we thought what better way to do that than to invite the public in and offer Glamping and let them glamp with the wild horses. So we have our glamping domes, and then there’s a window view of all of the horses out both the front and back winds. And so you get to sell quite literally in herd of wild mustangs as you have a glamping experience with us.

Scott Bahr: That’s so cool. MacKenzie, my sister does the something very similar. She has some mustang rescue in Michigan.

MacKenzie Whitsell: Oh, cool.

Scott Bahr: And also has a couple glamping units herself too. So nice to meet you. And yeah I’m sure you guys could share notes. So.

Greg Emmert: Yeah, talk about your individually curated experiences. That’s that one’s really unique. That’s a new one to me. So looking forward to digging into that a little bit more.

And last, of course, not least, Dave, I didn’t mean to put you last, Dave, but I figured it was only right to go. Ladies first, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what it’s like to be Chief Visionary Officer at, I’m sorry, I lost your notes, the Canadian Sleeping Barrels. And for the record, these are barrels that people sleep in, the barrels themselves are not sleeping. Is that correct?

David Byers: That’s correct.

Greg Emmert: Alright, good. 

David Byers: No, we have a theory that guests don’t take pictures of mattresses. They take pictures of experiences. So we make barrel saunas and we were told of, oh, in around COVID, just before COVID, there was a staff accommodation shortage in Tofino and Ucluelet on Vancouver Island.

So we took our biggest barrel sauna where the back wall is a large acrylic bubble, and we put a king-sized bed platform in there and a fridge unit with a stove. And we sold about 30 of them. So we started Canadian Sleeping Barrels where the barrel is seven foot in diameter, 14 feet long, plus a two foot acrylic bubble.

So your pillow and your head are right out into the bubble. 

Greg Emmert: Oh, that is certainly a unique way to stay. And do you simply sell the barrels or do you have a glamping operation as well that that uses the barrels as accommodation. 

David Byers: We just sell the barrels to campgrounds. Resorts, parks. We just opened up Cumberland Lake, provincial Park on Vancouver Island last year. 

Greg Emmert: Awesome. Awesome. So we’ve got we’ve got a supplier, we’ve got two operators. We’ve got a data guru. And then I guess last and certainly not least, Mr. Searl, would you like to introduce yourself in case the people here don’t know who you are or what you do?

Brian Searl: I guess I can, if you feel like I should Brian Searl with Insider Perks, your regular post when I have good internet and maybe am at home in Canada where I am from. Shout out to my fellow Canadian Sleeping Bureau. Can I call you my brother? Is that like a thing? I’m technically an American like Greg is saying, but I’m a permanent resident now, so I feel like I can say that.

But yeah, live just, yeah. Happy to be here, Greg. Wherever you guys wanna take the show. When you decide that it’s relevant, and I’m happy to talk about my experiences here, at Croatia Campaign Congress and some of the things you’ve seen me do, but wherever you wanna put that in the show, go for it.

Greg Emmert: Yeah. That’s what I was gonna say. Why don’t you give us a little rundown of of what you’ve seen and maybe some of it’s gonna tie back to what we’re gonna talk about with with our glamping guests today. 

Brian Searl: I think it’s really interesting. Like it’s seven, it’s obviously dark here, as you can see.

I’m at an Airbnb sitting out on a porch, which I should show you the view before we leave at some point. It’s really nice. It’s dark, but it’s beautiful. And so we just got done with the Croatia Camping Conference. It started I guess it’s started on Monday night with the drinking and the socializing and but it was located in a town called and I’m probably gonna, I think I’m gonna pronounce this right, Šibenik.

It’s a little, symbols above the words. And I’m still trying to master here in Croatia. But it’s a beautiful town on the coast of southern Dalmatian coast here in Croatia. And so the owners gather here probably once a year, just like you would normally at a Canadian conference or a United States conference.

And there’s probably about 350, 300-350 people there, I would say. And you count the exhibitors and stuff like that. There’s a pretty impressive showing. I think more than I expected for just a single country. It’s really just Croatia and Sylvania that come to the show. And we sat in on a couple things.

The ministry of tourism, some of the government officials there were from Croatia. And it was really interesting to hear ’em say that a lot of the struggles that they’re having are similar struggles to what we experience over in the United States and Canadian industries in that they’re trying to figure out things like mobile homes.

What does it mean if they’re on wheels or not on wheels? When does it qualify as a building? If you add a porch to it, how close can these things be to the sea and should we move them back and to protect the environment and. And so a lot of that stuff actually is really interesting to find that no matter where you go in the world, it feels like those are some of the same issues that campground and camping site owners and glamping operators face all over the world.

So to listen to that, we heard a lot of good updates about different things. I think it’s interesting to me that AI seems to be more on the radar over here, or at least being talked more about at the conferences. They had several panels where people brought up AI and how it has already impacted their businesses.

It already lowered the click create last this camping season with this over now. So that seems to be a little bit more prevalent. But overall this will takeaway is, and Scott, I have some data that we’ll try to maybe share with you. I’ve got some pictures and screenshots. I won’t be able to share it on this meeting, but from a company called Teza that was doing really interesting market research about the European market.

And again, a lot of it was, sorry, did I break up?

Greg Emmert: A little bit. You’re back. You’re back.

Brian Searl: Okay. Okay, cool. So a company called Teza that does some really good market research, but I think the big takeaway for me there was the same thing that Scott, you and I have talked about on Outwired and Greg on the show multiple times to on Fireside Chat, is that they are saying the same thing.

The customer wants an experience, they want something that is memorable. They don’t want just the accommodation anymore. And man, the amount of stuff that they’ve done over here in Croatia is really astounding. They have, I think I sent a picture in the Outwired channel earlier. They have RV sites with private pools on them.

They they have resorts with 400, they call ’em mobile homes, but they’re basically cabins. And they each have, they all have private pools. So there’s been a ton of really high end development over here in Croatia. From what I understand, they are some of the highest priced accommodations anywhere in Europe for highest price camping experiences, I guess anywhere in Europe.

