Category: renting dirt

Minefields of self-publishing

Although I’ve been a writer for decades, Renting Dirt is my first foray as an “author”–that is, someone who writes and publishes a book. So with that personal history, I found the writing part familiar enough; it was the publishing and distribution end of things that’s been an eye-opener.

Because Renting Dirt explores a niche subject of limited interest, with a primary target audience of campground owners (and RVers, to some extent), I knew I’d have a hard time interesting a publisher in a book that might sell just a few hundred copies. Fortunately, we live in an age when there are technologically-enabled alternatives to the old-school paradigm of finding an agent, generating extensive book proposals and selling an inherently conservative industry on something as idiosyncratic as a book about–well, about renting dirt. Unfortunately, embracing those alternatives means learning numerous new skills that take time and money and have nothing to do with writing–that, or hiring from the vast number of third-party providers willing to provide the missing pieces: editing, interior book design, cover book design and artwork, formatting for e-book publication, obtaining ISBN codes, registering copyright and Library of Congress forms, hiring a printer, and on and on.

Figuring I’d just as soon spend my money to hire some pros as spend it on software and instruction to do the job myself, that’s the path I chose initially. It wasn’t long, however, before I reversed course and decided, for better or worse, to tackle it all myself. What pushed me down the DIY path?

After researching various companies that offer fee-based services to help authors self-publish, I finally settled on BookBaby, which was well reviewed, reasonably priced and had a full suite of services from which I could pick and choose. Then I got their terms of service–all 10,000 words of them. And what those words made explicitly clear, contrary to their verbal representations, was that if I paid BookBaby for its services I would be awarding it the exclusive distribution rights to my work–an astonishing grab by a company I was supposedly hiring to work for me, and not the other way around. Specifically, BookBaby stipulates that anyone using their services “appoint[s] us as your exclusive authorized representative for the sale and other distribution” of their work “in any manner, including via ebooks and online or physical distribution.”

There was more. If I decided that I no longer wanted to use BookBaby, I would have to give it written notice–and then wait “4-6 weeks or longer” for my book to be removed “from retail outlets around the world.” Until that had happened, I would be barred from distributing my book in any other way. Moreover, there was additional language that seemed to suggest that BookBaby would retain ownership of any materials I had provided, including my text, artwork and descriptive material. All this was so over-the-top that I emailed BookBaby, asking if I had read its language correctly, and in response was told that its terms of service were based on 70-year-old contract language that I shouldn’t take too seriously. “We do have hundreds, maybe thousands, of authors who publish their ebook with us, and publish the print elsewhere, and vice versa. It is not a problem in the least,” I was assured.

Which, of course, begs the question of why that language is in there in the first place–so it was bye-bye, BookBaby. And given its relatively high marks among its peers, I decided I’d be just as well off steering clear of the entire sector.

The other eye-opener was my belated understanding of why Amazon is kicking the butts of local, independent book sellers.

Once Renting Dirt had been published, I identified three non-chain bookstores in my area that I thought might be willing to carry a local author on consignment. I sent each an emailed query, following up with a second email after 10 days or so when I didn’t get any responses. Bookstore number one finally responded with a two-page agreement I was asked to fill out, to be returned with a $25 “handling fee” and a copy of the book for the owner’s review prior to acceptance. What if the owner decided not to carry the book, I asked–would the “handling fee” be returned, since there would be no handling involved?

No, came the answer. But without the $25, the book would not be screened–meaning, in essence, that the “handling fee” was actually a “reading fee.” As I pointed out to the owner, that turned the whole author-reader dynamic on its head, since authors expect readers to pay for reading their work, not the other way around. That ended that discussion.

Bookstore two didn’t respond to my second email, either, so after several more weeks I wrote a third time, somewhat peevishly inquiring why I wasn’t given the simple courtesy of an acknowledgment of my request, even if it came with a “thanks, but no thanks.” This time the bookstore owner did reply–to note that the “tone” of this last email had convinced her we would not work well together. She was undoubtedly correct.

