Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Creating Unforgettable Moments in the Belizean Jungle

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Creating Unforgettable Moments in the Belizean Jungle · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

• 0:00
  Welcome to the House Planet Playbook, your go to guide for
• 0:03
  mastering short term rentals. In this special series, we're
• 0:07
  sitting down with 30 of the world's top property managers to
• 0:10
  uncover what really drives success in the vacation rental
• 0:14
  industry. You'll hear their stories, learn
• 0:16
  the key lessons they've picked up along the way, and discover
• 0:20
  the game changing tech they use to deliver 5 star guest
• 0:24
  experiences. If you're serious about growing
• 0:26
  your STR business, you're in the right place.
• 0:30
  We've also developed an e-book featuring the stories of every
• 0:33
  manager in this series and you can download it for free.
• 0:37
  Head to Houseplanet Duck Club to find out more.
• 0:40
  In today's episode we're heading deep into the jungle, so look
• 0:43
  out for those tarantulas and spiders.
• 0:45
  Our special guest is Cheryl McConaughey, who took early
• 0:48
  retirement to run the eco friendly Lucky Dreamer Lodge in
• 0:52
  Belize. Stand by for a unique story from
• 0:55
  the world of short term rentals. This special series is brought
• 1:04
  to you by Houseplanet and Hospitable, the smart AI powered
• 1:08
  property management software trusted by hosts worldwide.
• 1:12
  With Hospitable, you can automate guest messaging, sync
• 1:15
  calendars across platforms and manage your rentals with ease,
• 1:19
  all from one powerful, easy to use platform.
• 1:22
  If you're keen to run your short term rental on autopilot, try
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  Hospitable today. Visit hospitable.com/host
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  Planet. See how the platform can save
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  you time, reduce stress, and maximize your earnings.
• 1:36
  Cheryl, thank you for being part of the Host Planet Playbook.
• 1:39
  Let's start with you. Tell us where you're located and
• 1:43
  how many rentals you manage. So we are in Belize, Central
• 1:47
  America, specifically in a small jungle village near San Ignacio
• 1:55
  in Crystal Ray Village. And San Ignacio is the second
• 1:58
  largest city in Belize and we're about 10 minutes from there, but
• 2:03
  it's a world away. So tell us how you ended up in
• 2:08
  Belize. Where and when?
• 2:10
  When did you start managing short term rentals there?
• 2:14
  Well, we actually started short term rentals when we were in the
• 2:17
  States. We had a little bed and
• 2:19
  breakfast starting in 2011 as a natural outcome of our, we had
• 2:27
  an herb farm, a legal herb farm and that business expanded into
• 2:35
  a restaurant and into a bed and breakfast.
• 2:39
  So and then at some point that we started looking at where we
• 2:44
  wanted to retire and started traveling and we found Belize
• 2:49
  and we said we can go now. So we went in 2014, and then by
• 2:55
  2016 we had opened our first little bungalow here in our
• 3:00
  little village. And why Belize?
• 3:03
  What do you love about it? Oh, wow, it is mostly it's the
• 3:10
  people, the, the people of Belize are so welcoming and so
• 3:16
  genuine and, and authentic and friendly and the, the geography
• 3:25
  of Belize is amazing. You can go from the Savannah to
• 3:30
  the jungle to a pine forest all within like half an hour of
• 3:35
  here. And, and then of course the
• 3:37
  ocean and then you have rivers. I mean, it's just crazy the the
• 3:43
  variety of environments you can be in in less than an hour.
• 3:49
  And you told me over e-mail before we were recording that
• 3:52
  you are in the jungle. So tell us about the jungle,
• 3:55
  What's it like around you and what are the challenges of
• 3:58
  hosting in the jungle? Well, there's a lot of
• 4:01
  challenges, but the majority of our guests, we do a really good
• 4:09
  job of preparing them ahead of time.
• 4:12
  And then when they arrive, we also give them extra like a
• 4:17
  20-30 minute orientation when they arrive.
• 4:19
  Nobody, it's no self check in. So the biggest challenge I guess
• 4:25
  is just making sure that every guest is comfortable.