But. Yeah. That’s the key takeaways. The year was overall from what I understand, like maybe up to two and a half percent, but flat in a lot of other European countries. And that’s the same thing we’re seeing at home. 

Scott Bahr: Yep. Absolutely. 

Greg Emmert: Definitely is. And that’s some some interesting feedback.

The our problems and our challenges tend to follow us no matter where we go, right? We’re humans and despite our cultural and language and differences across the board the similarities are always there, right? Going back to what Brian said about experiences, and I love talking about this and I think this is the perfect audience because glamping, I think really hits that mark better than I feel like they’re further ahead of it than say, RV parks, right?

Where a lot of things feel very much the same. And that’s where I came from, right? I had a 240 site RVer park before I get into consulting and boy, oh boy, we fell into the same traps, same sort of I don’t even know if you could call them experiences, when it comes to RV parks, it’s more like your activities for the year, right?

And those activities, you go to a hundred parks, Boy and you hit 75 of the same ones and nobody’s really driving. I shouldn’t say nobody. Very few operators or systems are driving experience like glamping does. So if we could just touch on that a little bit, and Dave, you started off, you told us a little bit about the experience that essentially you’re curating for the people who buy your pods just through construction and design.

Can you talk a little bit more about that being the Chief Visionary Officer you told us a little bit about what you’re doing now. How do you see that bubble and that unique design impacting the operators who buy your units. And then where do you see that going for you in the future? If you can share some of your maybe what you’ve got upcoming without tipping your hat too much and and telling all your competitors what you’ve got coming up next.

David Byers: No problem. It’s funny you mentioned bubble because we created this right in around COVID and our little slogan was, we’re making our bubble part of your bubble. 

Greg Emmert: That’s great. That is great. 

David Byers: We had a little bit of fun with that. The next phase that we’re looking at right now is murals picture says a thousand words.

So what we’re doing is having campgrounds because there’s a story behind every piece of land.

Greg Emmert: Yeah.

David Byers: What would your story be? And we’re airbrushing it on the front wall of each of the barrel.

Greg Emmert: Wow.

David Byers: So what seems to be happening is guests are coming back because they didn’t get to stay in the spirit animal one or the dancing bear barrel.

So each barrel has their own story and it’s all airbrushed right into the front wall. 

Greg Emmert: Wow. That is one heck of a level of customization per barrel. What how many artists do you have working with you? You have, you just have one and you work their fingers to the bone as they paint all these things?

Or how does that work? Pretty much. You must have a team. 

David Byers: Yeah, we’re on Vancouver Island, so there’s lots of great artists. So what we’re trying to do is just promote each of the artists’ talents and there’s a lot of painters and wood carvers and. 

Greg Emmert: Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s really great.

And so you say you’re seeing. The operators are letting you know that they’re, that these individually painted and themed accommodations are actually driving occupancy. People are coming back to stay in them. I had, I was advised ages ago that I should do that with, I had very few cabins at my place, but I was advised that I should do that.

We ended up selling before we followed down that path. But I think for a lot of operators, they think the same way that I did. If I create this one unique one and another unique one and I’ve got five of ’em, and they’re all different from one another, it might drive people to wanna stay in all five, but it might also drive people to say I don’t like those other four.

I’m just gonna stay in this one. And I was a, I was afraid of that. I was a little nervous of that. Didn’t take that plunge. But boy, I’ve talked to other operators and they really echo what you just said. And so you’re able to see, to talk to the folks that are buying these things and actually see the impact that’s having. Is that correct? 

David Byers: What they’re telling me is it’s not just an ROI, it’s an ROE, not just a return on investment, but a return on emotion. And you get emotional equity, not just return on investment. 

Greg Emmert: Yep. And that is, boy I know Scott is, he’s got his hand over his mouth right now, but he is, he could talk about that forever.

You’ve got how many different studies that have come back saying exactly that, Scott. 

Scott Bahr: Pretty much all of them. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. And that’s. 

Scott Bahr: We measure it, we it reinforces that we try to hit it from different angles, make sure there’s some nuance included, but yeah it’s very consistent. 

Greg Emmert: Right on and across most demographic demographics and age groups too. Correct? 

Scott Bahr: Yep. I think what’s interesting too about the group we have here today is that is, is something that we’ve been talking about a lot, is taking, the, within the glamping sector, taking the it from being just a unique accommodation to a unique experience. And that, that’s what we’ve seen is a little bit of that, that angle, and so.

So anyway, that’s, I was really happy to see the group that we have here today. 

David Byers: Yeah. It’s not just what they see, it’s what they feel when they see it. 

Scott Bahr: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. 

Greg Emmert: Absolutely. You are you could not be more suited to where the letter is. CVO. Dave, you’ve, you have got it down like the language and the you, very well spoken.

I appreciate that your insights. And now Steph, your place also seems it sounds like you just, do you just have one cabin? It is just.

Steph MacDonald: Yeah.

Greg Emmert: A single cabin. 

Steph MacDonald: Yeah. Just one cabin on the farm. Yeah, we we planned it for a long time and it was always going to be something that we just did once. So we really like to offer the guests a really, a personal experience.

They come and mostly they followed us on social media for a long time. We cataloged and showed the build from, the good bits to the bad bits, to the muddy bits, to the frustrating bits. And we got a really good community of followers. And again, as you were saying about the experience, the emotional experience, we get such heartfelt feedback from our guests who just don’t want to leave when their stay comes to the end, they book again.

And they’re telling their friends, they’re posting photos. They’re really interacting with anything that they can do in the cabin, whether it be going in the hot tub. We are in a dark skies area, so they love to post photos of the dark skies or of the sheep at lambing time, or they might we’ve just installed a new sauna so that they’re doing this.

So actually they’re helping us by coming. And enjoying it and sharing their experience and leaving lovely reviews online on Google. They are really investing their time. Social media is just amazing, isn’t it? People like to come and book. They like to imagine themselves where they can see that they can talk about sitting in front of the campfire, toasting marshmallows, reading a book in front of the log burner, sinking into the copper bath.