Bookstore three, meanwhile, was so initially receptive that my heart skipped a beat. Let’s see the book, she said, so I hustled it right over, together with a newly-minted business card, and asked her to get back to me once she’d had a chance to evaluate the book. Weeks passed without a word. I finally sent a third email, asking for an update. That was in mid-November. Still waiting for a response.

Amazon, meanwhile, has sold approximately 500 copies of Renting Dirt, which at least covers my expenses to date. That’s no way to make a living, I know, so it’s a good thing I’m retired. But it has all been an education.

Higher prices, less attention

In Staunton, VA, where we live, there’s something that calls itself a “chic boutique hotel.” “Boutique” presumably because it has only four rooms, each with a king-size bed, kitchenette and ensuite bathroom. “Chic” because–if by “chic” we mean “elegant and stylishly fashionable”–when you rent one of those four rooms you never have to encounter another human being. And that now seems the fashion, pandemic or not, since this establishment has been operating in this manner for at least three years.

All booking is online, all payments are via credit card and there is no reception desk. Once you book, you receive a code for the private, keyless entry. When you check-out, you simply leave-and don’t forget anything, because the code will have expired. Have a question or a problem? Send an e-mail. . . .

Cold though that may sound, it’s apparently a big hit with guests, who almost uniformly give the facility rave reviews for cleanliness, spaciousness, proximity to downtown–and, yes, the complete lack of human interaction. “We were able to check in and stay without encountering any other people which was very welcome during the pandemic,” raved one recent guest, before apparently dismissing pandemic concerns by adding that he could “walk easily to coffee shops, restaurants, stores.” Added another couple: “Being the rather private folks we are, it was nice to not have to encounter anyone if we didn’t want to.”

Well, if it works for a hotel, why not for a campground?

That apparently is the thought at our former property, the Walnut Hills Campground, which is aggressively discouraging campers from interacting with its steadily diminishing office staff. For example, campers making online reservations formerly paid an additional fee to offset the fee charged by the booking company. Now that’s been reversed, with the extra fee charged to those who make a phoned-in reservation–but not to those who book online.

Walnut Hills also is reducing office hours, which is not unusual in the winter–but according to its website, will close the office altogether for two days each week for three months, starting January 1, and that is unusual. Campers arriving on Tuesdays or Wednesdays will be expected to book online and check-in online, and apparently will not be able to buy firewood, propane or anything from the store. Campers without smart phones or credit cards presumably will need to go elsewhere. And forget about being escorted to your site, or getting help with backing-in.

Meanwhile, as some costs get cut, all prices have risen smartly upward. The cancellation fee, currently $10, will double Jan. 1. Site fees have already exploded, nearly doubling over the past six months, and without any noticeable reduction in winter rates–although it’s hard to tell, thanks to the campground’s adoption of “dynamic pricing” and the scrapping of anything that looks like a rate sheet. Suffice to say that if you book a one-night stay this week for a full hook-up pull-thru, it’ll run you $68.34–and if you want the same site for Friday or Saturday, you’re looking at $89.51. For a single night. In December.

And as for holiday pricing in the year ahead? Although the campground website emphasizes “You will get the absolute best rates by booking early and online,” reserve any of next year’s holidays today and expect to pay upwards of $100 a night (with a three-night minimum) for any pull-thru, even those without a sewer. No telling what you’ll pay if you wait a few months. . . .

As with the chic boutique hotel in Staunton, however, the customers seem unfazed. Reviews for Walnut Hills have been exceptionally positive the past six months, and if any campers are suffering from sticker shock, they’re keeping it to themselves. The campground business is changing, and a sufficient number of its customers seem ready to change right along with it. Those who don’t, won’t or can’t are just plumb out of luck.

Housing squeeze pressures RV parks

As worries about rising inflation grow more widespread, the most obvious remedy is rarely mentioned: provide more things for people to buy. And one of the most obvious “things” in short supply is affordable housing.

Inflation is the result of too much money chasing too few goods, so a common government response when inflation heats up is to rein in the money supply. Money, after all, is something over which government has the most direct control. But an alternative response is to increase the supply of goods. That’s harder, because the government’s influence on goods production is more indirect, but it almost certainly is the healthier response overall.

