Latest / MC Fireside Chats, an Outdoor Hospitality Podcast / MC Fireside Chats - October 14th, 2026

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MC Fireside Chats - October 14th, 2026 · MC Fireside Chats, an Outdoor Hospitality Podcast

• 0:46
  Brian Searl: I almost made it.
• 0:47
  Brian Searl: I was so close.
• 0:48
  Brian Searl: I forgot my sweatshirt and it was cold outside, so I had to run- upstairs while the intro was playing, and then grab my sweatshirt and run back down.
• 0:55
  Brian Searl: Two seconds away.
• 0:57
  Brian Searl: Was so close.
• 0:58
  Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
• 1:00
  Brian Searl: My name's Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground.
• 1:03
  Brian Searl: We're excited to be here with you with the second week episode.
• 1:05
  Brian Searl: We're gonna have some good conversations today.
• 1:06
  Brian Searl: We got a couple recurring guests here.
• 1:08
  Brian Searl: We'll go around and introduce everybody.
• 1:09
  Brian Searl: We got Kaleigh, Jeremy, Tom Mason, and a special guest.
• 1:13
  Brian Searl: Is it Pawel?
• 1:14
  Brian Searl: Is that how you pronounce that?
• 1:16
  Pawel Sikorski: Pawel, yes.
• 1:17
  Pawel Sikorski: Rhymes with gravel.
• 1:18
  Brian Searl: Thanks.
• 1:19
  Brian Searl: Okay.
• 1:20
  Brian Searl: From Cyprus.
• 1:20
  Brian Searl: He's gonna tell us all about the Cyprus camping scene.
• 1:22
  Pawel Sikorski: Cyprus, yeah.
• 1:22
  Brian Searl: I'm really excited to learn about that.
• 1:24
  Brian Searl: Cyprus or Cyprus?
• 1:27
  Pawel Sikorski: It's Cyprus.
• 1:28
  Brian Searl: Okay.
• 1:28
  Brian Searl: So I did get it right the first-
• 1:29
  Pawel Sikorski: Cyprus
• 1:29
  Brian Searl: okay.
• 1:31
  Brian Searl: So let's go around and briefly introduce ourselves.
• 1:33
  Brian Searl: Tom, do you wanna start?
• 1:36
  Tom Mason: Sure.
• 1:37
  Tom Mason: My name's Tom Mason.
• 1:38
  Tom Mason: I lead IVEE Management Group, and head that up, and we have 15 parks across United States, and we've been in business since 2017, and great team to make everything happen at the parks we manage.
• 1:54
  Brian Searl: Awesome.
• 1:55
  Brian Searl: Excited to have you here again, Tom.
• 1:56
  Brian Searl: Jeremy?
• 1:58
  Jeremy Johnson: Hey, everyone.
• 1:58
  Jeremy Johnson: Awesome My name's Jeremy.
• 1:59
  Jeremy Johnson: I'm one of the owners of Kona Hills Campground in Marquette, Michigan, on, on the southern shores of Lake Superior.
• 2:07
  Brian Searl: Awesome.
• 2:07
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Jeremy.
• 2:08
  Brian Searl: I wanna talk to you about some of your revenue, if you don't mind sharing some of the things you've posted on LinkedIn.
• 2:12
  Brian Searl: I think you went to a couple of conferences this year, right?
• 2:15
  Jeremy Johnson: No conferences this year.
• 2:16
  Jeremy Johnson: I skipped out on...
• 2:17
  Jeremy Johnson: outdoor conferences and regional conferences, but I skipped out on all the glamping and camping conferences so far this year.
• 2:23
  Brian Searl: That's what I meant.
• 2:23
  Brian Searl: I'm curious your takeaways from some of the other different conferences-
• 2:26
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 2:26
  Brian Searl: 'cause I'm not going to anything this year except for the Canadian one.
• 2:30
  Brian Searl: I took off this year too,
• 2:31
  Jeremy Johnson: nice.
• 2:32
  Brian Searl: Kaleigh.
• 2:34
  Kaleigh Day: Hi.
• 2:35
  Kaleigh Day: My name's Kaleigh.
• 2:36
  Kaleigh Day: My husband and I own Surf Junction Campground out in Ucluelet, BC, and we have about 100 campsites, and a surf school, and a surf shop, and we've been operating it since 2012.
• 2:50
  Brian Searl: Awesome.
• 2:52
  Brian Searl: And last but not least, our new friend, Pawel of Cyprus.
• 2:56
  Brian Searl: How are you, sir?
• 2:56
  Pawel Sikorski: Hi, I'm Pawel Sikorski founder of Yurt in Cyprus, which I run together with my wife, Justyna.
• 3:02
  Pawel Sikorski: We're a small independent owned and operated business set in Paphos District in Cyprus.
• 3:09
  Pawel Sikorski: It's an island nation kind of eastern Mediterranean so-
• 3:13
  Brian Searl: Near Turkey, Lebanon yeah.
• 3:14
  Pawel Sikorski: We got the good weather.
• 3:16
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, close.
• 3:16
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, between, squeezed between Turkey Lebanon, Israel, and and Egypt.
• 3:23
  Brian Searl: The east of east of Greece.
• 3:25
  Brian Searl: A w- a while away.
• 3:26
  Brian Searl: It's not super close to Greece, but yeah.
• 3:28
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 3:28
  Pawel Sikorski: It's, yeah, it's a f- a few hundred miles from the nearest Greek island, so we are, yeah quite far away from Greece actually.
• 3:35
  Brian Searl: Okay.
• 3:36
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 3:37
  Brian Searl: Welcome, sir.
• 3:37
  Brian Searl: I'm excited to learn more about what you have going on over there with glamping and-
• 3:40
  Pawel Sikorski: Thank you.
• 3:41
  Pawel Sikorski: Thank you for having me here
• 3:42
  Brian Searl: and some more about the glamping industry as well, just on Cyprus and being that it's an island, how do people get there, how do some more of them comparing it to...
• 3:50
  Brian Searl: We have Simon Neal as a regular guest on the show in another week.
• 3:53
  Brian Searl: He's from Croatia.
• 3:54
  Brian Searl: Runs a really good- Camp map company.
• 3:56
  Brian Searl: So he talks to us about the European scene quite a bit, but just interested to see what you guys, what your perspective is of that glamping side and all that.
• 4:03
  Brian Searl: So before we get there, though to our recurring guests, I typically always start the show and say is there anything that's come across your desk, Tom, Kaleigh, or Jeremy, that you feel like we should be talking about this
• 4:12
  Brian Searl: week since we've last met together?
• 4:17
  Jeremy Johnson: I feel like for most of us, we're probably just wrapping up the season.
• 4:20
  Jeremy Johnson: I think that's probably top of mind.
• 4:23
  Tom Mason: Brian, your break went out.
• 4:24
  Brian Searl: I'm breaking up?
• 4:27
  Brian Searl: Sorry, it's kinda windy out here.
• 4:28
  Brian Searl: Just just any ideas that you guys have had since we last came together.
• 4:31
  Brian Searl: I think Jeremy started to answer it.
• 4:32
  Brian Searl: Did I break up for you too, Jeremy?
• 4:34
  Jeremy Johnson: I can hear you right now.
• 4:35
  Jeremy Johnson: But I was just saying I think for most of us, top of mind is probably just closing up for the season.
• 4:39
  Jeremy Johnson: I, I know that at least up here, we had 70 degrees last weekend, but now it's th- about 35 degrees Fahrenheit and starting to get cold
• 4:50
  Kaleigh Day: Do you guys stay open for the winter, Jeremy?
• 4:53
  Jeremy Johnson: Not yet.
• 4:54
  Jeremy Johnson: We don't have...
• 4:54
  Jeremy Johnson: We're fully rustic, so we don't have any like cabins or glamping at the moment.
• 4:59
  Jeremy Johnson: So once it gets cold, we shut down and we stay open.
• 5:03
  Jeremy Johnson: We have a big film fest in Marquette the third week of October, so we stay open for this weekend, and then we shut it down.
• 5:10
  Kaleigh Day: Nice.
• 5:10
  Kaleigh Day: It's a good feeling.
• 5:11
  Kaleigh Day: We close down for winters too, 'cause the storms just are too...
• 5:14
  Kaleigh Day: It's unsafe to camp
• 5:16
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 5:16
  Kaleigh Day: where we are.
• 5:17
  Kaleigh Day: So but yeah-
• 5:18
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 5:18
  Kaleigh Day: we just closed on, we closed on Monday.
• 5:21
  Jeremy Johnson: Okay.
• 5:22
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 5:22
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 5:23
  Jeremy Johnson: Tom do you close a lot of your campgrounds?
• 5:26
  Tom Mason: What about...
• 5:29
  Tom Mason: we have Wisconsin we close, New Jersey we close, and I have three three in Colorado, two of which we close.
• 5:38
  Tom Mason: And one the latest we stay open is November 1st, and that's the New Jersey one.
• 5:43
  Tom Mason: Okay.
• 5:43
  Tom Mason: All the other ones, like today we're closing Wisconsin Colorado, two of the...
• 5:51
  Tom Mason: One of the two is closed, the other one will, kinda weather dependent, we'll see if we can last till the end of October, but not sure if we can.
• 5:59
  Tom Mason: And but yeah we shut 'em down.
• 6:02
  Tom Mason: We tried to keep one of the Colorado ones open in the winter.
• 6:05
  Tom Mason: It'd be a partial open, certain part of the park, but it wasn't worth it, the effort.
• 6:12
  Tom Mason: And then if you had one pipe break, you had, you're done for the year kinda thing.
• 6:17
  Tom Mason: And so we just shut it down completely.
• 6:21
  Brian Searl: All right, so winterization's on the top of our minds.
• 6:24
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 6:25
  Brian Searl: Do we really wanna dive deep into that topic on the show today, or do we have...
• 6:28
  Brian Searl: I feel like we must have something else that's going on.
• 6:30
  Brian Searl: Tell us about your conferences, Jeremy.
• 6:31
  Brian Searl: What did you...
• 6:32
  Brian Searl: First of all, why did you decide, if you're willing to share...