They see people putting these things online and saying, oh, what a wonderful, relaxing time we’ve had. I’ve never been so relaxed. And more people are booking. So, that investment in social media right from the very beginning where we showed them everything to do with the build and got them involved by saying, oh, we, we are gonna paint something this color or that color.

What do you think? And like we, we ended up building a little online community who have cheerleaded for us. They’ve been with us from, the beginning when things got tough, when it was muddy and sideways rain. They were very much oh my good, direct messages saying, keep going.

You’re doing a really great job. And it really did help. And all of these. People, lots of them have converted to bookings and repeat bookings and it’s just been fantastic. We’ve had people for their honeymoons, people have proposed in the cabin and we just keep adding a little bit more to what we can offer.

And we love to offer this, the personal experience. So it will always only be one cabin for us. And that that’s like we, we just really want to keep couples coming, couples having a relaxing and a switch off weekend and go home, tell their friends all about it, show them the pictures, post the pictures, send the feedback.

So far so good. But as I say, it’s been a year of first, we didn’t open until January yeah. 

Greg Emmert: That’s really lovely and that’s a great lesson for people out there maybe watching the show and trying to figure out how do I scale and how do I get bigger and how do I make. And not everyone can afford to operate one glamping unit, let’s be honest, right?

Steph MacDonald: Yes.

Greg Emmert: Some folks have a lot they have to pay for. They have a different mission. They’ve got investors, they’ve got a great big land purchase that they’re trying to cover with the income from this. But what you’re really selling is personal connection and like luxurious exclusivity, right? You are selling exclusivity.

This place you come, it’s all yours. And by all yours, we don’t mean just what you’re renting the entire place is all yours. Yeah, that’s a great way. Talk about connection. You probably have people leaving there. I bet you’re making a lot of friends with this too, because you probably have people leaving there that you get to know very well, right?

Because you only have one.

Steph MacDonald: Yeah, that’s.

Greg Emmert: One couple at a time. 

Steph MacDonald: They’re very generous, with their feedback. And they just love to sit. We get a lot of people, we’re in Wales, in the UK we are very, the population here in, in mid Wales is very low. But we get lots of people from the, from cities who have never seen dark skies like it.

They are just not used to the peace and quiet. They’re certainly not used to the dark. And they’re absolutely love to switch off. We’ve got wifi, usually and they, first thing they ask when they come is, what’s the wifi password? And then at the end of their stay they say, oh, we didn’t really use it anyway.

They come prepared to need the wifi, but tend not to use it because there’s so much else to do. 

Greg Emmert: That’s wonderful. That is really wonderful, especially the dark sky part. I think people who live in cities or even just urban areas that, they might look up and see a dozen or two dozen stars they think that’s neat when you go out and you see the Milky Way for the first time.

Or you go to a place and you notice that you can see stars all the way down to the horizon. That’s really mind bending to, to think back about what our ancestors saw every night and maybe even took for granted. And now we have to go out and find it because we’ve created so much artificial light.

I think that’s a wonderful way to connect with your guests right there, to get them to feel that sense of place and remember your cabin that way. 

Steph MacDonald: Yeah. They can sit, they can sit, what they love to do is to sit in the hot tub at night and just look up. And overwhelmingly, guests say we’ve never seen anything like it, and it’s, it just makes us happy to hear that, to be honest.

Greg Emmert: Yeah, I’ll bet. I’ll bet it does. And I bet I think it’s.

Brian Searl: Can in for a second. Sorry.

Greg Emmert: Yeah, of course.

Brian Searl: I was gonna.

Greg Emmert: It’s your show.

Brian Searl: I think it’s, no, it’s not really, it’s your show tonight. But I think it’s really interesting that we should probably take this moment that, like Steph’s saying, she has this one cabin, it connects people to the outdoors.

And I think that’s the, like we, we’ve talked about this in the show a lot, right? Scott’s data shows this, but I think we’re using glamping as a temporary word to define something. We’re still not sure what it is, but it all comes together with I’m connecting with the skies and the outdoors and nature and hiking and over here in Europe it’s called and I don’t know if it’s the same in the UK I think they call it outdoor hospitality or in the UK, but it’s open air resorts and much of Europe. Dunno if it’s same in UK. 

Steph MacDonald: I haven’t heard that term, but I think you are right in saying when we when we have the tourist board from Wales come and grade us it was really interesting because, lots. In the last couple of years, UK staycations have become really popular. So there are places who have 10, 20 cabins and some that have more, some that have less, but there are very few that just have the one place.

And the lady who carried out our assessment she said that it was very difficult because the grading for glamping in, in Wales, I assume it would be in England as well. But the grading is so very broad because it hasn’t been updated in quite a few years. They, I think they’re in the process of doing that now.

But up to seven or eight years ago, glamping was a just quite a fancy tent. Whereas now these experiences and certainly the one that we offer is a really luxury staycation. So I don’t, it almost feels like it’s not self catering. It’s not a hotel, but it is something more than fancy camping. And I think there needs to be some kind of category, if you like to, for people to understand because glamping tends to do it down a little bit for a lot of places.

Brian Searl: Scott, your research showed that, like I didn’t, you’ll have to cite that slide you sent me with all the glamping information 

Cited the fact that people were changing the definition of Glamping. So I’d love for you to, if Greg allows it, because he’s the host, let’s talk about that in maybe a second.

I think you’re hosting next week, Scott, so you’ll have your turn. Although I did ask you to do it today before Greg answered his text message. If you ever, by the way, have an emergency, never text Greg. It takes two and a half hours for him to get back to you. So if you’re

Greg Emmert: Yeah it’s a phone call.

Brian Searl: Danger or anything else?

Greg Emmert: If you need me, it’s a phone call, text, or low on the, yep.

Brian Searl: But it is really it. I think they figured it out, Steph, like I think down here, like in Europe and we’ve heard it in multiple countries, Open Air Resort is amazing. I don’t think you could take another word and define like it’s not glamping, it’s not camping.