What brings this to mind is the appalling–and growing–shortage of affordable housing in the U.S. The National Association of Relators this month said the nation is short 6.8 million housing units, due to a 20-year-long slowdown in housing construction, and most of what’s being built is on the high end of the market. The steady decline in housing construction feeds into a vicious circle, in which fewer people–especially including retirees–can afford to move, so they stay put. Then, when changing business or economic trends require workers to relocate, the housing available to them is both over-priced and in short supply.

A leading example of this phenomenon, ironically, is Elkhart, Indiana, in and around which more than 80% of all U.S. RVs are manufactured. Last month, Elkhart was tagged by The Wall Street Journal and realtor.com as the nation’s “best emerging housing market,” which is investor-speak for “get in now because prices are about to go through the roof.” Indeed, with a median price for houses of just $232,250, the local housing market is starting from a relatively low base–while the booming RV construction industry means demand for additional workers, and therefore for additional housing, is high and going higher. Indeed, as one local reporter noted this month, “almost two-thirds of the buyers in the Elkhart area were not locals.”

While prices for Elkhart housing have started exploding, the economic engine behind much of that growth–the RV manufacturing industry–is likewise in high gear, on course to crank out a record-breaking 600,000 or so units this year alone. Those recreational vehicles, in turn, are being snatched up not just by that segment of the public that puts the emphasis on “recreational,” but by that segment of the public that can’t find, or can’t afford, conventional housing.

So, for example, Austin, Texas, is facing a housing squeeze in part because Tesla has moved its headquarters there and also is nearing completion of a “gigafactory” that will employ up to 10,000 low- and middle-skill workers. Paid an average of less than $50,000 a year in a city where the average home price is now $525,000, those workers also will be scrambling to find an affordable place to live–and the area’s trailer courts and RV parks are gearing up to accommodate at least some of them. One predictable outcome: the cost of staying in an RV park will be bumped up considerably.

Such housing price inflation is a nationwide phenomenon, not confined just to Elkhart or Austin, and is indicative not of too much money but of inadequate supply. Increasing the supply of middle-income housing would not only meet people’s basic need for shelter at a cost they can afford, but would relieve the pressure on recreational facilities that never were intended to be this century’s version of Hoovervilles.

Magical mystery tour–not

What’s the magic in going camping?

Why do so many people think there’s something desirable about packing up the family and heading out for the mountains/desert/forest for a day or two or five of camping? What’s the attraction in leaving a warm, snug home for a possibly wet or cold stay in a strange place of unknown irritations and perils, from dirt in the food to mosquitoes to unseen and inexplicable rustlings in the dark?

Truth is, for most people that isn’t the least bit attractive. That’s why, having been seduced by idealized images of happy families roasting marshmallows over a campfire, they rent cabins or buy RVs, look for campgrounds with full hookups and a dependable wifi system, and start demanding that the campgrounds they frequent have swimming pools and kids’ activities and other distractions. And that’s why campgrounds and RV parks look increasingly alike and increasingly sanitized, the unpredictable forces of nature held at bay by extensive lighting and paved roads, manicured grounds and pest control services.

Sociologist George Ritzer wrote about this process in his trail-blazing 1993 book (updated in 2000), The McDonaldization of Society, which is all about organized society’s ceaseless drive for rationality: efficiency, predictability, calculability and control in all transactions. As he observed:

“Modern campgrounds are likely to be divided into sections–one for tents, another for RVs, each section broken into neat rows of usually tiny campsites. Hookups allow those with RVs to operate the various technologies encased within them. After campers have parked and hooked up their RVs or popped up their tents, they can gaze out and enjoy the sights–other cars, antennas, teenagers on motorbikes–in other words, many of the sights they tried to leave behind in the cities or suburbs.”

