We are under contract on a campground 😱🥳

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Some big news from the Padgett family. After more than three years of dreaming and scheming, we are finally under contract on a campground!

I repeat:

WE ARE FINALLY UNDER CONTRACT ON A PROPERTY TO BUILD OUR FIRST CAMPGROUND!

We are building on the western slope of Colorado south of a small town called Montrose, near Black Canyon National Park and Ouray Hot Springs.

This property has been a long time coming for us. Heath first came up with the idea nearly three years ago (to the day!), texting me with links to campground properties to buy and even sharing his vision for our ideal campground in our RV Entrepreneur Facebook group.

But at the time we were in the middle of multiple client projects and I told Heath this was a great dream, but it would probably be 2-3 years before it came to fruition—definitely not “within the year” like he so boldly proclaimed. (Heath’s here to dream, I’m here to bring the reality.)

A full year after that first conversation, with four-week-old Ellie strapped into her car seat, we drove to a town called Montrose in the San Juan mountains. We had never heard of the town or visited this part of Colorado, but as we toured the property our little idea of buying a campground started taking root.

The day we toured the property, we sat down at a restaurant in town and dreamed of what kind of experience we could create for other RVers. We talked about all of the best experiences we’d had on the road and how we could incorporate those into our own park. We dreamed of how cool it would be to physically work on our property while Ellie grew up.

We were hooked on this dream.

We passed on that first location, mostly because they wouldn’t sell for under $3M and hadn’t made any revenue since it opened 🤔

Still, the dream continued and our daily conversations revolved around how we could bring it to life.

BUT…

Then, back in the summer of 2019, Heath got an offer to sell Campground Booking, stealing our focus for a few months.

That deal fell through and we went to Italy for a month (unrelated to the sale falling through. We were just really craving pizza).

Then we got back to the country and moved into our Winnebago Forza to start touring the country to find a campground property.

2020 started out strong, but the whole “don’t travel” thing slowed our plans down for a while. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Then Heath raised funding for Campground Booking that meant we had to become Colorado residents.

Then house shopping.

Moving.

Buying a dining room table and chairs because this would be our first time living in a house together.

And then Good Sam surprising us and buying Campground Booking to kick off 2021.

(Now that I write it all out, the first two years of Ellie’s life have been wild! Wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Somewhere in between raising money for Campground Booking last summer and finding a house, a stranger reached out to us on Instagram.

“My daughter follows you and heard y’all were looking for a campground. I have some property that I want to build a niche campground on. Here’s my number.”

Fortunately, Heath doesn’t share my caution when it comes to meeting strange men on the internet.

And after several months of conversations and distractions, we are now we are under contract and moving forward!

I can’t wait to share more about what this process has involved so far—from picking paint colors to reviewing blueprints of possible RV site layouts. Heath and I will share all the behind-the-scenes details over the next few weeks and months as we build this campground.

There have been several moments over the last few years where this dream felt too big and too scary.

Touring properties that felt like insane projects and having no construction background whatsoever, we questioned whether this idea was too far out of reach for us.

At the end of the day, we realized that this next chapter isn’t too unlike hitting the road at 23 years old to travel full-time in an RV. Life is too short to not chase after dreams that give us energy and excitement (no matter how crazy they seem).

If there’s one thing that being on the road and figuring out RV life has taught us, it’s that sometimes the scariest projects of all are the ones we absolutely cannot say no to.

So our big 2021 project: building a campground.

I have a lot more to share and will over the coming weeks as we document this journey, but I wanted to answer a few questions you may have first 🙂

Are you taking reservations?

Not yet!

We’ve been hush-hush about this property even though we’ve been working on it for months because we don’t want to jinx it before we close! Hopefully we can start sharing estimated open dates and reservation options later in June 🙂

Will y’all host another RV Entrepreneur Summit here?

We are working on plans for an event this fall! Depends on a few construction plans and our baby boy due in October.

Will your park have internet?

You know that Heath made sure there was 1 GB fiber internet on the property before we signed. #RVentrepreneur

Are you looking for work campers or investors or help building?

Yes and no! Right now we are just focused on closing, but if you’re interested in being part of this project just comment on this post and let us know 🙂 We’ve had so many people already reach out over the past year and we have all your info in a spreadsheet when we are ready to move!

I think that’s enough major news for today 🤪 Thank you all for following our journey and playing such a big role in this campground coming to life.

Oh, and BTW the featured image at the top of this post is just a computer mock-up, not our actual RV park layout! We have not gotten that far with our civil engineer yet 😅