• 4:31
  So we kind of one of the first questions we ask them is you,
• 4:35
  have you ever been to Belize? And if not, have you ever been
• 4:37
  in the jungle? And if not, do you enjoy
• 4:40
  camping? So usually by the time we get to
• 4:44
  that first, that third question, we, we know what level that we
• 4:51
  need to go to because some, some people we, we need to tell them
• 4:55
  about the spiders and, and the scorpions and, but most of the
• 4:59
  time we don't have to go into that level of detail.
• 5:04
  The other big challenge we have here in the village is where
• 5:11
  we're in a village now, granted it's only 700 people, but
• 5:16
  Belizeans are, are very happy people and they like to
• 5:20
  celebrate. So when there's any kind of
• 5:23
  celebration, graduation, birthday, death, you know,
• 5:28
  wedding, they love to celebrate and they, they love loud music.
• 5:33
  So there's, there's that. But generally speaking, our, our
• 5:39
  challenge, you know, a bigger challenge is us being such a
• 5:45
  small player because we, we, I, I forgot to answer this
• 5:49
  question. We have two bungalows now being
• 5:52
  such a small player in Belize, but Belize is a small player in,
• 5:59
  you know, in anywhere. I mean, in Central America and
• 6:02
  the world, we're really, really small.
• 6:06
  Our high season, you can still go to the the Maya ruins and
• 6:12
  literally be the only people there.
• 6:15
  So if that's a challenge to to get people to find us.
• 6:21
  Yeah, it's yeah. And it sounds like a, a
• 6:23
  wonderful, a wonderful journey, really setting all this up and,
• 6:26
  and a great experience for your guests and, and, and what are
• 6:29
  your guests visiting for? Is it to have that authentic
• 6:34
  jungle experience? And it sounded like a lot of
• 6:36
  your guests are quite familiar with being in the jungle and
• 6:38
  they know to expect the scorpions and the spiders and,
• 6:41
  and that's part of the reason why why they why they're coming
• 6:43
  in the first place. Yes, we, our guests are focused
• 6:52
  on nature and culture and being in the village and getting that
• 6:59
  additional level of authentic experience is, is just like
• 7:05
  icing on the cake for them. And we definitely know when
• 7:11
  we've hit our target audience and when we have not.
• 7:15
  So, but yeah, those are our target.
• 7:19
  And I'm going to say maybe 85 to 90% of the guests we have, we
• 7:25
  have really targeted correctly. And they are just in absolute
• 7:31
  heaven when they're here. So they want the nature, they
• 7:38
  want the the cultural experience, and they're actually
• 7:41
  also into adventure. So here we have Cave
• 7:46
  explorations, waterfall climbing, just all kinds of.
• 7:53
  So it's that that combination of of things that our people, our
• 7:59
  guests really seek out. Yeah.
• 8:02
  It sounds like you really know who your target guest is.
• 8:06
  And then you you mentioned there the challenge is making sure
• 8:08
  that you attract them. So.
• 8:10
  So how do you find those guests who are right for your rentals?
• 8:14
  Well, I'll tell you in that Paul Anderson from the social media
• 8:23
  hotelier, he has really helped us with our social media, not
• 8:29
  just Instagram, which obviously he focuses on, but it has
• 8:33
  impacted everything. But before him, we, we had and
• 8:39
  we still do a monthly blog which features everything about
• 8:46
  Belize, about us, what we have to offer, just those types of
• 8:55
  things. Our website is we, we actually
• 9:02
  have another person to plug, Craig Webb, who's really helped
• 9:07
  us with SEO the last probably 12 months.
• 9:10
  I've been working for two years now, but we have gone from like
• 9:18
  90 cent reliant on OTAs to only about 60 per 40%, No wait, 40%.
• 9:27
  We have 60% bookings now. So we're, we're real excited
• 9:32
  about that. We actually came off of all the
• 9:35
  OTAs except for one, which we maintain mostly from a marketing
• 9:41
  standpoint. We make it pretty clear we can
• 9:45
  be direct booked without breaking any rules and probably
• 9:50
  about 50% of the people we book have found us through there.
• 9:55
  And then the challenge is, you know, if people do book through
• 9:57
  an OTA, is to invite them back as a direct Booker next time, I
• 10:01
  imagine. Have you got to the stage now
• 10:02
  where the vast majority of your guests are repeat guests?