Rizer acknowledged that “there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to be safe from harm,” which is the implied promise of such campgrounds–campgrounds designed to reduce anxiety and unpredictability, and to make the “camping experience” efficient. But all such guarantees involve tradeoffs, and often those tradeoffs aren’t even recognized, much less accepted. Ritzer made that point most poignantly in a chapter titled “The Irrationality of Rationality,” using language that is rarely heard these days except as packaging for manufactured experiences.

“Efficient systems have no room for anything smacking of enchantment and systematically seek to root it out. Anything that is magical, mysterious, fantastic, dreamy, and so on is considered inefficient,” he wrote. “Put another way, it is difficult to imagine the mass production of magic, fantasy and dreams. . . . No characteristic of rationalization is more inimical to enchantment than predictability. Magical, fantastic, dreamlike experiences are almost by definition unpredictable. Nothing would destroy an enchanted experience more easily than having it become predictable or having it recur in the same way time after time.”

“Enchanted.” “Magical.” “Dreamlike.” Words most RVers don’t associate with camping. . . .

Campground buyers piling on

As the 2021 camping season winds down, the one message coming through loud and clear from investors is that campgrounds and RV parks are hot, hot, hot!

A couple of weeks ago, for example, campground owner, real estate investor and RV park promoter Heather Blankenship hosted an online webinar for people thinking about getting into the game–and a reported 1,500 callers Zoomed in to learn about “aggressive asset accumulation.” Blankenship claims to be running a $30 million real estate portfolio, but as she told her callers, she’s willing to teach you the tricks of her trade for just $997–a $4,500 value that includes eight hours of content on a series of CD discs.

What Blankenship did not tell her Zoom participants was that the $997 “ready to learn” package is only the first of three that she offers. The “ready to buy” option, priced at $2,999, adds access to her RV Park and Campgrounds Investor Mastermind Program, as well as “group calls with Heather.” And the all-inclusive $6,000 “ready to scale” program promises a “transformative three-month journey” that includes three one-on-one coaching calls with Heather, “direct access” to Heather and “preferred deal analysis and coaching.”

No telling how many of the 1,500 Zoom participants wrote checks to Blankenship, but as she was making her sales pitch, the chat feature was busy with networking entrepreneurs exchanging contact information.

Similarly high levels of interest were evident last week at the annual convention of the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds, held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Nominally a four-day event, the convention usually kicks off with a much more targeted program the first day–and this year that meant a nine-hour “Prospective Owners Workshop.” “We’ll cover everything you’ll need to know to get started in the outdoor hospitality industry,” the program promised, adding, “Getting off on the right foot is easy!”

Approximately 60 eager participants attended, according to one of them, with the majority apparently more intent on building their own campgrounds rather than buying an existing one. Although ARVC conventions typically attract those who already own campgrounds, as well as a sizeable contingent of vendors, this year’s event had so many non-owners testing the waters that several “old-timers” commented on how many unfamiliar faces they were seeing.

Commented one long-time RV park owner, “I was at a table where there were nine of us, and when I said I owned a campground, everyone turned to me and said, ‘You own a campground?’ It turned out six of them were either buying or building campgrounds, and they all wanted to know about my experiences.”

All of which seems awfully frothy, but we’ll have to see how long it takes for the bubbles to burst.

Lies, damn lies and . . . .

“Facts” always sound more impressive when they’re draped with statistics, so it’s prudent to look carefully at the underlying fundamentals when someone is presenting a bunch of numbers to support various conclusions. Case in point: the Generational Camping Report, presented at ARVC’s national convention in Raleigh this past week.

Introduced as an admirably motivated effort to “provide a profile on camping preferences and differences between campers of different generations,” the report and its conclusions were presented at the convention as the responses of some 500 campers–a distressingly small sample, considering that the answers were supposed to provide insight into the differences between three different age groups. But the results were even more narrowly sourced than that, because the final report was limited to the 408 respondents who had actually gone camping, RVing or glamping in the previous 12 months–a winnowing that was not explained at the convention.