It could be both, but it’s not either. It’s just open air resort. And to me that’s that defines anything that you could put under the stars or in nature or anything else. Look at this. So let me ask you this Greg and Scott, you guys know this. Lemme flip around my camera. You tell me I’m in an Airbnb now.

You tell me if this is glamping. This is a 300 year old cabin that’s been rebuilt over a few years. I’m, it’s actually weird, I’m taking the phone sideways, but, and so off this here. I don’t know if you can see this in the dark. I’m in a little town called  Rastoke in Croatia. And literally this thing used to be a Watermill or something, and it’s built on top of all these little I’m walking over the river, it’s super dark.

I know that. Let me go over here and show you like, this is the outdoor porch and this is literally like the, it’s weird. I have to do things backward here. Can you see that water back there? 

Steph MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah. 

Brian Searl: That’s literally, it’s literally underneath the deck I just walked across and it surrounds the entire house.

So is this glamping because I’m so connected to nature, I don’t know. It’s you guys. Tell me. 

Scott Bahr: Again from my point of view, not being there, I would say, the key is is there an outdoor component to what you’re doing? Is, are you immersed in the outdoors still?

I think we’ve had this conversation before. There’s a hotel downtown Chicago that has a dome on a patio that they run out for $3,000 a night and they call it urban glamping. And I’m on record saying that ain’t glamping. That’s not, staying outdoors at the top of a huge hotel in the middle, it’s not it, and it doesn’t fit because it doesn’t have that true interaction with the outdoors and the outdoors component to it where you’re doing something in the outdoors.

I was looking at. MacKenzie, I’m gonna pick on you a little bit here too. ’cause if you, I’ve actually looked at your website and MacKenzie has at her farm, has put together some pretty cool stuff, I think, and stuff that we’ve talked about extensively on our shows too. And when we talk about glamping and the idea of integrating those outdoor experiences, she has events there.

I saw a bunch of your events. You have yoga, you have, other types of outdoor stuff going on. I didn’t go through it in that much detail because I was trying to pay attention what, at the same time. And you also, have the nice you, the accommodations immersed in your farm, in, in the outdoors.

And it’s like that, that to me and what and what Steph talk was talking about and David as well. It’s kinda like you’re talking about the idea of having these accommodations, but. There’s, it’s the outdoor, it’s the outdoor part of it, and also the human element.

I talk about that quite a bit. The fact that there has to be some level of service associated with it. Without that, it’s just a structure, it’s just something to sleep in. So I’ll quit rambling on because as they all know about me, if I get sidetracked just a little bit, I’ll talk forever and anyway, that’s how I think topics too. I realize it’s a family thing or maybe a Midwest thing. I don’t know.

Greg Emmert: It’s a Midwest thing.

Brian Searl: But don’t forget about the data just before we switch top topics about how people define glamping, because I thought that was interesting because they haven’t figured it out over here. We sat on a panel and they asked me like, where do you see glamping going in the next 20 years?

And I said Marriott has, acquired postcard cabins. They’ve announced their Bonvoy outdoors that we’ve talked about on this show. And Outwired before too. Hilton’s getting into the game, but they still don’t use that word glamping. They’re still focused more on cabin rentals as we look through their website, I think Scott, on one of our shows, they use outdoors, they use outdoor experience.

But the way that glamping, they asked me like, literally, how do you see Glamping evolving in the next 20 years in North America? I said, I have no idea. Because I think there’s gonna be all kinds of different people who like to go glamping. And it’s gonna depend on your niche and who your audience is and who you’re targeting.

And those, some of those resorts are gonna look really luxurious. They’re gonna have private pools at the site, just like you doing Croatia. Some of them are gonna still be tents. Some of them are going to be single cabins on farms. And so I think just, it’s really interesting to me that it’s such a broad category and that no matter what you dream and aspire to, if you’re trying to connect somebody to the nature and outdoors, you can be a part of the banking world.

Greg Emmert: Absolutely. Very well said, Brian. And I think a lot of this, and MacKenzie, you can probably speak to this ’cause I’m gonna guess that you see this a lot at your place because having an equine element to it you’ve really upped the connection game, right? Because people, yes, it’s a beautiful place yet, but now there’s these other living creatures that you’re sharing space with.

And yes, anybody, if you’re glamping and you’re outside, you might share connection with a living creature. It might not be one that certain people wanna see. Maybe it’s insects or maybe a snake crawls across your deck, which for the record, no one should harm any snakes. They’re wonderful animals, leave ’em alone.

But at your place, the horses are, I’m assuming a very much a central like a tenant to who you are, what you are, what you offer. And they probably do a lot of guest connection for you. Am. Am I right? 

MacKenzie Whitsell: Yeah. They want that experience in nature and with the horses and to be next to a horse, especially a horse that was once waden, to engage with humans in this way. Because all of our horses they get to choose if they wanna be a sanctuary horse and we own, or they can choose to engage. And we love being able to show that to people and have them have that firsthand experience of, oh my goodness, rusty, he’s the one of the wildest ones.

And he came within 10 feet of you. And it happens sometimes that the horses get curious. Have very friendly domesticate, wild horses that’ll come right up for pets every time. But we, yeah, we try to build the experience around that. And we actually just completed our pony petting.

So it’s a round pen in middle of the herd. There is a path from the glamping area up through the woods And you come out in space and there’s the whole herd of horses, right? They can come up to the wood fencing and get some pets and some attention. And we also have a, an immersive experience we offer where the guests can help us horses every night.

So we ring a bell and the whole herd comes stand and they get to help put a feedback on a wild mustang and then pet them after and learn about them and learn all their names. So they really get connection with the horses, and we love that. 

Greg Emmert: That’s wonderful. My goodness. Yeah. If anybody out there is listening and is wondering what we talk about when we’re, what we’re meaning when we say curated experiences all the time, that right there, that’s, there’s one right there.