• 10:05
  They keep the people who keep coming back.
• 10:08
  We can't say the majority because Belize is usually on a
• 10:12
  bucket list. It's like 1 and done.
• 10:15
  So we do get a lot of repeat guests, but they are not the
• 10:23
  majority of our guests and I don't that's not something we
• 10:28
  aspire to and and it's actually nothing.
• 10:30
  We never even expected to get a single repeat guest and we have
• 10:34
  every year we get more and more and more.
• 10:37
  We've had one guest that's been here 6 times and we've been open
• 10:44
  since 2014 and I don't think he found us until 2018 or so.
• 10:49
  So every year, sometimes twice. And we've had some guests who've
• 10:54
  been back twice, but mostly, well, we had a lot of guests
• 11:01
  come back twice, but mostly it's twice and not multiple times yet
• 11:05
  because we just haven't been open that long for, for that,
• 11:09
  because in between their, their visits here, they go other
• 11:12
  places. Yeah, there's a, there's a
• 11:15
  nature, nature seekers and they've got lots of, lots of
• 11:18
  places to take off and, and I'm sure people can, can tell the
• 11:21
  authenticity of this because they can hear the wildlife in
• 11:24
  the background. Cheryl is right in the jungle.
• 11:28
  I want to ask you about amenities now, because when we
• 11:31
  think of amenities here in the UK, it might be, oh, it's pet
• 11:33
  friendly or there's a hot tub or something like that.
• 11:35
  What are the essential amenities for your place in the jungle?
• 11:41
  Well, we have an outdoor kitchen that everybody loves.
• 11:44
  They love cooking in the outdoor kitchen.
• 11:48
  And we have a, a laundry Hut, which are our, our laundry
• 11:54
  facilities are outside the I think the biggest draw to us is
• 12:02
  we don't charge extra for anything.
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  We have a two person kayak. We have a multiple river inner
• 12:11
  tubes. We have like the laundry, we
• 12:15
  don't charge extra and we provide the soap.
• 12:17
  We don't, we don't charge extra for anything.
• 12:21
  And I think a lot of people they they appreciate that we don't
• 12:26
  have a housekeeping fee. We actually pay the booking fees
• 12:31
  for guests on the one OTA we're still on, so and that's a huge
• 12:38
  chunk of money so and they notice it.
• 12:43
  So it's, it's worked out really well for us.
• 12:46
  We've tried different things over the years and we've just
• 12:50
  settled on that. And that's the big amenity.
• 12:54
  We, we have the one bungalow, we have two bungalows and one
• 12:59
  bungalow. We did Breakdown and that's the
• 13:01
  bungalow I'm in right now. And we put AC in and we put
• 13:05
  windows in it. We didn't even have windows this
• 13:07
  and we don't have windows in our other AC.
• 13:09
  It's just screened with wooden shutters.
• 13:12
  But so that's a big amenity for for people who aren't sure they
• 13:20
  want to be in the jungle. But the one bungalow that
• 13:24
  doesn't have the AC, we built it to not need AC and it's it's
• 13:32
  actually great. And the reason for not having AC
• 13:36
  and kind of, you know, modern things is so you can give the
• 13:40
  most authentic experience possible, right?
• 13:43
  And I guess this goes back to knowing what your target guests,
• 13:46
  this is what they want. Yeah.
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  And like, for example, we don't have a microwave and we have
• 13:53
  guests showing up with, you know, the microwavable popcorns
• 13:56
  like, well, you know, you can open those up and put them in a
• 13:59
  pot and they're like, what? So we, we do a lot of teaching
• 14:05
  here on all kinds of things. We have over 300 different
• 14:12
  variety of plants on the property and we've labeled about
• 14:15
  half of them and we've created a booklet that they can walk
• 14:18
  around and check mark when they find them and learn more about
• 14:22
  them. That's another big amenity that
• 14:24
  I had forgotten about is is that we just.
• 14:31
  But yeah, to your question, we try to be authentic.
• 14:36
  So we have lots of solar lighting.
• 14:39
  We are not on the off grid because the village has power
• 14:45
  and it for two bungalows. It's just really expensive to
• 14:51
  put them on solar. So we just there's some things
• 14:55
  we can't do, but we collect water.