That more restricted sample was then further skewed by the distribution of answers among 233 millennials (born after 1981), 131 GenXers (born after 1965) and a combined category of 41 boomers and 4 “silent generation” campers born as far back as 1928. So those report “findings” that made overall statements, such as how many nights respondents anticipated they would camp in the next 12 months, or what amenities they found most important, were disproportionately weighted by the answers from younger campers.

That’s not all. The respondents were drawn predominantly (72%) from east of the Mississippi River, which inevitably would skew answers to questions about their preferred type of camping destination, since two of the offered possibilities were BLM land and backcountry/wilderness areas off the grid. A more representative geographical distribution of RVers would likely have pushed those two choices higher. Moreover, the report tried to draw conclusions by distinguishing between respondents who already own RVs and those that don’t, finding–for example– that 60% of boomers who don’t own RVs would consider purchasing one. But how many boomers actually said that?

To answer that, anyone reading the survey results needs to have a calculator at hand, because most report findings are presented as percentages rather than hard numbers. But given that 254 of all the respondents don’t already own an RV, that could mean as many as 27 boomers said they’re open to buying one–assuming none of the 45 currently own one. Then again, assuming that 62% of the surveyed boomers don’t own RVs–the same ratio as the whole sample–then 28 boomers responding to the survey don’t have RVs and 17 of them said they would consider buying one. That’s an extraordinarily slender statistical reed on which to build any conclusions.

The overall report, alas, is replete with these kinds of overly broad conclusions, from statements about why people go camping, to what kind of campground amenities are most important to them, to how much they spend when they go camping–all good things for campground owners and local communities to know, but deserving of a far more ambitious research effort than this wan attempt. It’s telling, therefore, that the researchers who prepared the report apparently omitted the most fundamental caveat of any survey’s methodology, at least as it was presented at the convention: there is no mention of their confidence level in their findings.

No confidence level seems about right.

Party like there’s no tomorrow

If you’d been in Raleigh, N.C. this past week, looking on as the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (ARVC) held its annual convention, you’d have thought the Covid-19 coronavirus had been vanquished months ago.

Most extreme was Monday’s reception at the Sheraton Hotel, a boisterous affair of hundreds of people from all corners of the country jostling each other over pizzas and beer, shouting to be heard over the din. There was a time not long ago when this would have been called a super-spreader, but then again, this demonstrably is not a group that puts a lot of stock in science.

The rest of the confab showed similar if more restrained disdain for public health and welfare. Notwithstanding “mask up” signs posted throughout the convention center, virtually the only people paying heed were the masked convention center employees patiently attending to their unmasked guests. The double standard was so blatant that all attendees were sent an email Tuesday requesting that they observe the masking protocol, but as with the masks themselves, the email was almost universally ignored.

By Wednesday, security guards had been stationed at the doors to hand out masks to anyone entering the facilities who wasn’t already wearing one. Campground owners would take the masks, often grudgingly, then walk off without putting them on.

This sort of clueless behavior often starts at the top, so it was no surprise to see ARVC executive director Paul Bambei walking the halls and in the ballrooms with a naked face. Bambei’s offices, it should be noted, are in Centennial, Colorado, a state that for the past several weeks has seen such a sharp spike in Covid-19 infections that a local television station reported yesterday its contact tracers have been overwhelmed and can no longer keep up with the spread.

The U.S. overall is now reporting 23 new cases daily per 100,000 population. The rate is twice that in Arapahoe County, where Centennial is located. Viruses, like gases in a closed container, diffuse from areas of higher concentration to those with less. That’s why the U.S. overall is looking at a fourth wave this coming winter–as is already occurring in Europe, which has seen a 50% surge in just the past month–and why ARVC and its leadership did no one any favors this week.

Who will speak for the RVers?

If there is a third rail in RV world, it’s climate change.

Yesterday I published a piece in RVtravel that was too wonky by far, but which tried to make the point that no one is fighting on behalf of RVers in today’s great climate-change battles. More specifically, there has been no one representing RVers and RV campground owners in the weeks of intense negotiations over the Build Back Better proposal (often referred to simply as “the reconciliation bill”) that has been stymied, in large part, by a U.S. Senator invested in the fossil fuel industry.