Not everybody can have a wild horse rescue, okay? But you can think outside the box and you can find, I’m guessing that you didn’t stumble into this because you like cats. Maybe you like cats, but I’m gonna guess that you really have a thing for horses and so you please. 

MacKenzie Whitsell: Yeah. And some of the people that come actually aren’t horses people, and they’re like, oh, the, the domes just look beautiful, I just wanna sleep in a bed. But that’s why we offer that variety. So we have, we’ve got a, we’ve got three glamping domes that are fully furnished. And then we have one dome that is a huge transparent geo dome, a forest with a sand floor, and that’s our yoga studio.

So we do like mindful meditation, yoga, sound healing. So all of these reconnect with nature, reconnect with yourself. So we bring in a lot of the wellness crew that may or may not even be horse people. But it’s interesting because a lot of people who aren’t horse people still love animals. But the whole horse world tends to be very intimidating to people.

And there’s like a gate keeping around interacting horses. And so it’s a nice way to get those, the wellness crew involved and they’re like, oh maybe I’ll go for that hike with the guided hikes with the horses and demonstrations and things like that. And they get to learn that the way we share space with horses is very different than the traditional horse world.

And consent and choice is always part of it. And so showing people that maybe we’re like, oh, they’re pretty I’ll enjoy them from afar and getting them to be a little bit more comfortable. So we like to think we have something for everyone who wants to reconnect with the outdoors, with nature, or with animals.

Greg Emmert: That is awesome. And I think that the thing that I really take away from what you’re saying. Is that and I, this is just for my consultant’s brain, right? I come across folks all the time. They own a business. Maybe they’ve had it for years. Maybe they’ve just opened up. Like Steph, they’ve only been open for a year and they’re always looking for what should I do?

What do I build? How do I bring more people here? How do I make more money? How do I, run my operation? Start with what you love and go from there. You’re never gonna find anything that moves you as much to work as hard as if you’re building something that you yourself are generally in love with.

Now, I’m not saying that, I have a love for mechanical pencils. I’m not gonna build that around a pen, you, that’s a small audience, right? But we all have something and.

Brian Searl: You have a love for mechanical pencils?

Greg Emmert: I don’t know why. Yeah. This guy, right? I love this thing. I, let’s probably like a 12 step program show.

We should do a different time where I like wean myself off of them. Yeah. I gotta think. But you find what you love, find what’s your passion, right? Build a resort, build a property that speaks to you as well. You’re gonna be there working long hours, you’re gonna put so much of yourself into it.

Why not build it around what you’re passionate about? And I think that’s, you’ve sounds like you’ve executed that really well and into the space where you’re actually rescuing these horses. It’s not like you’re just accumulating horses for fun. They that your place serves a purpose to make the rest of their time on earth better.

I just, that’s wonderful. And I think more people could take from that in that you took what you love and what means something to you and you built that into your business. You’ve essentially made that your business. I think that’s wonderful and it, and very unique, right? I don’t know.

Anybody else want to add, I’m babbling at this point. Scott, you gotta, you wanna throw in? I’m just so impressed. 

Brian Searl: She’s basically won life, she’s basically won life. Like she’s doing what she loves for a career, right? That’s basically equivalent to winning life. You can do that in many different ways.

If you are, if you love to, death, being a Walmart greeter, then you’ve won life. That’s the secret. 

Greg Emmert: Absolutely. And the same with Steph. I only want one. We’re only gonna have one then that’s the way it’s gonna go. That’s it’s really inspiring. And actually we can go back to Dave because he’s rocking out those barrels in the very same way.

And finding ways to use that accommodation to connect with people. So when somebody comes and buys a barrel, Dave’s done half the work for them. Look, we’ve got these really unique accommodations you can get, not just because it’s a barrel, you want them printed. You want the bubble facing out with somebody’s head right in it so they can watch that dark sky.

That look at this. And he’s on cue with visuals.

Scott Bahr: With the visual.

Greg Emmert: Dave is the man. Look at this. Tell us about what we’re looking at, Dave. That’s really, oh, look at that. 

David Byers: That’s two of the murals that we’ve done. Surfer girl. And the little palm tree scene, we had a guest say you do custom murals?

Can you do two palm trees and could you put a hammock in between them? And those little drinks they have with the umbrella, he said, can you put one of those down in the sand? And how about a hibiscus flower, put it in a coconut. So that’s the one we did for him. 

Greg Emmert: My goodness. Yeah, that’s a heck of a lot of custom on these things. 

David Byers: And then there’s the little surfer girl because, we’re in on Vancouver Island, we’re only about an hour and a half from Tofino, which is beautiful surf country. 

Greg Emmert: Interesting. Not a part of the world where I think of people surfing. 

David Byers: No. 

Greg Emmert: But that’s me.

That’s my my lack of knowledge when it comes to geography, so Brian’s showing us some more water and a cat running around there. Brian is the cat, the is that do they, is this sort of like parallel.

Brian Searl: It’s the owner, so there’s a.

Greg Emmert: With what Kenzie is doing but with, but with cats? 

Brian Searl: It’s weird. I have to move this thing the opposite way to show you what I’m doing. So just bear with me. This is crazy. Okay, so the owner, I guess the owner of this place lives back through that fence and it’s his cat. He introduced it to us when we came here. But it’s just wandering around, like I can’t be more immersed in nature.

If you tried, I’m gonna try to do this with my flashlights so you guys can see this. This is the entrance, of the place, right? I walk in and this is literally like my going the wrong way. Can I say F on the show? Is it, anyway, there’s a walkway right here and I’m walking across this thing, right? So then there’s all, the river is on both sides of me, or the water is on both sides of me here.

And then I just keep walking straight ahead and then this is this front porch, but then over, I’m gonna do it the wrong way. Okay? Yep. I did it the wrong way. Over here is like I’m totally surrounded by water and then I think I’m trying to orientate myself and you gotta see all the way down there.

It’s pretty dark. I gotta find the corner of the, I gotta find the corner of the house there. I’m going the wrong way. There you go. There’s the corner of the house. See like right down here where I’m narrowing the light? 