• 14:57
  We have refillable soap dispensers everywhere.
• 15:02
  We don't use dryer sheets. We use the the laundry soap that
• 15:11
  is soluble and good for, you know, the sewer.
• 15:15
  Well, it's not a sewer, it's a drain field.
• 15:17
  But yeah, we do a lot of things. We've been recognized by green
• 15:24
  destinations. We're one of, I think 2 emblees
• 15:30
  right now that have met their criteria.
• 15:34
  So there's so many things I'm not even thinking of, like LED
• 15:38
  light bulbs. And there's just a lot of stuff
• 15:42
  we we want to be as green as possible.
• 15:45
  And again, again, this is what your, your guests expect And and
• 15:49
  this I imagine it's the kind of rental that you want to run and
• 15:52
  and be true to to your location. This is what's required in in
• 15:55
  this part of part of the world. Yeah, well, there's a lot near
• 16:00
  us that aren't as conscious of us and and they'll get a really
• 16:04
  good experience, but we try to to have a small of a footprint
• 16:10
  as possible and we try to be self-sustaining.
• 16:13
  So a lot of those plants that we grow are fruit and vegetables,
• 16:16
  herbs, root crops like ginger and turmeric and lemongrass.
• 16:25
  And people are are welcome to use anything that's in season.
• 16:29
  That's one of the biggest disappointments guests have is
• 16:32
  when they arrive. Things aren't in season, but
• 16:35
  bananas are always in season. Pineapples are always in season,
• 16:38
  so usually there's something here for them.
• 16:41
  Definitely create a nice cocktail with with those things
• 16:45
  lovely so. But you have a blender.
• 16:47
  If we do provide a blender. You don't.
• 16:49
  You don't have to bring your own blender.
• 16:51
  There you go. So just tell us then, what are
• 16:55
  your top three tips for delivering a great guest
• 16:59
  experience in Belize? Well, the biggest thing we we do
• 17:05
  is we try to communicate before guests even book so they don't
• 17:13
  book the wrong place. So that's the first thing.
• 17:17
  And then the next thing is once they do book, then we
• 17:22
  communicate again about what to expect here and what's
• 17:28
  available. And not in a negative way.
• 17:30
  We don't tell them about the tarantulas and the that kind of
• 17:33
  thing. But it's important that they
• 17:37
  they get a feel. And we've never had anyone
• 17:41
  cancel, but I'm sure we have had people not book and that's
• 17:46
  probably best for everyone. But the, the third thing would
• 17:52
  be once they arrive is for us is to kind of gauge what their
• 18:00
  comfort level is and be there for them for the level of
• 18:05
  comfort they need. Some guests don't want after the
• 18:09
  little orientation, they're fine.
• 18:11
  They're on their own. They don't want nothing to do
• 18:13
  with us. And that's, that's fine.
• 18:16
  Some they need to be handheld. And you know, we have a Ring
• 18:20
  doorbell that rings down in our, our house.
• 18:23
  We live on the property and when they ring it, we don't answer
• 18:27
  through the doorbell. We come up and it you know,
• 18:30
  takes like 2 minutes, but they'll say what kind of bug is
• 18:34
  that? And we'll tell them and you
• 18:37
  know, is it poisonous? No, you know that kind of stuff.
• 18:41
  But there's others that, you know, in the middle.
• 18:44
  We see them on a daily basis. Hi, how you doing?
• 18:47
  And so I think that's those are the three critical things for
• 18:53
  people coming to Belize and specifically coming to us.
• 18:58
  There's very few all inclusive resorts here.
• 19:04
  That's quite an eye opener for a lot of vacationers to Belize.
• 19:10
  Even on the map where it looks like it's 10 miles away, that
• 19:14
  could be a hour drive. So there's a lot of that kind of
• 19:22
  communicating. So I send them all kinds of,
• 19:26
  after they book all kinds of information about what's here,
• 19:30
  the eateries, activities, adventures, extra, extra things
• 19:36
  to do. So it's, it's just a lot of
• 19:41
  communicating is key. And not just oh I got a booking,
• 19:45
  I can forget about it now. Yeah, I mean, what I love about
• 19:48
  what what you're doing is it's such a personal experience, a
• 19:52
  personal hosting experience that you're delivering for the guests
• 19:56
  because so many hosts around the world, it's they have a lock
• 20:00
  box, the guest gets the check in details and and you never speak
• 20:03
  to them, but you're, you know, literally there on site doing
• 20:07
  the orientation. It's yeah, it's, it's wonderful
• 20:10
  to hear of the journey and, and I guess you know, for the
• 20:12
  experience you're delivery, you kind of have to be there, but
• 20:14
  it, it sounds like you really love being there for the.