There are, I pointed out, two national industry groups that embrace the outdoors. There’s the Outdoor Industry Association, which despite having more than 1,200 members across the full spectrum of outdoor activities and equipment makers includes only one RV campground owner, Kampgrounds of America. And then there’s the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, which encompasses nearly three-dozen trade associations–including the Outdoor Industry Association–and the three largest RV industry representatives: the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (ARVC), the RV Dealers Association (RVDA) and the RV Industry Association (RVIA).

As I further wrote, the Outdoor Industry Association has been lobbying the past several weeks on behalf of the Build Back Better proposal because of its significant commitment to combating climate change. Only by adopting such an ambitious agenda can we “ensure the success of the outdoor industry and the American economy and protect the health of the planet,” the association has argued. But the association clearly has been unable to convince the rest of its peers to follow its lead, and for the past several months the roundtable has studiously avoided any reference to climate change. It has not lobbied for passage of the Build Back Better proposal. It has, for all practical purposes, left the RVing community sidelined in one of the most, if not the most, urgent environmental struggles of the age.

That’s the point I tried to make. In retrospect, I did a poor job of it. As my RVtravel editors pointed out, the piece drew a near-record low readership. Few RVers wanted to read what I had to say–and of those who did, only a couple responded with favorable comments. The preponderant unfavorable responses, meanwhile, either largely missed my point (for which I take the blame) or are still mired in antediluvian talking points, claiming we’ve always had climate change, or confusing climate with weather. And some simply didn’t give a damn, such as the reader who assured us, ” I have no qualms in my Class A burning diesel all over the US, and will continue to do so as long as I can.”

A more sophisticated response came in an email to me from a representative of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, who felt that what I had written was “very disappointing and factually inaccurate.” To substantiate that latter point, he appended four PDFs of letters and statements that supposedly reflected the roundtable’s work on “climate resilient infrastructure.”

It was a mixed bag. Two of the PDFs spoke to the infrastructure bill that got strong bipartisan support months ago and was not at issue in my column. The other two were copies of letters sent in August and September to House and Senate committee chairs, neither of which mentioned climate change and both of which urged even more infrastructure funding than had been allocated in the infrastructure bill itself. Requested were “additional funds for the U.S. Forest Service Legacy Roads and Trails Program, improving trails that serve underserved communities, funding capital maintenance projects, restoring ecological integrity, creating sustainable recreation infrastructure, expanding access, promoting tourism and more.”

In other words, more of the same.

As I responded in my answering email, “My disappointment with the ORR is that while it lobbies for making the outdoors more accessible to the general public, it sits on the sidelines of a climate change debate about an incomparably more fundamental need, which is a reduction in greenhouse gases. Overworked though the metaphor may be, the ORR is lobbying for more deck chairs and a bigger brass section in the shipboard orchestra while there’s a furious debate in the control room over what to do about that iceberg looming on the port bow.”

It should go without saying that for most RVers and most campground owners, the compelling attraction of what they do is being in the great outdoors, of getting closer to nature and the environment. That environment is being transfigured before our very eyes, day by day and week by week, into something ugly and hostile to human life–and that transformation is a direct result of human action. If we are to restore and reclaim the environment we love, the very first step will be to acknowledge that we are at fault; and being at fault, we will have to change our behavior to regain what is slipping through our fingers.

That means calling the problem by its name: climate change, catalyzed by human production of greenhouse gases. And it means accepting that climate change cannot be stopped, much less reversed, without significant changes in our habits and behavior–and there’s the rub. For who wants to do that? Yet the inescapable physics of it all is that, sooner or later, change will be forced on us nevertheless. Nature will see to it–unless we get ahead of it by initiating change on our own.

To do that, however, we need to start talking–and so far, the RVing community hasn’t found its voice.

Losing their ever-lovin’ minds

Renting Dirt and its thematic predecessor, an essay I wrote for RVtravel explaining why we sold our campground this past May, apparently struck a nerve with several long-time RVers. Among them: Charity and Ben, who in 2017 became full-timers with their kids, Dakota and Trinity, and creators of a YouTube channel and blog, at gratefulglamper.com.