Scott Bahr: Oh yeah.

Brian Searl: That’s a waterfall right at the corner of the waterfall at the house. It’s a waterfall. It goes down, I think like 10 feet. I haven’t seen it. I got here after dark. And then the whole rest of this way you can come on this thing, like this whole deck here that you guys see is completely and utterly surrounded by the river and water. Like I can go all the way out here and you can say hi to Krista, wave Krista.

Okay. And then it’s, I don’t wanna be on the show. And then I can literally walk down on these steps here. Like I hope I won’t fall on the river. 

Scott Bahr: I was gonna say, this would be a poor time to tumble. 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. I don’t know. It might be an natural time to tumble. I have to be honest. 

Brian Searl: And that’s literally just literally like this is right off my deck and I can just sit here and look at this 360 degrees.

This deck is surrounded by nature. For sure this is glamping. Yeah. Like I, I’m, yeah. This is amazing. I don’t know. I’m in love. I would move here, like. 

Scott Bahr: When we ask people, we did some, we just did some work on having, we’ve been trying to contribute to the definition of glamping forever, it seems and I’ve and you talk to different people and they all have a different definition. But like at the Glamping show, Justin went around and did interviews with people and asked ’em how they define it. And really what kept coming up was people just really called it elevated camping.

And I think it, because at it, at the core of it is that base is the outdoor base that we’ve been talking about here. That it’s still, people still wanna have that connection there. So regardless of what it is it, it has to have that. And then we, in a lot of our work we’ve tried to do some database, defining, of what glamping is. We ask people what they want, what would they include? And we have all that research, by the way, if anyone ever wants it, we have tons of it. I, Brian shared some of it at his event, but it’s it gets to what people expect out of it. They expect some elevated services, they expect certain things out of it.

And one of the things that, and we did this statistically though, and I’ll break ’cause I, I keep bringing it up, but is the human element and it’s part of the whole hospitality equation when you consider I’ve worked in hospitality for a very long time and it’s that when you have to inject ho hospitality into what you’re doing, without that, it’s not gonna be glamping.

Again, as I said earlier, in, in some campgrounds, we’ll put, cabins and other kinds of structures on site, but there’s no difference between their experience and the person who drives in an RV. Or puts a tent up in terms of, what they get. The difference they get is that a roofed accommodation.

In terms of making it glamping, it has to move beyond that. Again, this, these are the things we’re looking at by the way. And we’re actually getting ready for some more research. I have some research on my computer right now that we’ve done in this category that, that will be coming out soon that I think people will find real interesting in terms of looking at some of these other connections and what people are doing.

But I’m, yeah, I’ll say it again. I’m just glad with the group we have here today, this represents what we’re doing in the category. And I have to say one more thing, then I’ll shut up. I promise. You can actually kick me outta the mean, if you want, is there are some people in the industry who define glamping based on some weird criteria.

And that to be considered a glamping provider, you have to have at least eight structures, on site. And they’re basing a lot of their decisions on that and that and they’re reporting it to the industry. And it’s, and I’m always amazed at it because we keep reporting that the average size of a any glamping operator is, I think right around 10 is average.

So you have a lot, ’cause that includes the people with tons of them and people like Steph and MacKenzie here, it is like the, so I’m not doing that. I’m not doing it. I’m going on record. That’s why I’m saying it here on, in the, on the airwaves. I’ll, I’m done. 

Brian Searl: There are, yeah. The people I’m just showing the cat. ‘Cause you don’t wanna see my ugly face. That’s so much better than my ugly face. Even though it’s the cat’s butt, it’s still better than my ugly face. But I think that’s interesting because there are so many people in our industry and to be fair, like everybody does it not being ill will.

Like I do it on my show. Scott, we do it on our show. We try to define glamping and we try to say, this is what it is, this is what isn’t. I think again, just if you have a dream and you’re connecting people to nature in the outdoors, then do your thing and call it whatever you want. And it really is just an amazing thing to let people be outside.

Greg Emmert: Absolutely. 

Scott Bahr: David’s coming in with some more.

Greg Emmert: We have more visual aids.

Scott Bahr: Visuals from David. 

David Byers: That’s what it looks like when you’re inside. 

Brian Searl: How come you aren’t doing the show from inside one? That’s what I wanna know.

David Byers: Ah, that’s what we need.

Brian Searl: Missed opportunity. 

Greg Emmert: Wow. That’s, that is beautiful David. Now have you in, in selling those things to the operators you sold them to, just curious, have you run into any folks that are maybe struggling a bit despite having your beautiful barrels on their property because they’re not offering the things that we’re talking about because they’re not curating experiences or because they’re not offering the human touch, the hospitality.

Have you spoken with any operators that are trying to buy these things, put ’em out there and rent ’em out without much interaction with the guests? Or are the people that you’re selling to fairly well educated and understand that’s what people are looking for in the industry? 

David Byers: They’re very clued in and on Vancouver Island, pretty much every place has a good view. And they’re getting between 250 and 450 a night renting these out. Most of ’em are being paid off in one season. 

Greg Emmert: Oh, you cannot beat that. That’s the ROI That’s a magic number right there. You got any overlooking the the pebble beaches where the orcas come in and scratch themselves on the pebbles?

That’s I wanna look out one of those bubbles and watch orcas come up to the beach and scratch. That’s one of, I, I really want to get to Vancouver Island and see that. 

Brian Searl: We were up there. We went and saw the place where the orca scratched themselves. But there’s no way, I guess there is a way it’s public land. You’d have to work with the government.

Greg Emmert: That’s right.

Brian Searl: There’s a little platform up there, but like the orcas aren’t there 99.2% of the time.

Greg Emmert: Yeah, it’s very,

Brian Searl: I watched them.

Greg Emmert: Really lucky. I watched the orca cam on YouTube all the time and wait to just see. And every once in a while you just see a giant orca come sliding by and scratch. 