• 6:35
  Brian Searl: for me it was more like a, I have lots of things to do building AI stuff that I skip the conferences and-
• 6:41
  Jeremy Johnson: Sure
• 6:41
  Brian Searl: it's really expensive to travel to the States from Calgary a bunch of different times.
• 6:45
  Brian Searl: But why did you decide to go to different conferences this year, and some things that you picked up along the way you think might help your business maybe?
• 6:52
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 6:52
  Jeremy Johnson: I think first off, some context.
• 6:54
  Jeremy Johnson: I've only ever been to one camping conference and it was OHI last year in Louisville.
• 6:59
  Jeremy Johnson: So-
• 7:00
  Brian Searl: Okay
• 7:00
  Jeremy Johnson: I haven't really, immersed myself in that world.
• 7:03
  Jeremy Johnson: But, For me, I went to multiple regional conferences that were outdoor and tourism focused this year because those were, are the ones that addressed my concerns more than anything.
• 7:16
  Jeremy Johnson: I, I live in a very rural area and, post-pandemic we saw tourism kind of explode and so while it's an old industry for this area, it's never been at this level.
• 7:30
  Jeremy Johnson: And we're dealing with new problems that we've never dealt with before.
• 7:32
  Jeremy Johnson: Like our little towns and townships are starting to get a little overrun by people coming from Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis.
• 7:42
  Jeremy Johnson: And so there's a lot of more local and regional issues that I wanted to be present for the conversations in,
• 7:49
  Brian Searl: what is this Pawel, I'm curious from your perspective, 'cause I know almost nothing about the tourism industry in Cyprus.
• 7:55
  Brian Searl: What does it look like over there from a-
• 7:57
  Pawel Sikorski: All right
• 7:57
  Brian Searl: perspective of running a business from a support system first?
• 8:01
  Brian Searl: 'Cause I wanna hear about your property and all that stuff, but just for what we're talking about, are there glamping associations?
• 8:07
  Brian Searl: Are there people you can turn to for legislative help?
• 8:10
  Brian Searl: How does that kind of ecosystem work in Cyprus?
• 8:14
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 8:15
  Pawel Sikorski: First of all I missed quite quite a bit of the conversation 'cause something got the connection got frozen.
• 8:20
  Pawel Sikorski: But yeah, Cyprus is quite tough at the moment, and it has been for me since the beginning.
• 8:25
  Pawel Sikorski: I started in 2013, so 13 years ago as a completely, novel thing.
• 8:31
  Pawel Sikorski: People were scratching their heads thinking, "Why going this way?"
• 8:34
  Pawel Sikorski: Because the main product when it comes to accommodation is either hotels of different grades or or self-catering accommodation.
• 8:43
  Pawel Sikorski: There are some campgrounds, but but very few.
• 8:46
  Pawel Sikorski: So generally the...
• 8:47
  Pawel Sikorski: Basically I was pioneering here from starting in 2013.
• 8:52
  Pawel Sikorski: So it was really tough at the beginning.
• 8:54
  Pawel Sikorski: There were no regulations and actually there's still no regulations for glamping.
• 8:59
  Pawel Sikorski: The government is trying, and has been trying for the last few years To introduce a legal framework.
• 9:05
  Pawel Sikorski: But they're struggling to get through through the parliament with the voting.
• 9:09
  Pawel Sikorski: Basically there's quite a lot of pushback from the I think from the Green Party, basically.
• 9:14
  Pawel Sikorski: They're- they're worried that this will impact the the environment, this kind of a, a spread of of this this kind of accommodation.
• 9:22
  Pawel Sikorski: So they want to have more control, and it's it's really slow.
• 9:25
  Pawel Sikorski: I lived on an island before, and generally things on islands happen very slowly.
• 9:30
  Pawel Sikorski: Everything is always a little bit backwards.
• 9:32
  Pawel Sikorski: Not in necessarily in a bad way, 'cause also-
• 9:34
  Brian Searl: Yeah
• 9:35
  Pawel Sikorski: also people come here because it is- because things are a little bit backwards.
• 9:39
  Pawel Sikorski: But everything is super slow.
• 9:40
  Pawel Sikorski: So I wouldn't necessarily compare Cyprus to the rest of Europe, like to Europe mainland, where there's more competition and people have to be more proactive.
• 9:51
  Pawel Sikorski: So things are really slow.
• 9:52
  Pawel Sikorski: So I've been operating for 13 years and it's been a wild journey.
• 9:56
  Pawel Sikorski: Like the first three years I got quite a lot of harassment from the authorities.
• 10:01
  Pawel Sikorski: Then they thought, hang on a second, he's doing something there.
• 10:04
  Pawel Sikorski: I got featured in a bunch of newspapers, magazines, TV was curious about it.
• 10:09
  Pawel Sikorski: I got like a big travel feature in The Guardian two years ago.
• 10:13
  Pawel Sikorski: So there's like a lot of interest from the media what is this guy doing over there?
• 10:17
  Pawel Sikorski: And I'm like a micro setup.
• 10:20
  Pawel Sikorski: I have four, four keys.
• 10:21
  Pawel Sikorski: I have four accommodation units.
• 10:22
  Pawel Sikorski: So I'm like nobody.
• 10:24
  Pawel Sikorski: So people started getting curious, and then in 20 2022 like during COVID, I was taking part in the consultation process for the legal framework with PricewaterhouseCooper.
• 10:36
  Pawel Sikorski: They got basically hired by the government to work on the legal framework.
• 10:40
  Pawel Sikorski: And it's, it's been since then, since 2022.
• 10:43
  Pawel Sikorski: Now it's 2026, and not much happened.
• 10:46
  Pawel Sikorski: There isn't such thing as as an association.
• 10:48
  Pawel Sikorski: There's literally a bunch of glamping glamping I wouldn't call, I wouldn't call them even resorts because literally there, there could be like two, three accommodation units, like very small.
• 10:59
  Pawel Sikorski: Because it's difficult for people to, to invest themselves either with the time or money in something that is a little bit unstable and and not necessarily you wouldn't know where it's gonna go.
• 11:10
  Pawel Sikorski: But definitely the, there is, the government is keen on s- on resolving this, but it's just not happening yet.
• 11:16
  Brian Searl: I will tell you the more that I learn about Europe, Asia, China, South America, like all the campsites, properties, camping resorts, caravan parks, whatever you call them in each different portion of the world- Yeah the more everything seems
• 11:31
  Brian Searl: the same.
• 11:32
  Brian Searl: Would you agree, Jeremy?
• 11:33
  Brian Searl: We've ta- I think we've talked about this before with like zoning and permitting and dealing with the community and all those different things on different episodes.
• 11:38
  Brian Searl: And Tom, we've run into it too, and Kaleigh maybe a little bit too.
• 11:42
  Brian Searl: Just the more everything seems the same.
• 11:45
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 11:46
  Brian Searl: It's really nuanced differences, right?
• 11:47
  Brian Searl: But they're very much the same.
• 11:49
  Jeremy Johnson: We're not quite on an island, we're on a peninsula.
• 11:52
  Jeremy Johnson: But it's slow, man.
• 11:53
  Brian Searl: So even that Jeremy-
• 11:54
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 11:55
  Kaleigh Day: Oh
• 11:55
  Brian Searl: you feel like you put out here and be like, "No, Brian, you're wrong.
• 11:57
  Brian Searl: We're on a peninsula."
• 11:58
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 11:58
  Jeremy Johnson: I'm saying- I'm saying you're right.
• 12:00
  Jeremy Johnson: We deal with the same thing.
• 12:01
  Jeremy Johnson: Earlier this year, we our, some of our building inspections got delayed because the local building, the, the one guy that does the building inspections couldn't pass his state level exam.
• 12:12
  Jeremy Johnson: And so all of a sudden we had no building inspector.
• 12:16
  Jeremy Johnson: And we still don't.
• 12:18
  Jeremy Johnson: So that, that's how slow things move up here, for sure.
• 12:22
  Pawel Sikorski: Wow.
• 12:24
  Brian Searl: So tell us about your, tell us about your property, Pawel.
• 12:27
  Brian Searl: What are you what, how...
• 12:27
  Brian Searl: First of all let's back it up here.
• 12:29
  Brian Searl: First of all, let's back to 2013.
• 12:31
  Pawel Sikorski: All right.
• 12:31
  Brian Searl: How do you decide that you wanna start what became what you have today?
• 12:37
  Pawel Sikorski: It seems like like it was a, I don't know, a, a, it might sound weird, but it was like a little boy's dream, like something that you always think about.
• 12:45
  Pawel Sikorski: You meet sometimes people and they talk about these ideas that they have, they just never get to do it.
• 12:51
  Pawel Sikorski: So I was at a, a stage in my life when I didn't care much.
• 12:54
  Pawel Sikorski: If things don't work out, I could just take it, absorb it, and move on and do something else.
• 13:00
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Pawel Sikorski: So I've had this wild idea of creating this a, a nature retreat something remote but not too remote where people could just take some time off, reconnect with, with nature, with themselves.
• 13:13
  Pawel Sikorski: And it in my head it was always something small so not a big scale, like a small scale accommodation.
• 13:18
  Pawel Sikorski: But something special, something unique.
• 13:20
  Pawel Sikorski: And then I had no property, so I thought yurts would be a good idea because in theory they are portable.
• 13:26
  Pawel Sikorski: You can take them down, right?
• 13:28
  Pawel Sikorski: Not anymore.
• 13:29
  Pawel Sikorski: They're pretty solid.
• 13:30
  Pawel Sikorski: But that was the idea.
• 13:31
  Pawel Sikorski: And I literally, I don't know, I made the decision very quickly, ordered the yurts, the, like, authentic Mongolian yurts and then my, my journey started.
• 13:39
  Pawel Sikorski: I started in a different location at the beginning.
• 13:42
  Pawel Sikorski: The, the first location didn't work out.
• 13:44
  Pawel Sikorski: There was a human factor.
• 13:45
  Pawel Sikorski: Then I moved to the place where I am right now.
• 13:48
  Pawel Sikorski: And I've been here since January 2014.
• 13:51
  Pawel Sikorski: A- and it's been an amazing journey.