What particularly resonated for Charity, a former customer service manager in the automotive industry, was my description of increased bad behavior by campers. “It was a great job,” she wrote earlier this month of her decade-long employment. “I loved working with and developing my team. I didn’t even mind the company ownership (most of the time). [But] there was one thing that made me never want to do that type of job again: the people. . . . I cannot even imagine being in this industry today. People have lost their ever-loving minds!“

According to Charity’s blog, a stressed-out, abusive public is becoming a widespread phenomenon, with “lost mind” syndrome cropping up throughout society. The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, reports that there have been more than 4,000 unruly passenger complaints so far this year, compared to just 150 for all of 2020. Rude customers are being cited as a major reason why fast-food/restaurant and hospitality workers are quitting in record numbers. Road-rage incidents resulted in 42 people a month getting shot in 2020, or nearly double the rate from four years earlier, and thus far in 2021 the shooting rate is up to one every 18 hours.

“Now, why are these important things to know and what, pray tell, do they have to do with RVing?” Charity wrote. “Here is the point–people are losing their ever loving minds! And campground owners are facing these same types of people who are rude in other business settings.”

And it’s not just the campground owners who are victimized by entitled and self-centered RVers, as Charity points out: it’s also their employees, many of whom are also RVers. “Many RV campgrounds run by governmental organizations such as state parks or national forest campgrounds have camp hosts that help to keep things in order,” she notes. “There are also a lot of people who work camp, [with] work campers getting their campsites for free in exchange for doing some light work around the campground.

“That person answering the phone at the RV campground you are calling just may be a fellow RV’er . . . . Kindness goes a long way!” she concludes.

Amen.

Truth in advertising–not

Say you’re Erik the Red and you’ve just been exiled because even the Vikings, it turns out, have a low tolerance for murder. Now you’ve found a new island home and you’d like to tempt some of your former colleagues into joining you, but how are you going to get them to sail across the bitter north Atlantic to settle on a hunk of rock that’s 80% covered by an ice sheet? Why, just call it “Greenland,” of course.

That’s pretty much the approach taken by Frank Rolfe, whose sometimes misleading promotion of RV parks was last mentioned in this blog Sept. 18. But now Rolfe seems to be stepping up his game, headlining last week’s email blast with the seductive promise, “Vacation while you work: welcome to the RV park owners lifestyle.” Land ho! Is that a massive, glaciated island up ahead?

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume Rolfe is simply clueless and not actually trying to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge. Still, there are some real howlers in his polemic, such as the claim that “you have the best of both worlds” when owning an RV park because this “will allow you to effectively feel like you’re on vacation while you’re working.” He then goes on to list the benefits of a hands-on approach to ownership, concluding with this bit of supposed wisdom: “You can also select exactly how you spend your time each day, and never again miss out on any personal activities that you would like to attend. At the end of your life, you will never think back on ‘could I have done something different that I would have liked more’ as you have taken your destiny into your own hands.”

Uh-huh. This is from a man who apparently never, you know, actually ran an RV park. True, he did operate a trailer park–or mobile home park, as he prefers to call it–some two decades ago, but these days he busies himself as an investor, not an operator. More to the point, claiming contemporary RV park insight based on 20-year-old trailer park experience is like having a typewriter repairman tell you what you need to upgrade your MS-DOS platform and thinking he’s kept up with the times.

To put it most bluntly, these days the RV park business is a ball-buster. It was never easy–no hospitality industry is, given that every customer is your “boss”–but the past couple of years have been wracked by a worker shortage, an increasingly pugnacious public and a wave of newcomers who often don’t have the vaguest idea of how to operate their equipment. Both the hours and the seasons have grown longer, even as tempers get shorter. Not only is there no room to “select exactly how you spend your time each day,” there isn’t enough day to do all the things that must be done, and never mind the “personal activities that you would like to attend.”

If that’s your idea of a vacation, I hear there’s a nice little cottage available in this paradise-on-earth we call Greenland. . . .