Brian Searl: This is how, this is how I imagine, Scott, this is how I imagine Greg’s day. He’s just literally watching the orca cam clicking his mechanical pencil.

Greg Emmert: Yes, I wanna see Yes, the orca cam, the gonna come, the Panama. Panama Bird Feeders. There’s some hummingbird feeders in Ecuador that are fantastic to watch.

And so before, ’cause we’re starting, we’re getting short on time. We’re down to about 10 minutes. I do want to ask Steph and MacKenzie, we can start with Steph. What are you looking at going forward at what challenges have you come up against in this first year and what are you planning for year two as you go ahead?

Steph MacDonald: Do you want me to go first? 

Greg Emmert: Yeah. Yeah, we’d, I’d love to hear from you. 

Steph MacDonald: I think we are just reflecting on the highs and things that we want to move forward on continuing to market through social media and, using some other platforms, if and when we need it. Just keeping going with the consistency for us even when we’re fully booked, which we we are getting, really good bookings going forward, but keeping on top of everything really keeping the social media going, that consistency.

In terms of the industry in Wales, there are, the flip side really is that the wider UK and Welsh tourism picture is a bit tougher. There are gonna be changes in the industry and with suggested, higher tourist tax fees or higher thresholds to meet occupancy rates.

So those kind of things might hit us. So those are things that when they do along with all other accommodation owners in Wales, that’s something we will really have to address. And restructure if needed, but you, I think really it’s just being more creative with your offerings. As I said earlier, we’ve just put a a sauna in.

So what we are trying really hard to do, we’re trying to be the comfort and the luxury is the ideal, and the sustainability is the method. So we are trying very hard to push the sustainability. We, we work with the, our local area for supply. So continue to keep doing that, but also continue to offer this, the luxury, the copper bath, the rainfall shower, the sauna, the outdoor experiences that people are really loving and keep reading the feedback and keep moving forward.

That would be what we are looking to do for the next 12 months or so, and hopefully keep going and keep being fully booked. 

Greg Emmert: That’s the key right there at the end. I think it’s wonderful that you’re pairing sustainability and luxury. ’cause I think for a lot of folks, they think sustainability and they think, oh, I’m gonna go to this place and I’m gonna, I’m gonna take a shower under one of those shower heads that barely gives me enough water to, wash my eyebrow, let alone my hair.

Not my hair. There’s not much there. But, Scott’s hair, but he’s got a, the, that full, all those locks, right? You need water to be able to wash that kind of stuff. But it sounds like you’re able to pair those two things. Do you have what are your sustainability initiatives?

Do you do water recycling? Do you have solar? What are your sustainability initiatives? 

Steph MacDonald: We try really hard to do some of the things that are more unusual as well as the ordinary things. We do with water recycling, we have solar panels on the farmhouse, which lead down into the cabin itself.

We try to as much as possible, use local produce. I make a lot of the toiletries and things myself. And everything that we built the cabin with was sustainable or reclaimed. My husband by trade is a carpenter, so he was able to take lots of things and make them into something different, like that.

But yeah, we just try very hard to be as sustainable as possible. The power initiative from the farmhouse helps an awful lot and asking people to do their, their bit as well, turn the lights off outside when they’re in to preserve the dark skies, to have special bulbs in the lights, to have lights that shine downwards.

The hot tub itself is wood-fired where the wood comes from the farm. So we are not using electricity for that. We don’t use chemicals at all in the the hot tub. When the guests aren’t in the cabin, the sheep mow the grass for us, which not only helps us, but, it’s just a little added novelty really.

And yet, so we, we’re always open to ideas of course, but that’s that’s our sort of mission really. And we were really lucky, very beginning of us opening the Guardian, which is a, a quite a sort of a high brown newspaper in the United Kingdom. Featured us as they, they saw our sustainability pledges and they really liked them and said that they aligned with their readers and they published a piece on us, which was just fantastic.

It was the best thing that we could have had happened. So we just keep plodding along and doing what we can really. 

Greg Emmert: That’s great, Steph. Thank you for sharing all that. MacKenzie, how about you? What are your what are your challenges upcoming in this next year and where do you see yourselves going?

Are you guys gonna be adding units adding experiences? Where do you see Wild Ride headed over the next year? 

MacKenzie Whitsell: Yeah, so we would love to eventually add more units, but I think the goal, the more pressing goal is to just beautify it, improve on everything we have right now. So we, I come from the business world and have a very continuous improvement mindset of you have your minimum viable prototype and then you improve on it.

And so there’s, I have a million different projects in progress right now that are functional. Like that pathway I was talking that goes through the horse herds and up in the middle. But it, it’s okay, I’d like to landscape it more. I’d like to beautify it. I’d, I wanna make the footing a little bit nicer so that there’s no muddy spots.

And working on just simple things like adding more hangout spots. So we just added a new hangout spot that is between two of our herds and it’s like a triangle and you’ve got horses on either side and there are hammocks and there’s a fire pit and some yard games. So like just. Coming up with spaces like that where there’s more to explore.

We have, we’ve got about five miles of trails on site. We’ve got 150 acres but most of our trails aren’t as well marked as they should be. And things like interactive trail maps and some technology features. So we started we made an app for our campers where there’s an interactive scavenger hunt to get them out on the trails.

So just polishing all of those things that I’ve started doing to make them really nice and improve the experience for guests. So it’s not just oh it’s my glamping dome and a horse experience. It’s like being in one of those video games where you get to explore the whole property and then you see, oh, there’s this cool hangout area here and we’ve got this beautiful creek running through the middle of the property and there’s a trail out there and there’s a spot where the water runs underneath the roots of the trees. So you can’t see it, but you can hear it. And oh my, doing things like putting some hammocks out there and having the scavenger hunt lead people out there just to get everyone out and exploring the different parts of the property. 

Greg Emmert: Wow. I have been on a number of these MC shows with Brian and I have rarely been like, I’m a customer for everyone that’s on the show right now, but I am a customer for everyone that’s on the show right now.