• 13:53
  Pawel Sikorski: I I love it.
• 13:54
  Pawel Sikorski: Until to- I don't feel actually that I work.
• 13:57
  Pawel Sikorski: So my whole experience is basically around the lifestyle.
• 14:01
  Pawel Sikorski: And again, it's on a very small scale.
• 14:03
  Pawel Sikorski: The whole place is off-grid.
• 14:04
  Pawel Sikorski: So we have four units on 10,000 square meters.
• 14:08
  Pawel Sikorski: I don't know how it, how that relates to however you guys measure the the land area.
• 14:13
  Pawel Sikorski: So it's quite a lot of space for for four units.
• 14:16
  Pawel Sikorski: And,
• 14:16
  Brian Searl: I understand why you travel.
• 14:17
  Brian Searl: They're American.
• 14:18
  Brian Searl: No, Kaleigh's Canadian too.
• 14:20
  Kaleigh Day: I'm Both.
• 14:22
  Brian Searl: They use this weird measurement system that no one else uses in the world
• 14:26
  Pawel Sikorski: Okay.
• 14:27
  Jeremy Johnson: For, for the people on the US it's about two and a half acres, so-
• 14:32
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah
• 14:32
  Jeremy Johnson: that's about-
• 14:32
  Pawel Sikorski: Okay.
• 14:33
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, that's about right.
• 14:34
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 14:34
  Pawel Sikorski: Two and a half acres.
• 14:35
  Pawel Sikorski: So it's qui- quite steep land.
• 14:37
  Pawel Sikorski: It was basically a wasteland.
• 14:38
  Pawel Sikorski: I have no idea why I wanted to start here, because it was just completely totally unattractive, very steep barren.
• 14:46
  Pawel Sikorski: There was no, no much vegetation over here.
• 14:48
  Pawel Sikorski: Literally five trees maybe across the whole land, so not much.
• 14:52
  Pawel Sikorski: And it's just, I got this idea in my head.
• 14:54
  Pawel Sikorski: Now we're looking at the photos, like, looking back I would probably not do it again.
• 14:58
  Pawel Sikorski: It was just a wild, crazy idea.
• 15:01
  Pawel Sikorski: I used to go to the village, to the nearest village to see people there and, have a coffee.
• 15:06
  Pawel Sikorski: And I could hear them whisper behind my back like, "Poor guy."
• 15:09
  Pawel Sikorski: They felt literally sorry for me.
• 15:11
  Pawel Sikorski: They thought I had this stupid idea this is gonna fail for sure.
• 15:15
  Pawel Sikorski: They would give me bags of tomatoes.
• 15:17
  Pawel Sikorski: I never paid for coffee.
• 15:19
  Pawel Sikorski: That's my closest village of Simu.
• 15:21
  Pawel Sikorski: And I always heard that behind my back.
• 15:22
  Pawel Sikorski: They literally fe- felt sorry for me for quite a long time.
• 15:26
  Pawel Sikorski: And when they discovered that the They were basically They would me- measure people the social status by, the cars they drive and the jobs that they have.
• 15:34
  Pawel Sikorski: So when they realized that you get I don't know, people coming from the embassies or United Nations, some people with some kind of a, a social status then they started thinking, "Hang on a second.
• 15:45
  Pawel Sikorski: Something's going on over there," across the river, because I'm on the other side of the river from the village.
• 15:51
  Pawel Sikorski: So yeah, I had that they felt sorry for me for quite some time.
• 15:54
  Pawel Sikorski: And then I just rolled up my sleeves and, I started working a lot on the land.
• 15:58
  Pawel Sikorski: It's a completely a comp- completely off-grid, so electricity and water.
• 16:04
  Pawel Sikorski: I'm independent in those resources.
• 16:06
  Pawel Sikorski: I use a lot of permaculture principles.
• 16:09
  Pawel Sikorski: We grow a lot of our own food.
• 16:11
  Pawel Sikorski: We have a bunch of things that you can do around here for recreation.
• 16:14
  Pawel Sikorski: E-bikes.
• 16:15
  Pawel Sikorski: There's a, a horse riding place nearby.
• 16:18
  Pawel Sikorski: My wife does pottery as well.
• 16:20
  Pawel Sikorski: And we have basically four accommodation units.
• 16:23
  Pawel Sikorski: Three Mongolian yurts and a tiny wooden house that I built myself.
• 16:27
  Kaleigh Day: Do you guys have any employees or do you guys do everything yourselves?
• 16:30
  Pawel Sikorski: No, it's just the two of us.
• 16:32
  Pawel Sikorski: Sometimes I have no idea how we do it.
• 16:35
  Pawel Sikorski: Like sometimes I sit down and when I start talking to friends or family and they go like, "Oh, so what's been happening in this past year?"
• 16:42
  Pawel Sikorski: When I start listing the things that we've done, I say to myself, "But this is impossible.
• 16:46
  Pawel Sikorski: This must have been, previous year or something like that."
• 16:48
  Pawel Sikorski: But I don't know how we do it.
• 16:50
  Pawel Sikorski: Somehow we manage it all.
• 16:51
  Pawel Sikorski: I have no idea.
• 16:52
  Pawel Sikorski: I also, I started beekeeping last year.
• 16:55
  Pawel Sikorski: There is always, there's always some building.
• 16:57
  Pawel Sikorski: Always.
• 16:57
  Pawel Sikorski: There's always some improvements.
• 16:59
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, planted 500 trees.
• 17:01
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, there's a lot going on and, yeah, I have no idea.
• 17:04
  Pawel Sikorski: It's just the two of us, and sometimes we get help like sporadically we would get random help from somebody from outside that would come.
• 17:10
  Pawel Sikorski: We have this Dutch guy that visits us from some, from time to time, and he's in his mid-20s.
• 17:17
  Pawel Sikorski: So he throws his his, youngster energy sometimes-
• 17:20
  Kaleigh Day: Oh, got it.
• 17:20
  Pawel Sikorski: into our place and, yeah.
• 17:21
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 17:22
  Pawel Sikorski: Get some muscles.
• 17:23
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, but otherwise it's just the two of us on day-to-day basis.
• 17:27
  Pawel Sikorski: We do all the cooking, serving breakfast dinners.
• 17:30
  Kaleigh Day: Sure.
• 17:30
  Kaleigh Day: You guys serve-
• 17:31
  Pawel Sikorski: The farming.
• 17:32
  Pawel Sikorski: Go ahead.
• 17:32
  Kaleigh Day: You guys serve food for your guests?
• 17:35
  Pawel Sikorski: Yes.
• 17:36
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, breakfast breakfast every morning, and it's like a breakfast experience.
• 17:39
  Pawel Sikorski: Like my wife does, beautiful breakfast.
• 17:42
  Pawel Sikorski: So it's like an experience basically.
• 17:44
  Pawel Sikorski: Our guests never want to leave.
• 17:45
  Pawel Sikorski: It's checkout time, like we have to push them out through the door.
• 17:48
  Pawel Sikorski: "Come on," like we have new arrivals.
• 17:50
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah it's great.
• 17:51
  Pawel Sikorski: I love it.
• 17:51
  Pawel Sikorski: We both love what we do.
• 17:53
  Pawel Sikorski: So yeah, we don't feel like I, we actually work.
• 17:57
  Kaleigh Day: And do you guys close, do you guys close for the season?
• 17:59
  Kaleigh Day: Sorry I'm asking all these questions.
• 18:00
  Kaleigh Day: I'm so curious.
• 18:01
  Pawel Sikorski: No.
• 18:02
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 18:02
  Pawel Sikorski: That was the previous conversation.
• 18:03
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, we don't have seasons.
• 18:04
  Pawel Sikorski: We like we work all year round.
• 18:06
  Pawel Sikorski: Starting in the summer, like we sometimes take time off in in Cypress high season, which is July and August.
• 18:13
  Pawel Sikorski: Like this year we went away for two weeks in July, and it was fine because for us, it doesn't matter when we close and we take our time off.
• 18:20
  Pawel Sikorski: So normally in Cyprus you have high season, you would consider between June and September.
• 18:26
  Pawel Sikorski: And for us, it just doesn't slow down.
• 18:28
  Pawel Sikorski: It's all year round, pretty much the same flat out.
• 18:32
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 18:32
  Pawel Sikorski: We definitely get super busy in August.
• 18:35
  Pawel Sikorski: We get busy in October.
• 18:37
  Pawel Sikorski: Like right now, we'll be very busy.
• 18:40
  Pawel Sikorski: November as well, December, Christmas, New Year, like we're always packed.
• 18:44
  Pawel Sikorski: And then February Valentine's, school holidays March, April gets booked as well.
• 18:50
  Pawel Sikorski: Always yeah, quite a lot.
• 18:52
  Pawel Sikorski: May too.
• 18:53
  Pawel Sikorski: I don't know.
• 18:53
  Pawel Sikorski: We don't really have- It sounds like you're- really have a downtime busy year round.
• 18:58
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 18:58
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Brian Searl: So you're saying if anybody in the States watching us is dealing with low occupancy, maybe you should relocate.
• 19:04
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Brian Searl: Other side of the island from Pawel.
• 19:07
  Brian Searl: He doesn't need that problem.
• 19:08
  Kaleigh Day: Or make breakfast, yeah.
• 19:11
  Kaleigh Day: Or make really good breakfast, and then they-
• 19:12
  Pawel Sikorski: Or make a really good breakfast, yes.
• 19:12
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 19:12
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 19:12
  Pawel Sikorski: Grow your own tomatoes.
• 19:14
  Pawel Sikorski: I don't know.
• 19:14
  Pawel Sikorski: There is something there.
• 19:15
  Pawel Sikorski: But but I think also it goes down to the fact that we've, we're very small.
• 19:19
  Pawel Sikorski: Like it's basically a micro operation.
• 19:21
  Pawel Sikorski: It's, four keys.
• 19:22
  Pawel Sikorski: It's nothing, right?
• 19:23
  Pawel Sikorski: But yeah, and we're totally like off off the main tourist track.
• 19:26
  Pawel Sikorski: Like there are not many attractions around us.
• 19:29
  Pawel Sikorski: Like literally the road ends, 500 meters from us.
