The Beginnings of Wander Camp

“Everything Happens for a Reason, Even if we don’t Know What That Reason Is in the Moment.”

Many of you have asked me, why Wander Camp? How did it start? Why on earth did you start another company? While the story seems straightforward to me now, because I’ve lived it — looking back I see just how divinely guided it was.

Let’s start the story here. I recently visited my Alma Mater, Brigham Young University, were I gave a speech all about Entrepreneurship and the hard lessons I have learned along the way to get me to where I am today. I will link the recording for all those who have asked — and want to share a few of my favorite lessons here and ultimately how those led me to Wander Camp!

(RECORDING WILL BE LINKED HERE – as soon as it’s finished up)!

Now let’s start at the beginning.

11 March 2020 will forever go down in history as the day that changed the world, as much as we all want that day and many others to go away. Coronavirus (or COVID19) will be a part of our lives forever, and those of us who have lived through it will forever have it as a part of our Identity.

I was overseas when The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the global pandemic and after days of trying to get home. (I will be writing a story very soon on my experience being stranded in Bangladesh). When my time came to finally board the airplane, I flew through dozens of empty airports, and arrived home to find myself in a completely different world that I had left behind.

What’s fascinating (and terrifying at the same time) is how things can change so quickly. I remember Andrew telling me over a broken FaceTime call that he was now working from home because someone in the state had tested positive for COVID, and that all the aisles were completely empty of Toilet Paper, Hand Sanitizer, & other household necessities.

What he was telling me didn’t seem real as I sat on a tiny fishing boat thousands of miles away in a remote country sitting between India and Tibet (Western China). In the matter of weeks COVID went from an isolated epidemic in Asia to a worldwide Pandemic and once I was home, I saw for myself just how much things had changed. The entire world had shut borders and travel had completely stopped, for the first time since travel began.

I gave myself 24 hrs to feel bad about my situation – I had chosen travel as a career, it was the life that I wanted. With anything comes challenges, some easier than others — and the challenge of being in an industry that was entirely shut down and in part blamed for the world’s shut down. Leaving it all behind to chase something else didn’t even cross my mind. I knew I would just wait or that would mean losing my team, our revenue, and eventually the company.

Instead I decided to pivot — with one single goal in mind, to find a way to bring adventure to people. My first idea came through product (Welcome The Adventure Dress), and then Glamping Hotels —- Say Hello to Wander Camp!

The amazing part about this story is that just a year previously I had written down a series of very specific dreams & goals all centered around the same WHY – Inspiring People to Get Outside their Comfort Zone & Adventure. At the top of the start was Acanela Expeditions, my curate company that creates unique trips & tours for people worldwide. To the right was product — a line of sustainable and ethically sourced travel products for adventure seekers like me. The bottom two points were made up of a Travel Tech platform (more to come on this later) and a Travel Media Company. At the end of 2019 less than 3 months before COVID hit we had launched a Casting Call for a new Facebook TV show called Crossing Borders, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorships. The upper left hand point — Hotels, boutique properties around the world that were distressed and just needed a little TLC to become something great.

These 5 dreams (essentially 5 businesses) came together in a 5 pointed star.

So I guess I knew I was going to end up in hotels, I just didn’t think it would start with Glamping in the USA. Sometimes things happen that don’t many any sense in the moment, until later down the road you realize why.

Fast forward to June, I had been home for over 2 months — which doesn’t seem like a long time to many people but for someone like me who was used to traveling at least once very month it felt like eternity. I enjoyed working from home, I loved being home with my husband & kitten, and I walked every morning with my mom & started a routine team meeting at 9am. I learned early on in my career that the only way to be successful in anything (life, fitness, relationships, business, music, etc…) is build a system of habits behind it.

In fact, the reason I’m writing this article — is only because I’ve put systems in place to do it. At the start of this year I set a goal to write 1000 words each day because Writing a book, building successful content businesses, and producing a TV show are 3 BIG goals of mine.

Now, back to wander camp. On the 4th of June — The National Parks in Utah had finally re-opened. All national parks had closed with COVID (since march) and only a few were starting to re-open and start accepting guests at a limited capacity. I had been invited by a friend to visit for a photoshoot at a Beautiful Glamping property in Moab, a property that my company Acanela Expeditions had actually collaborated with and set guests to many times in the past.

We visited Moab for a weekend and had a great time, visiting the Arches, Canyonlands, and hiking through some of the most spectacular scenery. I quickly decided Acanela needed to launch a trip like this, encouraging people to get outside during a time when no one could travel international.

So as soon as our trip ended, I called up this Glamping Company and got all the info I needed to put together trips throughout the Summer. We added them to our website and started selling them, and just like that — bookings started coming in!

We filled the trips in a matter of days and had everything ready to go. Until the email came in, the Glamping Property we were working with was sold out of Inventory. Really? — we had spent hours and hours of work building and selling these trips, and had postponed too many international trips to count. The last thing we wanted to do was to back out on yet another.

We had a tough decision to make, do we cancel all the trips ourselves — was their a way to operate them ourselves? Being an Entreprenuer can be both a good and a bad thing, when we opted for the later little did I know just what we were getting ourselves into.

The first trip was hard, and did not go exactly as expected. I could write an entire post on this, which I will do at a later time. But what I did learn from the trip is just how much people wanted to get outside and needed to get outside, connecting with other people.

That single trip in Moab would turn into us purchasing our own tents & land, and partnering with Contractors & Designers from all across the United States to start a brand called Wander Camp – which was actually originally supposed to be called Tents In the Wild. I’m curious which name you like better?

I’m writing this article now only 9 months later and I feel like I’ve received a CRASH COURSE in Hotel & Property Development. Wander Camp is now across 4 states and we have 8+ properties and hundreds of hundreds of tents we are deploying this year. We’ve even purchased land in the most remote corners of the United States.

I also finally recruited my husband to join a “side hustle” with me, there is nothing that either of us love more than real estate — with the exception of maybe food… so the fact that we were building a business together that allows us to purchase and own our own land is a dream come true.

In the past few months we’ve closed on 40 acres in Grand Canyon, 20 acres in Zion, and 100 acres in Lake Powell and are under contract for a few more. We took a HUGE leap of faith and refinanced all our properties (we have 5 – we saved and bought one every year of our marriage) and maxed out on as much Cash as we had, with Acanela taking another HUGE risk on us investing close to $1 Million to put into Wander Camp. I’ve always been a scrappy entrepreneur, it’s a strength of mine. In fact we haven’t touched the money for anything with the exception of investing in land.

Our first location was in Moab, although we never had it up for more than 2 weeks at a time (thanks to permitting). I’ve learned more about Zoning, Land Use Code, and CUP Permits than I now care to know. Our second location, Zion — would become one of our first “semi-permanent” location a few months down the road, along with Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

Being an Entreprenuer takes Grit, Perseverance, the willingness to push through criticism and critique, and the ability to pave your own path. Don’t let one bad experience stop you from building something great. If I had let that happen I wouldn’t be where I am today.

There is so much more to this story that I want to share, but I’ve well exceed my 1000 word goal for the day. Maybe we I will have to write a part II.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments below!