If my husband, Ryan, hadn’t married me, I’m pretty sure he would have married Excel. I still wonder sometimes if the hours he spends with her, collecting and organizing numbers and data, would be considered infidelity. Above all, Ryan has a respect for logic and systems. He loves data collection, organization, maps, camping, and watching The Bachelor baseball. When he put all these passions together, the result was Campgrounds 360 and a marriage to me. (Take that, Excel.)
For five years I’ve watched Ryan on his journey to find a system that would clearly map and describe campgrounds and campsites for the public to use. He spent months organizing campground information with his mistress, Excel. He started out using survey scanning equipment, but it took way too long (and was way too expensive). When 360º cameras came out, it changed everything. All of the pieces started falling into place and his immense system of data morphed into a beautiful website for campers.
This is when I started to see the real-world potential for the camping world. For the longest time, campers have needed an easy yet thorough way to search for campgrounds. Shuffling through outdated camping books, multiple websites, or handwritten camping journals just doesn’t cut it these days – campers need a better system.
Back to Ryan. Ryan had a sweet idea and a great beta website that absolutely no one knew about. It was clear to me that he needed a chief marketing officer to come up with a catchy advertising slogan for his product and then tell the world about it. My business proposal to Ryan basically went like this: “Pick me! I’m your wife and I have TONS of experience in marketing! For the past five years I’ve used Facebook to make everyone believe that our children are always giggling and sweet. I work a full-time job and raise three kids under five plus, I’ll work for FREE!” In my head, I was clearly the perfect person for the job.
At the beginning it felt like I was standing alone in the dark. There was a large, hazy horizon of information that I knew I needed, but didn’t know how to obtain. Thankfully, out from the haze walked my friend and colleague, Kyle Renke (sorry Kyle, you weren’t wearing a white robe, so don’t let this moment go to your head). It was as if Kyle said, “I know an awful lot about this, why don’t you let me mentor you?” Serendipity had arrived, so following her lead I jumped into my Campgrounds 360 role with Kyle’s expert guidance.
So here we go. I’m taking you on a journey through my experiences. EVERYTHING is fair game. Be warned though, I’m not an expert on camping and I won’t pretend to be. What I can promise you is the humor and truth behind what my family and I experience. Hold my hand (or stare at me in confusion) as I share my experiences and adventures with Campgrounds 360.