• 19:32
  Pawel Sikorski: And then to get to us, there's a very narrow track.
• 19:35
  Pawel Sikorski: You can approach it easily with the regular cars.
• 19:38
  Pawel Sikorski: So getting here is not a problem, but it's just in people's mind.
• 19:41
  Pawel Sikorski: Like they look on the map of Cyprus, usually most of the business happens around the coast.
• 19:46
  Pawel Sikorski: Like that's where the concentration of the tourism is.
• 19:49
  Pawel Sikorski: But inland it's always much quieter
• 19:52
  Kaleigh Day: And how d- how do people find you back in the days when you were struggling?
• 19:56
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 19:56
  Tom Mason: Do you have a website
• 19:57
  Kaleigh Day: or- Yeah, or how-
• 19:57
  Tom Mason: Yeah
• 19:58
  Kaleigh Day: is it just word of mouth or when you started getting this like-
• 20:01
  Pawel Sikorski: All right.
• 20:02
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 20:02
  Kaleigh Day: How did-
• 20:02
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah
• 20:03
  Kaleigh Day: how did you go from this small off-grid business where people felt sorry you're, you know- sorry for you go to this, obviously real- a booming little cute business.
• 20:14
  Kaleigh Day: Not little, but-
• 20:15
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 20:15
  Pawel Sikorski: But yes.
• 20:16
  Pawel Sikorski: It is little, it's yeah micro size.
• 20:19
  Pawel Sikorski: But basically 90% of our business is direct.
• 20:22
  Pawel Sikorski: It's the direct bookings.
• 20:24
  Pawel Sikorski: About 30% we get it through Google search, like all kinds of online search that people do, either on Google Maps or on Google or any kind of a search engine.
• 20:34
  Pawel Sikorski: Then 25% is social media, so Instagram and Facebook.
• 20:39
  Pawel Sikorski: We just started TikTok, but it's come on, guys, give me a break.
• 20:42
  Pawel Sikorski: Like I have no time for this- but you gotta do it, right?
• 20:47
  Pawel Sikorski: And then 20% is word of mouth, so recommendations, like we get it quite a lot.
• 20:53
  Pawel Sikorski: Like a fifth of our business is word of mouth.
• 20:55
  Pawel Sikorski: And sometimes overseas, sometimes local guys but we get a lot of recommendations.
• 21:00
  Pawel Sikorski: And then 15% right now is AI.
• 21:03
  Pawel Sikorski: So if you ask Chat for a, for an eco-friendly, sustainable, something unique in Cyprus that we always end up right at the top, at least for now.
• 21:14
  Pawel Sikorski: So that's something that we really want to keep an eye on and really work work a little bit harder on to get to...
• 21:20
  Pawel Sikorski: To move this 15% a little bit higher.
• 21:23
  Pawel Sikorski: And then 10% is third party so platforms like booking.com or Airbnb.
• 21:29
  Pawel Sikorski: But 90% and sometimes even more is the our direct bookings.
• 21:33
  Pawel Sikorski: So- yeah, just stuff that we...
• 21:34
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, straight from our website, yeah.
• 21:37
  Pawel Sikorski: Which is g-
• 21:37
  Tom Mason: Do you have plans to maybe-
• 21:40
  Pawel Sikorski: Which is great
• 21:40
  Tom Mason: do you have plans to add additional accommodations, or y- you like, you're comfortable- with the four you got?
• 21:47
  Pawel Sikorski: Tom, it's it's been on my mind for quite a while.
• 21:50
  Pawel Sikorski: I always...
• 21:50
  Pawel Sikorski: I like to do different things a- and, wouldn't like to get stuck with the same.
• 21:55
  Pawel Sikorski: But because until now I've always been busy doing some other things like adding additional units stayed in the back of my head, but it's definitely at some point I would want to do it and experiment with different natural
• 22:07
  Pawel Sikorski: building techniques or natural structures.
• 22:10
  Pawel Sikorski: But for now, the f- the four units we can easily manage just me and my wife and that keeps us com- comfortable.
• 22:16
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 22:17
  Pawel Sikorski: And I think increasing, we would need to probably double it in order to be able to then employ somebody.
• 22:23
  Pawel Sikorski: And then we did the maths and we were like, "I don't know."
• 22:26
  Pawel Sikorski: Is it really worth it?
• 22:27
  Pawel Sikorski: Maybe we're not the best example for, like entrepreneurs and people striving to get a, a higher turnover and get another property, or maybe buy expensive cars.
• 22:38
  Pawel Sikorski: We're just grateful when we can close sometimes for two months and go traveling.
• 22:42
  Pawel Sikorski: We really appreciate that and I don't think we want to have the stress and the pressure of of high overheads, and then dealing with all the hassle of employing people.
• 22:50
  Pawel Sikorski: So I think four units for us- We- is great.
• 22:53
  Pawel Sikorski: We made it work.
• 22:54
  Pawel Sikorski: We're comfortable financially.
• 22:55
  Pawel Sikorski: We don't have any we don't have any debts.
• 22:57
  Pawel Sikorski: Everything is done with cash and we have no issues with that.
• 23:01
  Pawel Sikorski: And there is actually no need for us.
• 23:03
  Pawel Sikorski: We We figured out with our guests, we have this, this motto that less, less is more, and we actually apply this to ourselves as well, and it seems to be working.
• 23:12
  Pawel Sikorski: I don't know how, but, I know how, but it's There's a bit of a magic there.
• 23:19
  Brian Searl: What do you think we've had this discussion over here with our...
• 23:23
  Brian Searl: I think it's probably safe to say our glamping industry is still in the early stages.
• 23:26
  Brian Searl: There's been glamping here, but really took off in the last maybe five, six years, somewhere around there.
• 23:31
  Brian Searl: What do you think the...
• 23:32
  Brian Searl: I think we went through this period and we've had these conversations on maybe not this show with this guest, but we've had it with other people, where we're talking about the accommodation structure in the be- in the early
• 23:41
  Brian Searl: stages of the glamping industry was what people came out for because it was a novelty.
• 23:46
  Brian Searl: That, they'd never stayed in a yurt.
• 23:47
  Brian Searl: They'd never stayed in a bell tent.
• 23:49
  Brian Searl: They'd never stayed in insert blank.
• 23:51
  Brian Searl: But then as the, the industry matured, even after a couple years, these same guests are saying I've already stayed in one of those.
• 23:57
  Brian Searl: Now I wanna move on to what experience are you providing me?"
• 24:00
  Brian Searl: And that's where the breakfast and the personal touches and the things that set you apart really make you unique and make people come back.
• 24:08
  Brian Searl: So how would you say that's balanced at your, at a property like yours in Cyprus, is it still the accommodation that's the big wow factor, or is it the experience?
• 24:17
  Brian Searl: I know it's both, but I'm asking you to kinda choose.
• 24:20
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 24:21
  Pawel Sikorski: I think it's the combination because, I look at our return customers, and some have been here 20 times.
• 24:28
  Pawel Sikorski: They'll, they just keep coming.
• 24:30
  Pawel Sikorski: They never want to leave, and they they turn up for longer, longer stays.
• 24:35
  Pawel Sikorski: And the m- the main, definitely a huge part of it is the, the, the accommodation, the experience of staying in the yurt.
• 24:42
  Pawel Sikorski: People always comment how, how- how serene they feel and how much they relax inside the yurt.
• 24:50
  Pawel Sikorski: Some say it's because of the, the round structure.
• 24:53
  Pawel Sikorski: Some lie in- lay in bed and start counting the poles in the on the ceiling, makes them calm down.
• 24:59
  Pawel Sikorski: But def- partly definitely it's the structure, but I think there's a huge part that goes down to the actual hospitality and people feeling welcome.
• 25:08
  Pawel Sikorski: Definitely having, good meals good space basically being close to nature really helps them to relax.
• 25:15
  Pawel Sikorski: And nowadays you can hear more and more, like in maybe especially since, since COVID, like since maybe 2022, like more and more it seems like unpolluted sky and silence is a luxury.
• 25:28
  Pawel Sikorski: People literally, they don't want anything else.
• 25:31
  Pawel Sikorski: We have a long list of things to do.
• 25:33
  Pawel Sikorski: I get a lot of messages from people asking what could they do.
• 25:37
  Pawel Sikorski: I'm sure I could automate that soon.
• 25:39
  Pawel Sikorski: And basically they get a list of things to do that, that they have a overloaded program and I look at it, I'm thinking, "This is too much."
• 25:48
  Pawel Sikorski: And they get here and they just want to relax.
• 25:50
  Pawel Sikorski: They actually don't want to go anywhere.
• 25:52
  Pawel Sikorski: They park the car, they order all the meals.
• 25:54
  Pawel Sikorski: They say, "Just, throw the car keys away.
• 25:57
  Pawel Sikorski: I don't want to go anywhere, and I just want to read the books and play some games."
• 26:01
  Pawel Sikorski: It's also great to see kids, like families coming with kids, with board games, going old school and keeping the phones and screens away.
• 26:09
  Pawel Sikorski: So I think it, there's a bunch of reasons that people feel attracted to these kind of properties.
• 26:14
  Pawel Sikorski: And I think there will be some that will be searching and going for different experiences, like different types of accommodation be in yurts or domes or tiny houses whatnot but with our guests, f- for sure it's the accommodation,
• 26:29
  Pawel Sikorski: it's the, the, the hospitality, the feeling welcome.
• 26:33
  Pawel Sikorski: Especially with returning guests, like a lot of them that kind of feel like part of community.
• 26:38
  Pawel Sikorski: I think a lot of this is missing in people's lives, so when they can find it in a place like this, even for two days Like this morning we had this couple who stayed back in August.
• 26:47
  Pawel Sikorski: Not back in August, back in May.
• 26:49
  Pawel Sikorski: And they literally f- they live 10 kilometers from here, which is what, six miles.
• 26:54
  Pawel Sikorski: So they came on, on a little break, like a two-night break here.
• 26:57
  Pawel Sikorski: Just 10 kilometers from their home, which is, for me it's weird.
• 27:00
  Pawel Sikorski: I've never done that myself.