• 20:17
  As well, it's something that you kind of appreciate doing.
• 20:21
  OK then. So what's what's the biggest
• 20:24
  lesson learned been since you started hosting?
• 20:30
  Wow, biggest lesson learned man. Don't assume.
• 20:37
  Don't assume anything. It's like, you know, when guest
• 20:41
  book, we ask a lot of questions so we don't make a wrong
• 20:50
  assumption. We haven't had any really bad
• 20:54
  assumptions, but we've been close.
• 20:58
  We've been on a bubble on a couple of them.
• 21:00
  But I think, I guess that would, you know, you really need to
• 21:07
  know here in Belize who your guest is and you can't assume
• 21:14
  anything. Yeah, it's, it's taking knowing
• 21:16
  your guest to the next level really, especially with the
• 21:19
  experience that that you're providing.
• 21:22
  OK, then what do you love most about hosting?
• 21:26
  We just love meeting everybody from every part of the world.
• 21:32
  In fact, we actually right behind me on the wall, we have a
• 21:36
  map of the world and we have dots where people put where
• 21:39
  they're from. And I was just looking at it and
• 21:41
  I'm like, wow, I didn't realize we had so many people from so
• 21:45
  many different places that, you know, they, they now like live
• 21:50
  in the States or something, but they'll put a dot from where
• 21:53
  they're really from. Quite a quite a few in Europe
• 21:58
  and the UK. So, but that's, I mean, we
• 22:04
  really love talking to people and learning about, you know,
• 22:09
  what they're doing, why they're here, why they chose Belize and,
• 22:15
  and just learn from them too. It definitely is one of the
• 22:18
  joys, isn't it, of seeing where everybody's come from and and
• 22:21
  how they end up at your place. It always amazes me when you
• 22:24
  know, people come from from thousands and thousands of miles
• 22:26
  away. OK then Cheryl, so we're going
• 22:28
  to run through some quick fire questions now.
• 22:31
  So which PMS do you use? Smooboo.
• 22:35
  Smooboo, Which dynamic pricing tool do you use?
• 22:39
  Wheelhouse. OK, which piece of tech couldn't
• 22:44
  you live without? My laptop, I can't.
• 22:49
  I just can't use the cell phone to do social media.
• 22:52
  That is just not happening. I mean, it seems a bit redundant
• 22:58
  asking this one, but pets, yes or no?
• 23:00
  I mean, I guess you're surrounded.
• 23:02
  Well, yes and no. Yes, we have pets here.
• 23:07
  We have a cat and a dog and our guests that visit us can't bring
• 23:11
  their pets. It's it's just not feasible.
• 23:13
  So I think a lot of the guests love that we have most of them
• 23:19
  realize we have them when they book because we make it really
• 23:23
  clear there's a cat and dog here for allergy reasons or or
• 23:27
  whatever. But some of them even say we
• 23:30
  booked because we knew we would miss our cat or our dog or and
• 23:35
  they're both really friendly and they're both strays that found
• 23:40
  us and adopted us. We didn't go out and looking for
• 23:44
  them. So they so yes and no.
• 23:49
  We have the cats that guests can, you know, play with and no,
• 23:55
  they can't bring them. Cat and dog on site.
• 23:57
  You can't bring your own pets, but you're going to find a lot
• 23:59
  of wildfire wildlife around hot tub.
• 24:04
  Yes or no? It's hot enough here.
• 24:07
  There is no reason for hot tub anywhere in Belize and I I'd
• 24:13
  have to say the only place I would even think there would be
• 24:17
  is at the very very high end resorts and even the ones that I
• 24:23
  know of don't have them. Self check in or personal
• 24:27
  welcome. Personal welcome.