Your places sound amazing. And the, I think it’s really interesting that you touched on the guest experience part pretty much all the way through that, right? That’s your focus is can we upgrade that guest experience? The common areas that you mentioned are so important. And Scott and Brian, we talked about this on an Outwired episode once.

And Scott, you touched on there was a kind of a hilarious portion to this because the people that go to these places. I forget which generation it was. I think it was Z or Y. They, they don’t mind going there. They don’t mind being there with friends. In fact, they would want to be, but they also want to be able to get the hell away from each other for a while. So they.

Scott Bahr: Agree.

Greg Emmert: Yeah. So the Gen Z, so they want the little group area. Okay. We’ll come down and we’ll hang out, and we’re all here together for the weekend, but we’re only gonna hangout for a while, so we’ll enjoy the hammocks and the fire. Eh, I’ve kinda had enough of Brad. I’m gonna go back to my cab. Okay. I’m good. That’s what your data had pointed to. 

Scott Bahr: Yeah that’s absolutely the case. It’s yeah they like to have their own space. It’s why they do a lot of Airbnbs, have your own space and then look for a common area. Brian, you and I talked about this, one of the place you’re at in Ireland was a really good example of that where people could have their own spaces and still have that common area.

But yeah, MacKenzie, that’s a, that what you’re talking about there is, fits into that because we found that generation is a little bit intimidated by places like campgrounds, where people tend to be very social. Like you could be sitting out at your fighter pit and, again, I grew up in Michigan, so I can say this like Mike, my Uncle Charlie, if he was camping there, he would literally walk up and say, Hey, what are you guys doing?

Where are you from? It’s and you could be from New York. And he’d say do you know so and I knew some guy from New York. And that’s just how it is. But the Gen Z folks don’t really like that. It’s just not in their comfort zone to have that kind of social interaction.

So having those spaces where they control it is pretty important for people to be able to do. You can’t have forced social interactions at any location. 

Brian Searl: I think we’ve gotta wrap up. Steph, what time is it in the UK? Is it seven or eight? 

Steph MacDonald: Five past seven in the evening. 

Brian Searl: Five past seven. Okay. It’s, maybe it’s eight oh three is what my phone says. So that’s weird. 

Steph MacDonald: Yeah. 7:05PM. 

Brian Searl: Okay. All right. I thought I was like, in the future by eight minutes I was gonna go play the lottery. I think it’s, yeah, we gotta wrap up, Greg, like it’s eight o’clock here and Steph probably too.

Greg Emmert: I know then you started talking. I was headed to wrap up, I wanted to ask Dave a quick question so we could give him a chance to get out the door and then we. And so Dave, now that Brian’s to drop the hammer on us, we’re a minute and four seconds over. We, tell us really quickly where you guys are headed in the next year or so and then and then we will wrap.

David Byers: Yeah. Basically we build these barrels on Vancouver Island and we ship all over the world. We ship one to Sardinia, Italy. We have a capability right now of doing 150 barrels a year, and we just put a second shop in to double that. So the barrels are only 20 grand Canadian, which is only 15,000 US. So we make ’em here and ship all over the world. 

Greg Emmert: That’s awesome, Dave. And if people want to find out more about your barrels, where do they find you? 

David Byers: canadiansleepingbarrels.com. 

Greg Emmert: Excellent. And MacKenzie, your where do they find out about Wild Ride? 

MacKenzie Whitsell: wildridect.org. 

Greg Emmert: Excellent. And Steph, where can they book a stay at the one and only Quabbs Cabin?

Steph MacDonald: quabbscabinpowys, which is P-O-W-Y-S, .co.uk or .com. 

Greg Emmert: Excellent. Thank you all to our guests. Thank you Brian, for letting me guest host, I love curating the conversation. I have a good time with it in case you guys couldn’t tell. Scott, it’s good to see you as always. Where do they find out about Cairn Consulting?

Scott Bahr: Just cairnconsultinggroup.com. 

Greg Emmert: That was easy.

Scott Bahr: It’s a lot of typing. I know.

Brian Searl: Where do they find out about Vireo?

Greg Emmert: growwithvireo.com. And if you don’t like the website, send Brian an email. He made it. I think it’s really nice. But, if you have complaints, don’t send them to me. It’s on Brian and his team.

Brian Searl: I’m gonna let you wrap up in a second, but I just wanna say I think it’s really important for us to hammer home that for as much as we, our world that we live in, whether you’re in America or the UK or Croatia or Canada or wherever else, we often see on the news and we hear a lot of stories about how we’re different and we’re divided, whether it’s by country or gender or sex or, preference or whatever it may be.

And I think what I’ve learned more than anything here, and I knew it already, but just it reinforces it every time I travel is that we’re all human. We all go through the same struggles and trials and tribulations. We all, as we talked about earlier on the show, we all have, in our industry, the same permitting issues and questions and answers.

And, Europe may be a little bit further ahead of us in the glamping sector because they’ve been doing it for a little bit longer. But just the ability to connect with your peers who are all the same as you, no matter where they are, what country they’re in, what language they speak, whether they’re high end or middle end or low end, whether they’re one cabin on a farm or, a bunch of, a couple of accommodations in the middle of courses, or Canadian Sleeping Barrels or private pools on mobile homes as they see in Croatia.

Everything’s the same. We’re all connected. We’re all the same. And we can all, we all have a lot that we can learn from each other. So the more inclusive I think we can be, the better this world is gonna be. 

Greg Emmert: That’s a great way to leave it, Brian. Thanks everybody for showing up and everybody out there who’s watching really appreciate it. Had a great discussion this week. Look forward to the next MC Fireside. 

Brian Searl: Next week I’ll be from set in France. So Scott, I think you’re hosting right? 

Scott Bahr: Yes, I am.

Brian Searl: Alright, next week we’ll be live, set in France.

Scott Bahr: Get ready for some rambling. 

Brian Searl: Okay, see you guys later. Thanks. 

Greg Emmert: Thanks guys. 

Steph MacDonald: Bye. 

Greg Emmert: Bye-bye.