• 27:03
  Pawel Sikorski: And prior to that we had another couple also 10 kilometers.
• 27:06
  Pawel Sikorski: They live 10 kilometers from here and they came to stay here for for the weekend.
• 27:10
  Pawel Sikorski: It was somebody's birthday.
• 27:12
  Pawel Sikorski: So we gotta get people to celebrate this a lot.
• 27:14
  Pawel Sikorski: So it's quite interesting, how little sometimes people need to have the experience.
• 27:19
  Pawel Sikorski: And yeah, appreciate that a lot of places, especially in Cyprus, like the glamping unit, the glamping resorts that are popping up they offer more high-end experience.
• 27:27
  Pawel Sikorski: Hot tubs and all kinds of things that you can get on site, and more like a luxury type of accommodation.
• 27:33
  Pawel Sikorski: And we stuck to very simple accommodation.
• 27:35
  Pawel Sikorski: Our bathrooms are outside.
• 27:37
  Pawel Sikorski: You are forced to go outside.
• 27:39
  Pawel Sikorski: We force our guests to go out go out to the bathroom.
• 27:43
  Pawel Sikorski: That's actually part of the philosophy.
• 27:45
  Pawel Sikorski: So yeah, I hope this answers your question.
• 27:48
  Brian Searl: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:49
  Brian Searl: Jeremy, I'm curious, you were on a journey, or you still are, maybe you're finished, on what kind of accommodations you wanna add to your property.
• 27:56
  Brian Searl: Where are you at with that?
• 27:57
  Jeremy Johnson: We, we haven't finished but I'll say very similar.
• 28:00
  Jeremy Johnson: We're, we're fully rustic.
• 28:01
  Jeremy Johnson: We're not connected to any grid, and part of the allure is being outside.
• 28:06
  Jeremy Johnson: And, we're very lucky that I think most people that stay with us recognize that and appreciate it.
• 28:14
  Jeremy Johnson: Every now and then we'll get somebody that is what do you mean it's a vault toilet?"
• 28:19
  Jeremy Johnson: "I don't flush the toilet?"
• 28:20
  Jeremy Johnson: But- for the most part I think there is a big push to, experience that simpleness.
• 28:27
  Jeremy Johnson: And similarly, too, we get a ton of people that are coming here from nearby.
• 28:33
  Jeremy Johnson: We just got another one of our Google reviews.
• 28:36
  Jeremy Johnson: I think they said they came from about an hour away.
• 28:39
  Jeremy Johnson: And, they wanted to come spend time here even though they're surrounded by nature, too.
• 28:44
  Jeremy Johnson: So I don't quite know- what, why people are doing that but I'll, when I think about our accommodations I think that like we just have to continue to build for our audience and we, I do know we are
• 28:56
  Jeremy Johnson: going to build four more like high-end cabins.
• 29:00
  Jeremy Johnson: They'll, I say high-end but they'll still be solar powered, they'll still be w- water, fully disconnected from the grid.
• 29:08
  Jeremy Johnson: We will build four of those but those will be like the fanciest thing on the property.
• 29:11
  Jeremy Johnson: Like everything else will be more natural structures whether it's a yurt or, we're lucky that we have a lot of craftsmen in the Upper Peninsula and the guy down the street does hemp structures.
• 29:23
  Jeremy Johnson: Maybe we'll end up doing some hemp structures.
• 29:25
  Jeremy Johnson: Oh.
• 29:25
  Jeremy Johnson: But it'll I think, at least for us people are coming here for that type of experience and so we obviously have to cater to it.
• 29:34
  Brian Searl: Tom, I'm curious, do you find that there's a mark-
• 29:36
  Tom Mason: Jeremy, how many accommodations do you have at your park?
• 29:39
  Jeremy Johnson: What was that Tom?
• 29:40
  Brian Searl: Go ahead, ask your question.
• 29:41
  Tom Mason: Jeremy how many accommodations do you have at your park?
• 29:43
  Jeremy Johnson: We're licensed for 40 spots and today we have 37.
• 29:48
  Jeremy Johnson: Actually we're licensed for 44 spots and we have 37 today.
• 29:52
  Kaleigh Day: Like camp- campsites or mixed accom-
• 29:54
  Jeremy Johnson: Just rustic campsites today.
• 29:56
  Jeremy Johnson: So no...
• 29:57
  Jeremy Johnson: The first two structures on the property were the vault toilets that we built and then we're slowly adding.
• 30:03
  Jeremy Johnson: We're only in our second year
• 30:04
  Kaleigh Day: Oh, nice
• 30:04
  Jeremy Johnson: yeah, one, one thing at a time.
• 30:06
  Jeremy Johnson: And I wish I could say I had zero debt but we do have a little bit of debt for, from purchasing the property.
• 30:14
  Jeremy Johnson: But it's very manageable and a- going forward we just do things as cashflow allows.
• 30:20
  Jeremy Johnson: So that makes it a little bit nicer,
• 30:22
  Kaleigh Day: at least you don't have to put in a septic system, 'cause we just had to replace ours and-
• 30:26
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 30:27
  Kaleigh Day: that, that's not fun.
• 30:28
  Jeremy Johnson: I, I would like, I, one day I would like to do a central bath house with a septic system just for that more cozy experience if you will.
• 30:37
  Jeremy Johnson: Like being able...
• 30:38
  Jeremy Johnson: we get a lot of outdoor enthusiasts who do w- there's a bike race called the Margie Jessek here, and it's billed as the most difficult 24-hour race in the United States.
• 30:49
  Jeremy Johnson: And all those people stayed here two weeks ago, but then they get done with this grueling 24-hour race.
• 30:55
  Jeremy Johnson: They're covered in sweat, they're covered in mud- and they have nowhere to take a shower.
• 31:00
  Jeremy Johnson: So we're like the lake is across the street if you wanna go join the lake."
• 31:05
  Jeremy Johnson: So I do wanna do a, a septic system one day so we can have people rinse off, but it would still be pretty basic,
• 31:10
  Kaleigh Day: you could just do an outdoor 'cause then our staff...
• 31:13
  Kaleigh Day: So we expanded the original campground mainly for, 'cause a big issue in Ucluelet is staff accommodation.
• 31:20
  Kaleigh Day: So we went, we have 20 staff members between the surf school, surf shop, ground office, the whole thing.
• 31:27
  Jeremy Johnson: Wow.
• 31:27
  Kaleigh Day: And when we first started, everyone lived in town, but as the town expanded and tourism boomed, Airbnb really ruined where everyone...
• 31:37
  Kaleigh Day: there's no places for locals to live.
• 31:39
  Kaleigh Day: There's no sh- like, long-term rentals.
• 31:41
  Kaleigh Day: I'm sure a lot of you guys have experienced or heard complaints about this.
• 31:45
  Kaleigh Day: And so we expanded the campground.
• 31:47
  Kaleigh Day: We bought the property behind us, and we built an off-grid camping area for- like our staff and, like we expanded, we built like 25 camp sites and a, a different bathroom facility as well.
• 31:58
  Kaleigh Day: But we do We got one of those propane instant hot water-
• 32:03
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 32:03
  Kaleigh Day: shower for the staff to shower, so we have like this like pit toilet and that, and they like love it, and it's like instantly hot.
• 32:09
  Kaleigh Day: So like it took us a day to put up
• 32:12
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 32:12
  Kaleigh Day: So it could be like a little interim
• 32:14
  Jeremy Johnson: we- I don't know what your health department is like.
• 32:17
  Jeremy Johnson: Our health department is very strict and w- we're constantly going back and forth with them.
• 32:22
  Jeremy Johnson: But like one of the issues we've run into is they, under our state license designation as a, a rustic campground, we're not supposed to have water under pressure, and,
• 32:33
  Kaleigh Day: Oh, interesting.
• 32:34
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 32:35
  Jeremy Johnson: So like even our hand pump even our well that people people drink, like get drinking water from, it's a hand pump well.
• 32:42
  Jeremy Johnson: Which to me, I'm like you're putting it under pressure 'cause you're pumping it," but, whatever, semantics.
• 32:47
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah, what is pressure?
• 32:48
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 32:49
  Jeremy Johnson: I'm like, "Gravity?"
• 32:50
  Pawel Sikorski: Could you not have like buckets, buckets fill- filled with water, like hanging-
• 32:53
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 32:54
  Pawel Sikorski: hanging up-
• 32:55
  Kaleigh Day: Oh, yeah
• 32:55
  Pawel Sikorski: and just pull the cord and-
• 32:57
  Jeremy Johnson: So the second problem-
• 32:58
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, one of those
• 32:58
  Jeremy Johnson: is that any fixture they want it to be potable water.
• 33:02
  Jeremy Johnson: And so-
• 33:03
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah, do you treat, with your well, do you treat it or is it-
• 33:06
  Jeremy Johnson: No, we're really lucky that, so we're on top of a dolomite rock outcropping which is part of the appeal for a lot of people but then also has a lot of restrictions for us.
• 33:15
  Jeremy Johnson: But we- our well goes about 400 feet deep, and it taps into a-
• 33:21
  Pawel Sikorski: Wow
• 33:21
  Jeremy Johnson: really nice aquifer.
• 33:23
  Jeremy Johnson: And then the p- the ironic part about this is that the pressure from the rock pressing against the aquifer brings the water back up to 380 feet.
• 33:33
  Jeremy Johnson: So w- we have great, a great water source and, we're one of the few people that tap into that aquifer.
• 33:39
  Jeremy Johnson: So it's a really r- we're actually, we've, people have added us to the list of, I don't know what it is, but there's these maps on the internet where you can find, natural drinking water.
• 33:51
  Jeremy Johnson: And so we've gotten added to those lists, and people that aren't even camping with us will be coming through town and they'll be like, "Can I fill up my rig?"
• 33:58
  Jeremy Johnson: And I'm like, "As long as you don't mind-
• 34:00
  Pawel Sikorski: Wow
• 34:00
  Jeremy Johnson: hand pumping 40 gallons worth of water, sure."
• 34:05
  Tom Mason: Wow.