• 24:30
  Telephone call or AI response? Well, actually neither we are
• 24:38
  our, we do have AUS based phone number and we can use WhatsApp
• 24:43
  with our Belize phone number, but our US based phone number is
• 24:47
  attached to my laptop. So it's not always working.
• 24:54
  I mean in terms of me knowing that somebody is calling in or
• 24:59
  hearing it or the connection. So it's not always a good
• 25:04
  connection. So we don't want guests to get
• 25:06
  focused on using that. And a lot of our guests don't
• 25:10
  have WhatsApp. They're in a different
• 25:14
  generation and they just don't have it.
• 25:17
  So what we do is when somebody books, we immediately send them
• 25:22
  an an e-mail, whether it's the OTA or direct and we ask them
• 25:27
  some questions. And then based on those answers,
• 25:31
  we personalize all the future communications via e-mail.
• 25:37
  And but we do ask for their WhatsApp number in case they
• 25:42
  have it. And then we can communicate that
• 25:44
  way. And some guests prefer that so
• 25:46
  that then we start doing it that way.
• 25:50
  But we don't like receiving AI responses ourselves.
• 25:56
  They are so easy to identify. And so we won't, we won't ever
• 26:02
  use AI. Now we do use automated on a
• 26:08
  timing basis, but it's based, I have like a template and based
• 26:13
  on the information I get from the guests, I customize those
• 26:17
  and then they get timed and then they get sent out like 3 days
• 26:21
  later and they, they get information on all our social
• 26:24
  media. We have a YouTube channel which
• 26:27
  is really growing right now. But then we, you know, then at
• 26:34
  one month out, if they book way far in advance every month or
• 26:37
  two, we'll send them some other message.
• 26:43
  And then right before they get here, we give them more
• 26:46
  information about a week out and then three days before.
• 26:49
  So it's, it's, they're customized.
• 26:54
  They're it's not you. No, we don't.
• 26:58
  We don't like AI. Yeah, nicely customized.
• 27:03
  What's the most unusual guest request you've ever had?
• 27:07
  Well, that was That's a funny story.
• 27:09
  We had a couple here on their honeymoon and the guy came up
• 27:17
  and asked us if he could trap turtles.
• 27:21
  They were like, what, you know, we were like, where's this
• 27:29
  going? And obviously nature lovers were
• 27:31
  not going to let people trap turtles.
• 27:34
  And you're on your honeymoon. What do you?
• 27:37
  So I was, was going through our minds.
• 27:39
  And then he he I guess he got to look at her face and went, oh,
• 27:42
  OK. I'm a scientist.
• 27:44
  I'm finishing my doctorate degree.
• 27:46
  I'm working on turtles and, and he goes, they're catch and
• 27:52
  release, they're safe, they're not harmful.
• 27:55
  He showed it to us and I said, well, we're all about education.
• 28:00
  So I said, OK, sure. So he went out and set him out
• 28:04
  and, and he did some other night hikes on the property and he
• 28:08
  told us about the tarantulas he saw and the the scorpions and
• 28:14
  the possums and the armadillos and all this other stuff.
• 28:17
  And he caught three different varieties of turtles.
• 28:20
  I was like, I, I wow, OK. He was very excited.
• 28:27
  That's I'm just a bit worried that he.
• 28:28
  Was spending his entire honeymoon trapping trapping
• 28:32
  turtles. But yeah, each to their own.
• 28:35
  Each to their own. And what's your most memorable
• 28:40
  hosting moment? You know, there are so many
• 28:45
  memorable moments, positive and not so positive that I, I, I,
• 28:52
  it's hardest to pick like 1. I just can't think of one that
• 29:02
  just stands out because there's so many guests that are in awe
• 29:07
  of everything that's here. I guess thinking about that,
• 29:11
  there was one time we had some guests out on the Banana
• 29:14
  Bungalow and it has a deck that overlooks the river and the
• 29:18
  jungle. And I actually wasn't here at
• 29:22
  the time. So my husband was here with the
• 29:24
  guests and he noticed he was out there talking to them and he
• 29:28
  noticed a Mama agouti, which is a giant Guinea pig, looks like a
• 29:35
  baby capo Bara. And it was nursing her babies
• 29:40
  right there on the edge of the on on the ground.
• 29:44
  I mean, about 10 feet, 12 feet down right there.
