NFIB

From Vacation to Vocation
04/ 01/ 2002

by Robyn and Tim Chilson

Little did our family know that a three-week vacation would provide the inspiration for us to go into business for ourselves--turning our hobby of camping into the reality of running our own campground.

After 22 years as an accountant for a natural gas utility, my husband was unhappy with his job. We decided to embark on a lifetime dream vacation, heading out on a cross-country trip with our two sons, our truck and travel-trailer. At one point, we stopped at a KOA campground outside of Chicago, only to find it full. But the campground owner still managed to find us a safe place off the highway to camp for the night. While I prepared food and got our sons ready to bunk down for the night, my husband chatted with the campground owner.

The next morning, we hit the road for home. It was then that my husband told me how great he felt about the trip. He also told me about his conversation with the campground owner. Tim and I had been campers since we first married 19 years ago, and had often joked about someday owning a campground. We just had never discussed it seriously until that day.

Tim began researching the campground business. He attended a course defining the different types of campgrounds, and how to buy and operate one. We put our house up for sale and toured and examined the financials of several campgrounds. But our house didn't sell. Two years passed. Then suddenly, the house sold and we found the campground we wanted in Meadville, Penn., 260 miles east of our home. Life went from nothing happening to what seemed like it was moving at the speed of light. The financing for the purchase went through, Tim quit his job and moved out to the campground and started running it. Our sons and I moved into a rental home, and I stayed working at my current corporate job to help with the financial transition of building a new home and biting off the huge debt of a business for the first times in our lives.

For six months, Tim commuted almost 300 miles to visit us, while working on the campground. Once our house was finished, I left my job as an engineering technician of 19 years, and we relocated our whole family. We bought the business in October of 1999, and opened for the first full camping season the next April.

The hours are long, and it's hard work, but there is no other feeling in the world like owning and running your own business. We've now developed our own Web site, at www.brookdalecampground.com, where we feature a schedule of events and photos of our campers. We hope families who visit will log on from home or school to see their pictures online, or direct their relatives to the site to see the pictures. A recommendation by a friend is always the best form of advertising, and we're hoping to take that philosophy to the next step with our camping customers.

Our sons, Mike, 17, and Tony, 14, are also involved in the business, helping with the outdoor events and running dances for the teens. We each use our individual talents to make our campground successful. I handle the store, reservations and bookwork, while Tim does all the mowing and outdoor work. In addition, we're the ones calling the shots. We say we don't just rent out campsites, we sell fun-filled family entertainment. And we do. That's why folks like it here and keep coming back.

For us, doing our homework and being patient turned our dream vacation into a business.

The Chilsons own and run the Brookdale Family Campground in Meadville, Pa. You can reach them at (814) 789-3251.

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This article originally appeared in the September/October 2001 issue of MyBusiness Magazine, NFIB's member magazine.

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