• 34:05
  Kaleigh Day: And so is it not, like when you're like, "It has to be potable water," does the city, is it considered potable or is it, are you, do you go by like non, like what's your like-
• 34:14
  Jeremy Johnson: We have to have it tested once a month.
• 34:16
  Jeremy Johnson: And so i- if it's from a well, you have to test it once a month, bring it, we have to bring it into town and have it tested at the lab.
• 34:24
  Jeremy Johnson: But then if it's like running through o- other, basically we can't do, even though the state allows rainwater collection, our local municipality doesn't count that as potable water.
• 34:35
  Jeremy Johnson: So if we did rainwater, we'd have to treat it.
• 34:38
  Jeremy Johnson: So there's a lot of goofy things about it and in all reality like the s- the state wrote their rules in 1967 or something, and hasn't updated them.
• 34:50
  Jeremy Johnson: And then our local municipality is pretty behind too.
• 34:54
  Jeremy Johnson: So like we, we just need some reform to bring things in line 'cause there's a lot of unnecessary I'm sure it's similar in all the places that you guys operate in, but a lot of unnecessary restrictions that just
• 35:06
  Jeremy Johnson: make it more difficult,
• 35:07
  Kaleigh Day: we would be like, as long as it's not, our restrictions are just like drinking water, so like for an outdoor shower or something like that.
• 35:13
  Kaleigh Day: I don't know, maybe the staff area.
• 35:15
  Kaleigh Day: I don't know if it'd be different from main showers, but I think, yeah.
• 35:19
  Jeremy Johnson: The West C- I do, from traveling on the West Coast I think has a different viewpoint on it because water is more scarce often.
• 35:26
  Jeremy Johnson: I mean you're like, you're Northwest so it's not quite the same.
• 35:29
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah
• 35:29
  Jeremy Johnson: but being in the Great Lakes, like our water protections are very intense and like everything, like we have some of the strictest water rules in the United States.
• 35:40
  Jeremy Johnson: I don't know about Canada.
• 35:41
  Jeremy Johnson: And then like every- everything just has to be like treated pretty much, which is, I think, a little bit unfortunate, unless you have a designated well, which we do, so we don't have to treat it luckily.
• 35:57
  Tom Mason: Jeremy, you said the lake's right across the street.
• 35:59
  Tom Mason: Is that Lake Superior?
• 36:00
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah, Lake Superior, yep.
• 36:01
  Jeremy Johnson: I'm 200 feet above the lake, so looking out my R- RV window right now I just see Lake Superior.
• 36:07
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Tom Mason: Beautiful.
• 36:08
  Tom Mason: I do know, the temperature at Lake Superior rarely gets above 62-
• 36:14
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah
• 36:14
  Tom Mason: degrees.
• 36:15
  Tom Mason: So it's re- it's a refreshing lake.
• 36:17
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah, it's definitely a refreshing lake.
• 36:19
  Jeremy Johnson: The best time to jump in is usually late August, early September, and it's usually about two weekends that are you know- bearable temperature.
• 36:28
  Jeremy Johnson: Otherwise you're going for a cold plunge for sure.
• 36:32
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 36:32
  Tom Mason: That's pretty.
• 36:33
  Tom Mason: It's probably prettier.
• 36:34
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 36:34
  Jeremy Johnson: I know it is.
• 36:35
  Jeremy Johnson: Gor- gorgeous.
• 36:35
  Jeremy Johnson: We're peak, peak fall colors right now, so it's amazing at the moment.
• 36:39
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 36:40
  Brian Searl: Tom, I'm curious from your perspective running a, I don't know if you wanna call them traditional RV parks- but what most people in North America I think would consider an RV park, RV resort, campground type, experience.
• 36:51
  Brian Searl: Do you feel like there's room for people who want to have a more secluded experience to be able to be served at resorts like this, or do they need dedicated glamping places?
• 37:00
  Tom Mason: I, we're talking to two people who think, that seem to be doing okay with that concept and growing it.
• 37:06
  Tom Mason: So-
• 37:06
  Brian Searl: Yes and no.
• 37:06
  Brian Searl: Sorry I think there's- Just yes and no, because Pawel has this, this four glamping yurts that are separate, right?
• 37:12
  Brian Searl: Jeremy's got more of a rustic appeal.
• 37:14
  Brian Searl: I'm talking about blended with an RV park.
• 37:16
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 37:17
  Kaleigh Day: I feel like that could be like-
• 37:18
  Tom Mason: Oh
• 37:18
  Kaleigh Day: just like a standard campground has for us we have about 40 RV sites, like full service, full hookups, and then we have standard tenting sites.
• 37:26
  Kaleigh Day: And st- like, where we are- Yeah standard tenting is like very much still alive and well.
• 37:31
  Kaleigh Day: And so I feel like it's it's a bit of a blend, I feel like there's room for-
• 37:35
  Brian Searl: Yeah, you can, you can-
• 37:36
  Tom Mason: I agree with Kaleigh
• 37:37
  Brian Searl: Go ahead.
• 37:37
  Brian Searl: I'll let you answer, Tom.
• 37:38
  Tom Mason: I agree with Kaleigh.
• 37:39
  Brian Searl: Before I give my comment.
• 37:39
  Brian Searl: Sorry, go ahead.
• 37:41
  Tom Mason: No.
• 37:41
  Tom Mason: I agree with Kaleigh.
• 37:43
  Tom Mason: We have parks where there's tenting and we have rustic cabins at our, number of our parks, and they are full most of the summer.
• 37:52
  Tom Mason: So yeah, there's, I think there's a, there's the ability to have both in a traditional park like most of the ones that we manage.
• 37:59
  Brian Searl: Yeah, and I just didn't an- answer the question or perhaps ask the question correctly, I'm more thinking about w- like we know your cabin rentals that you have at a lot of your properties, Tom.
• 38:08
  Brian Searl: There's obviously an audience for that.
• 38:09
  Brian Searl: They'll book the cabins all summer long, sometimes even into the shoulder seasons and in the winter.
• 38:15
  Brian Searl: I'm more talking about if there's a guest that wants an accommodation but wants a more isolated feel to it, is there room for that at a traditional resort?
• 38:22
  Brian Searl: Because you'd almost have to landscape around it.
• 38:24
  Brian Searl: You'd have to make it more peaceful or set it aside- in a corner of the property.
• 38:28
  Brian Searl: Does that ever make sense for a park like yours, Tom, or one of the parks that you manage?
• 38:33
  Tom Mason: I don't have that luxury to have that extra land at our parks, but if I did, I would experiment with that and try to carve out an isolated section as you described it to see what would happen.
• 38:49
  Tom Mason: Because I do think the more variety you offer, the more attractive you are to a larger group of of the public.
• 38:57
  Jeremy Johnson: I do think it's possible, but it requires the physical space to do it.
• 39:02
  Jeremy Johnson: I mean, we, we get- people that, there's a park down the street from us that opened two years ago, same time as us, and we'll get...
• 39:11
  Jeremy Johnson: It's a more traditional RV park, but they do have tent sites as well.
• 39:16
  Jeremy Johnson: And we'll get people that show up on Saturday s- to come book with us who left that park on Friday because they're parked next to an...
• 39:25
  Jeremy Johnson: they thought they were getting a tent site, but their tent is right next to an RV with a generator.
• 39:30
  Jeremy Johnson: And so they they tried to do it, but they didn't give the necessary space like Tom's talking about.
• 39:36
  Jeremy Johnson: And without that space- it just, you know, the two things don't really...
• 39:40
  Jeremy Johnson: You don't wanna be in a tent thinking you're in the woods, and then some guy's got his generator running and satellite TV going.
• 39:48
  Kaleigh Day: I think that's also a good-
• 39:50
  Tom Mason: I would compare, Brian, I would compare it also, people try to do glamping because that's the hot topic, but they don't give it the space-
• 39:59
  Brian Searl: Yeah
• 40:00
  Tom Mason: that a traditional glamping person is looking for, a glamping client is looking for, where they wanna be a little more isolated.
• 40:07
  Tom Mason: They just, to Jeremy's point, they just move, they, it was, they take an old RV site and maybe put a few trees around it and throw up a tent and say, "Yeah, we have glamping."
• 40:18
  Tom Mason: When in reality-
• 40:19
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 40:19
  Brian Searl: That's what I mean.
• 40:19
  Brian Searl: I've given this example on the shows before and then, sorry Kaleigh, I'll let you go.
• 40:22
  Brian Searl: I apologize.
• 40:23
  Brian Searl: We're just kinda delayed now.
• 40:25
  Brian Searl: Didn't mean to talk over you.
• 40:26
  Brian Searl: But I've given this example before where we went to Ireland like last September I think it was now.
• 40:30
  Brian Searl: It's been a almost a year.
• 40:31
  Brian Searl: And we were looking at glamping places to stay, and there was two different types of glamping places in Ireland, just like there is in the United States and Canada and probably Cyprus and everywhere else, right?
• 40:40
  Brian Searl: Is that there's the one where people have put the units side by side, like a couple feet of space in between them, and they all look the same and they're all organized the same way and like there's no
• 40:48
  Brian Searl: trees or landscaping or really anything except the accommodation there.
• 40:52
  Brian Searl: And a lot of places in Ireland got away with it 'cause, the walk out your front door and you're looking at the ocean.
• 40:56
  Brian Searl: That's okay in Ireland.
• 40:57
  Brian Searl: you can get away with a lot more there, or Cyprus probably.
• 41:00
  Brian Searl: But if you don't have that wow factor as soon as you step out your door, then the difference is the people who have the space and the landscaping and curate the experience to really make them feel like it's
• 41:10
  Brian Searl: different.
• 41:10
  Brian Searl: Not necessarily isolated, although that's one benefit of it.
• 41:13
  Brian Searl: It doesn't have to be that though.
• 41:15
  Brian Searl: It just has to be different and unique.
• 41:16
  Brian Searl: Appeal to their senses in a way that maybe they haven't been able to experience often or at all, I think.
• 41:22
  Brian Searl: I don't own, I don't own the property.
• 41:24
  Brian Searl: You guys correct me if I'm wrong.
• 41:25
  Jeremy Johnson: No, I think you're right.