• 29:49
  And they were so in awe that no one thought to take a photo or
• 29:54
  video. So I never got to see it, but it
• 29:58
  was it was just an amazing experience for them and for
• 30:02
  Jeff. But since then I have had some
• 30:06
  pretty good amazing experience. You should check out our social
• 30:08
  media on our YouTube channel. I got a Mama with two other
• 30:12
  babies doing some pretty cool stuff in that same spot but a
• 30:16
  different brood or pack or whatever agouti babies are
• 30:21
  called. Amazing.
• 30:22
  And we will put the links to to all your social media channels
• 30:26
  in the show notes and to your YouTube channel as well.
• 30:29
  I'm sure people will want to check all that out.
• 30:32
  OK then so we're going to go to the shout out section now.
• 30:35
  So is there an individual in the short term rentals industry
• 30:38
  who's helped you that you'd like to give a shout out to?
• 30:41
  Well, I want to shout out to two Paul Anderson from the social
• 30:45
  media hotelier and Craig Webb from web.
• 30:50
  What is it? Web design?
• 30:51
  No, it's not design. Well, he helps you with SEO.
• 30:56
  So he is they, they are both incredible human beings, even
• 31:03
  beyond helping with the technical aspects of their
• 31:08
  expertise. Just you know, whenever I have
• 31:11
  an issue with my website, I'll call, I'll call Craig or I'll,
• 31:18
  we're, we're not in good time zone.
• 31:19
  So I usually will e-mail him and he responds immediately.
• 31:23
  Paul is the same way. And you know, sometimes they
• 31:28
  have to talk me down. It's like it's broken What's
• 31:31
  going on? But I, I can't, I cannot
• 31:36
  recommend them enough. And I am not a gusher.
• 31:39
  I I don't recommend many things, but those two are phenomenal.
• 31:46
  Fantastic shout outs there for two guys who've clearly helped
• 31:49
  drive a lot of people to, to your your platforms and and get
• 31:53
  some get some guests to, to the jungle.
• 31:57
  All right then Cheryl. So we've got one question to
• 31:58
  finish then your ultimate goal for your business.
• 32:03
  So our ultimate goal is to be self-sustaining, which we pretty
• 32:08
  much, we're pretty much self-sustaining right now.
• 32:11
  But the next level of that goal is to be self-sustaining and be
• 32:16
  able for us to do some more traveling.
• 32:20
  So we're planning on that and next year actually, I understand
• 32:28
  you're in the York area. In in England, yes.
• 32:32
  I'm New York, Yep. In the UK, Yep.
• 32:34
  Yep. We're headed, we're headed there
• 32:35
  next year, but that's we, we want to be able to run the
• 32:41
  business and then on those slower periods be able to do
• 32:46
  some travelling ourselves and not, you know, raise rates or do
• 32:51
  anything crazy. Just we may have to close for
• 32:55
  those periods of time. But that's our ultimate goal.
• 32:59
  We're not going to expand. We have no designs on that or,
• 33:05
  you know, being, you know, Instagram, you know, phenom.
• 33:12
  But we just, we just want to be self-sustaining.
• 33:18
  I think that's great. Yeah, and I think, you know,
• 33:20
  sometimes it's it's knowing kind of where you want to be and and
• 33:23
  not everybody wants to scale to 10s fifty hundreds properties.
• 33:27
  It's you know, you're happy with your lot and and delivering
• 33:29
  those amazing experiences And and of course, if you make it to
• 33:32
  the north of England, let me know.
• 33:34
  Well, I can or we can meet up in York.
• 33:36
  That would be that would be made from Belize to York.
• 33:38
  How how amazing. Cheryl, it's been a real
• 33:42
  pleasure. Thank you for telling us all
• 33:44
  about your journey and for being part of the House Planet
• 33:46
  Playbook project. Well, thank you.
• 33:49
  I really appreciate being chosen to participate.
• 33:53
  This is this is real exciting for us.
• 33:55
  All right, that's it for today's episode.
• 33:57
  My thanks to Cheryl for sharing that incredible story and for
• 34:00
  being part of the host Planet playbook.
• 34:03
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• 34:09
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• 34:48
  you can sign up for our newsletter, listen to our
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• 34:53
  Until next time, happy hosting.