• 41:26
  Jeremy Johnson: If you have a, if you have a wow factor, that can help mitigate some of the space issues.
• 41:31
  Jeremy Johnson: But it has to...
• 41:33
  Jeremy Johnson: I think no matter what you're doing, it has to feel cohesive, I was just down in Traverse City for one of those conferences and there's a really nice mo- more modern RV park.
• 41:44
  Jeremy Johnson: And everybody's got their big RVs and generators, and some of them set up shop all summer long, and they've got their little yard designs, and that, that works for that place, 'cause it's cohesive.
• 41:55
  Jeremy Johnson: But I think no matter which direction you go in, you just have to make it cohesive, otherwise you get people who might value different things right next to each other.
• 42:05
  Jeremy Johnson: And then you've got, again, the guy with the satellite TV and generator next to the guy who's trying to watch the northern lights, and that doesn't usually work together.
• 42:16
  Brian Searl: All right.
• 42:16
  Brian Searl: Let's spend the last few minutes asking each other questions.
• 42:18
  Brian Searl: Tom, do you have a question for Kaleigh, Jeremy, or Pawel?
• 42:24
  Tom Mason: So Jeremy you've been there two years.
• 42:26
  Tom Mason: How...
• 42:26
  Tom Mason: I know you're seasonal.
• 42:28
  Tom Mason: Good did you see nice growth from first year to second year?
• 42:33
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 42:33
  Jeremy Johnson: We we grew revenue this year by about 50%.
• 42:37
  Jeremy Johnson: So that felt solid but a lot of that just comes with gaining awareness of, the, the market and the people gaining awareness.
• 42:44
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 42:44
  Jeremy Johnson: So next year I've got our goal set to grow by another 30%, so we'll see if we can hit that.
• 42:51
  Jeremy Johnson: But so far so good.
• 42:55
  Tom Mason: And you say most of your customers are Northern Wisconsin, Northern Minnesota, and Northern Michigan that you attract?
• 43:02
  Jeremy Johnson: Mo- a little bit.
• 43:03
  Jeremy Johnson: We do have a heavy, I would say maybe 20 to 25% comes from like those regional northern areas, which is more than I expected.
• 43:12
  Jeremy Johnson: But 75, 80% of our customers are coming from the more metropolitan areas, so Detroit, Chicago Minneapolis, Milwaukee.
• 43:23
  Jeremy Johnson: The, it- it's really interesting how many, s- city people wanna come up and disconnect.
• 43:28
  Jeremy Johnson: But we get a lot of...
• 43:29
  Jeremy Johnson: we even get a lot of first-time campers, and one of the cooler programs that we've got involved with is like first-time camping for like youth.
• 43:38
  Jeremy Johnson: We work with a group in Grand Rapids.
• 43:40
  Jeremy Johnson: We work with a group in Hamtramck which is like a city inside of Detroit, and then we work with a group in Flint as well.
• 43:46
  Jeremy Johnson: So we facilitate like first-time camping for all those, those kids that are like in a more urban environment, which is a lot of fun.
• 43:55
  Tom Mason: Okay.
• 43:56
  Tom Mason: I, I do...
• 43:57
  Tom Mason: My next question-
• 43:58
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 43:58
  Brian Searl: Go ahead
• 43:58
  Tom Mason: sorry, Brian, if I'm asking too many, but are both for Jeremy a- and Kaleigh.
• 44:04
  Tom Mason: Midweek, say Sunday through Thursday, w- is very soft for us.
• 44:09
  Tom Mason: Any ideas on anything that you've done that you've had some success to grow that time period?
• 44:15
  Jeremy Johnson: I'll answer and then I'll be quiet-.
• 44:16
  Jeremy Johnson: and we c- we can move on to Kaleigh.
• 44:17
  Jeremy Johnson: But I'm just, I'm lucky that I live in a very tourist heavy area.
• 44:22
  Jeremy Johnson: And I think that a big thing that's helped not only my business but all the other hotels, and campgrounds, and accommodations near us is that we have a, a countywide tourism tax that promotes, you know, every- everybody that
• 44:37
  Jeremy Johnson: has lo- I actually don't pay it as a campground, which is ironic.
• 44:40
  Jeremy Johnson: But everybody that has a tourism business pays 6% of their revenue, and then it goes to a DMO that markets our area, and that DMO will put on events.
• 44:52
  Jeremy Johnson: So like I said, we've got big bike races that happen during the middle of the week.
• 44:57
  Jeremy Johnson: We've got a beer festival that happens.
• 45:00
  Jeremy Johnson: So I don't have to worry about it too much luckily, but maybe on an island that's a bigger concern.
• 45:05
  Jeremy Johnson: I don't know.
• 45:07
  Kaleigh Day: The, for us, when we were smaller and we struggled a bit more to fill our midweek, we did a lot of surf...
• 45:16
  Kaleigh Day: For us, we have our surf school, and so we have that activity that draws people in.
• 45:21
  Kaleigh Day: And we would do midweek surf packages with surf rental and surf lesson packages, and we would make camping pretty cheap 'cause we wanted people in, and then do the upsell and everything else.
• 45:32
  Kaleigh Day: So once we get them in, then we have all the add-ons.
• 45:35
  Kaleigh Day: So those for us, when we were really a lot smaller really helped, especially in the shoulder season.
• 45:41
  Kaleigh Day: So that's what we would do.
• 45:42
  Kaleigh Day: We'd do that midweek surf rental, surf lesson package, and then that really helped fill our midweek.
• 45:48
  Kaleigh Day: And then activities,
• 45:49
  Tom Mason: yeah.
• 45:49
  Kaleigh Day: Like the good old classics.
• 45:51
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 45:51
  Jeremy Johnson: Programming and events.
• 45:53
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 45:54
  Jeremy Johnson: Yes.
• 45:54
  Jeremy Johnson: Yep.
• 45:55
  Jeremy Johnson: I just don't do it.
• 45:56
  Jeremy Johnson: My county does it for me.
• 45:57
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 45:58
  Kaleigh Day: Thanks.
• 45:58
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 45:59
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 45:59
  Jeremy Johnson: There you go.
• 46:00
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 46:00
  Tom Mason: Congratulations.
• 46:01
  Brian Searl: Jeremy, you have any questions for anybody?
• 46:03
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 46:04
  Jeremy Johnson: Tom what's your favorite out of all the locations you have?
• 46:10
  Tom Mason: As far as the best location we have is in Panama City-
• 46:15
  Jeremy Johnson: Oh, wow.
• 46:16
  Jeremy Johnson: Okay
• 46:17
  Tom Mason: in Florida.
• 46:18
  Tom Mason: Yeah.
• 46:18
  Tom Mason: As far as my favorite is we have one in Navarre Beach that is very good, and then we have one in Durango, Colorado, which I love.
• 46:31
  Jeremy Johnson: Cool.
• 46:31
  Jeremy Johnson: Where's Nav- where's Navarre Beach?
• 46:34
  Tom Mason: It's in the panhandle of Florida
• 46:36
  Jeremy Johnson: Okay
• 46:36
  Tom Mason: It's right outside Pensacola.
• 46:39
  Tom Mason: Unfortunately, this past week we had Hurricane Isaias come through and it came ashore just east of Navarre Beach.
• 46:49
  Tom Mason: We came out pretty much unscathed but we have Panama City was affected by it, Fort St.
• 46:55
  Tom Mason: Joe, Navarre Beach, and one in Alabama got a little bit of rain and wind.
• 47:00
  Tom Mason: So we had to evacuate, so it hurt us for this past weekend pretty substantially, those four parks.
• 47:06
  Tom Mason: But Durango, Colorado's a gorgeous park right on the river.
• 47:10
  Tom Mason: Love it.
• 47:11
  Tom Mason: A great setting.
• 47:13
  Tom Mason: Obviously, it's up in the mountains and it is a seasonal site but it's spectacular up there.
• 47:19
  Tom Mason: Year round Navarre Beach is pretty good.
• 47:21
  Jeremy Johnson: Nice.
• 47:23
  Brian Searl: Kaleigh, you have any questions?
• 47:25
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah, my question's for Pawel.
• 47:28
  Kaleigh Day: What's your dem- what's your demographic?
• 47:30
  Kaleigh Day: What's who's coming and staying with you, and where are they from?
• 47:35
  Kaleigh Day: Is it, do you get a lot of families, or is it...
• 47:38
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah, just I'm so curious.
• 47:41
  Pawel Sikorski: All right.
• 47:42
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, so Cyprus has like over four million of arrivals a year of tourists.
• 47:48
  Pawel Sikorski: There's like a million people living here, so four times the population you have that many arrivals.
• 47:53
  Pawel Sikorski: There's a huge tourism is like a huge part of GDP in Cyprus.
• 47:57
  Pawel Sikorski: We get a lot of a, a lot of people coming to to the island.
• 48:00
  Pawel Sikorski: And our demographics are probably like pretty much half and half.
• 48:06
  Pawel Sikorski: So half of our guests are based in Cyprus, so people doing the staycations people who are based in Cyprus that just looking for short breaks, two, three nights, sometimes four nights.
• 48:17
  Pawel Sikorski: And there'll be also of all kinds of nationalities.
• 48:21
  Pawel Sikorski: Cyprus is very multicultural multinational.
• 48:24
  Pawel Sikorski: Loads of people are based here from all over the world.
• 48:27
  Pawel Sikorski: So I wouldn't pinpoint, like I don't really have a particular nationality that I would see here more than the others.
• 48:35
  Pawel Sikorski: There will be sometimes, like bank holidays or some some local celebrations where I would see, for example, more Cypriot guests.
• 48:45
  Pawel Sikorski: Cypriot holidays I would see more.
• 48:47
  Pawel Sikorski: Sometimes it could be a weekend there'll be just Cypriot guests.
• 48:50
  Pawel Sikorski: But otherwise it's a complete mix.
• 48:53
  Pawel Sikorski: Like sometimes you have people sitting around the breakfast table and they're like, literally everybody's from a different country from all over the world.
• 49:01
  Pawel Sikorski: Like I've- there again, like there are sometimes some dates I would say with s- with schools as well, like school holidays where you get obviously more families.
• 49:10
  Pawel Sikorski: We get always like a lot of interest from from British bases.
• 49:14
  Pawel Sikorski: There are some military bases in Cyprus.
• 49:17
  Pawel Sikorski: So there is always a big a, a big following from there.
• 49:20
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, Brits they love the, the glamping or or this kind of stays, you know, out in the nature.
• 49:26
  Pawel Sikorski: It's definitely their thing.
• 49:28
  Pawel Sikorski: So you d- you don't have to sell too hard this kind of an experience to them.
• 49:32
  Pawel Sikorski: But otherwise really it's we are actually blessed because it also gives you a nice feeling of of being part of this huge community where you have people coming from all over the world and you have this cultural exchange
• 49:42
  Pawel Sikorski: and all kinds of things going on.
• 49:44
  Pawel Sikorski: So yeah, I find it super attractive.
• 49:46
  Kaleigh Day: Oh, nice.
• 49:47
  Kaleigh Day: And then age, is there like a particular age group that you find?
• 49:51
  Kaleigh Day: Is it, or is it still the same kind of across the board?
• 49:55
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, it's pretty across the board.
• 49:57
  Pawel Sikorski: But I would say we don't get too many young people other than, kids coming with their, y- with the parents.
• 50:04
  Pawel Sikorski: And then pro- probably it starts around 30 yeah, anybody up from 30.
• 50:09
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, 30, yeah, probably there's a big part of it that people in their, middle-aged, around 40, 50.
• 50:16
  Pawel Sikorski: A lot of retired people as well who come to settle in Cyprus, the great weather and all of that.
• 50:22
  Pawel Sikorski: They're also a big chunk of of our guests.
• 50:25
  Pawel Sikorski: So again, can be anything from, from infants all the way up to 90 year olds.
• 50:30
  Pawel Sikorski: We get all kinds of ages.
• 50:32
  Brian Searl: Pawel, I don't wanna, I don't wanna guess what your age is.
• 50:36
  Brian Searl: I'm 44 and I'm still young.
• 50:37
  Brian Searl: I'm that middle age.
• 50:38
  Brian Searl: I just wanted to clarify that for the-
• 50:41
  Pawel Sikorski: All right.
• 50:44
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 50:44
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, all right.
• 50:45
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 50:46
  Brian Searl: Do you have any questions for anybody, Pawel?
• 50:48
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah sure.
• 50:49
  Pawel Sikorski: I would I would love to ask Jeremy it sounds like your place is sounds very interesting with all these challenges with water and electricity.
• 50:57
  Pawel Sikorski: I'm gonna look you up.
• 50:58
  Pawel Sikorski: I haven't looked at your place yet, so I'm really curious about it.
• 51:01
  Pawel Sikorski: What are your biggest challenges like around the place?
• 51:05
  Jeremy Johnson: Oh, man.
• 51:06
  Jeremy Johnson: The, the biggest challenge originally was access.
• 51:10
  Jeremy Johnson: Because we're 200 feet above the lake and above, the rest of everything around us, it took a lot to get a road in and get proper access.
• 51:19
  Jeremy Johnson: And not just proper access, but access that was safe for emergency vehicles, for firefighters and that complied.
• 51:26
  Jeremy Johnson: We're also located right off of a federal highway, so that makes it more complicated.
• 51:32
  Jeremy Johnson: We're on US 41, which runs from Copper Harbor, Michigan, all the way down to Key West, Florida.
• 51:39
  Jeremy Johnson: So it is the longest north-south highway in the United States continuous anyway.
• 51:45
  Jeremy Johnson: But that federal designation made it really hard and really expensive.
• 51:48
  Jeremy Johnson: And a- access, I would say probably will continue to be our biggest issue because we really wanna do things like we have 80 acres, so we wanna get, we wanna get-
• 51:58
  Pawel Sikorski: Wow
• 51:58
  Jeremy Johnson: access to the rest of the property, and then we wanna connect to we wanna be able to connect to things like our gravel biking trails and our mountain biking trails to make the experience better for our guests, but
• 52:10
  Jeremy Johnson: that all takes a lot of coordination, a lot of permitting, and a lot of money.
• 52:17
  Pawel Sikorski: Wow.
• 52:17
  Pawel Sikorski: Wow.
• 52:18
  Pawel Sikorski: So when you say access, it doesn't mean like building roads or-
• 52:24
  Jeremy Johnson: Per- permitting number one, so getting the ability to build the road, but then sometimes it's- Easements getting access to our...
• 52:32
  Jeremy Johnson: We have one of the largest mountain biking trail networks in the Midwest.
• 52:36
  Jeremy Johnson: And so getting access to that, that's gonna require easements to go across land.
• 52:41
  Jeremy Johnson: And then building roads.
• 52:42
  Jeremy Johnson: And I don't know how to build roads.
• 52:44
  Jeremy Johnson: So we often have to hire contractors, especially when it touches the highway.
• 52:49
  Jeremy Johnson: But we're learning and we're building a lot of trails and two-track type roads ourselves at this point.
• 52:56
  Jeremy Johnson: But the, the main roads are expensive and it takes a lot-
• 52:59
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah
• 53:00
  Jeremy Johnson: to plan it, get permitting for it, plan it out, and then pay somebody- with heavy equipment to build them.
• 53:06
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah, roads are-
• 53:07
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah.
• 53:07
  Pawel Sikorski: And how'd you access, how'd you access the property...
• 53:09
  Pawel Sikorski: Sorry, Kaleigh.
• 53:10
  Pawel Sikorski: How would you access the property right now?
• 53:12
  Jeremy Johnson: Via a gravel road.
• 53:14
  Jeremy Johnson: So we- We put in a gravel road that goes from the federal highway up to our property.
• 53:20
  Jeremy Johnson: It's about s- it ranges from a 7% to a 10% grade in- incline is what- I don't know what we call it in other places, but in the US.
• 53:29
  Jeremy Johnson: And then-
• 53:30
  Pawel Sikorski: No I get it.
• 53:31
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 53:32
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 53:32
  Pawel Sikorski: That's steep.
• 53:33
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 53:33
  Jeremy Johnson: And then we were lucky that we got state funding to...
• 53:36
  Jeremy Johnson: 'Cause it was expe- Just to put in the access road, it was, like, 150,000 US dollars.
• 53:42
  Jeremy Johnson: Yes but we had $100,000 of that covered through a state grant to promote tourism in our county.
• 53:49
  Jeremy Johnson: That's, it-
• 53:50
  Kaleigh Day: Oh, that's nice.
• 53:51
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 53:51
  Jeremy Johnson: It's paid for, it's paid for by the mines up here.
• 53:54
  Jeremy Johnson: So the, the mines take the resources, ship them overseas, but then we get a fraction of that money to reinvest back into our community,
• 54:02
  Pawel Sikorski: I love that.
• 54:02
  Brian Searl: I wanna be con- I wanna be cognizant of everybody's time.
• 54:05
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 54:05
  Brian Searl: We would love to...
• 54:06
  Brian Searl: We can keep chatting, but I wanna make sure we, everybody's got probably meetings they're going to.
• 54:09
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 54:10
  Brian Searl: Definitely a meeting that's been going on in my calendar.
• 54:11
  Brian Searl: But Tom you wanna wrap up and give final thoughts, and we're gonna learn more about IVEE?
• 54:16
  Tom Mason: Sure.
• 54:17
  Tom Mason: Like I said, I head up the IVEE management group.
• 54:20
  Tom Mason: We're in, We have 15 parks in nine different states.
• 54:24
  Tom Mason: We have a great team and deliver f- great results for all our ownership groups and we're we're doing well.
• 54:31
  Tom Mason: We had a good '26 and looking forward to a solid 2027.
• 54:35
  Brian Searl: Awesome.
• 54:35
  Brian Searl: Thanks, Tom.
• 54:36
  Tom Mason: I have to jump off now.
• 54:37
  Brian Searl: No problem, Tom.
• 54:38
  Brian Searl: Yep, appreciate you being here, Tom.
• 54:39
  Brian Searl: Yeah, thank you so much.
• 54:40
  Brian Searl: Jeremy?
• 54:40
  Kaleigh Day: Bye, Tom.
• 54:41
  Tom Mason: Yep.
• 54:41
  Tom Mason: Bye.
• 54:42
  Brian Searl: Final thoughts, where can they learn more about what you have going on?
• 54:44
  Jeremy Johnson: I'm shutting down for the season, so I'm gonna enjoy some time off and work on next phases, but you can find us at campconahills.com or I'm always on LinkedIn too if you wanna find me on LinkedIn.
• 54:55
  Jeremy Johnson: Just search for Kona Hills Campground.
• 54:58
  Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, sir.
• 54:59
  Brian Searl: Kaleigh?
• 54:59
  Jeremy Johnson: Yeah.
• 55:00
  Kaleigh Day: Yeah.
• 55:01
  Kaleigh Day: We're closing up, or we closed, so just doing winter projects.
• 55:04
  Kaleigh Day: And yeah, that's pretty much it.
• 55:06
  Kaleigh Day: You can find our website, surfjunction.com, and yeah, that's that.
• 55:11
  Kaleigh Day: You can see me there.
• 55:13
  Brian Searl: Last but not least, Pawel.
• 55:16
  Pawel Sikorski: We're yurtsincyprus.com.
• 55:18
  Pawel Sikorski: We're open all year round.
• 55:20
  Pawel Sikorski: We never close unless we go on holiday.
• 55:22
  Pawel Sikorski: And we are tiny owner-operated off-grid nature retreat set in Cyprus on a, a Middle Eastern, not Middle Eastern, a East Mediterranean island.
• 55:36
  Pawel Sikorski: Yeah, it was great to be here.
• 55:38
  Brian Searl: Yeah.
• 55:38
  Brian Searl: Thank you so much for being here, Pawel.
• 55:39
  Brian Searl: Kaleigh, Jeremy, everybody, thanks for joining us for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.
• 55:44
  Brian Searl: We'll see you next week, guys.
• 55:45
  Brian Searl: Take care.
• 55:47
  Jeremy Johnson: Bye.
• 55:47
  Pawel Sikorski: Thank you.