If it wasn't enough to start a second business in the middle of trying to launch our resort, we decided to start a third new one this fall. While similar to The Glamping Store being born out of our experience pursuing Mitten Getaways, ,The Mitten Marketer came from a much different aspect of that pursuit. While Mike has past experience designing websites and doing some social media marketing and newsletters, he's never done any of it to the extent done for Mitten Getaways. He's found that there are a lot of tools out there to help with these aspects, but the costs of them can quickly add up ..read more

For the second year in a row, representatives from Mitten Getaways were able to attend The Glamping Show. That's a really corporate way of saying, Mike went to the show this year and Melissa, being seven months pregnant, wisely opted to stay home. Last year, we didn't know what to expect, and when we did get there, our minds were blown. Attending this year was more about connecting with people we've worked with since last year's show. And Mike definitely had the chance to do that, meeting with a reservation management software vendor, a Wi-Fi service provider, and multiple accommodation manufa ..read more

Although things didn't work out for the land in Howell, which we can now refer to as Hidden Lake, we did walk away having learned many helpful things for the next property. Many of them point to what we talked about in our new direction blog post, but we talk about them in more detail below. First, in the future, we will likely have our excavator and engineer walk the property before moving forward with our wetlands consultant or even a purchase agreement. On the Hidden Lake property there was 2,000 feet of lake frontage, but most of it was a narrow ridge between the lake and wetlands. We envi ..read more

At the end of August, we had the privilege of attending a business leaders couples retreat through the ECO (Engage Community Organization) group, which we were welcomed to become a part of earlier this year. You can read more about the Fenton area, faith-based ECO Group in this past blog post. The retreat was a three-day, two-night getaway to the Grand Haven area. It included three one-hour sessions focused on strengthening marriage, including conflict and sex (of course two things married couples rarely have problems with ). The speaker was really knowledgeable and engaging. Besides the sessi ..read more

We're now well into fall, but before summer ended, the Crowe family did a little glamping at a place called ,Getaway The Thumb, another glamping operator that apparently also saw good reason to use "getaway" in their name, haha. Unlike our trip to South Haven, we brought our girls with us to experience this glamping excursion. A little about Getaway... it is a national chain of glamping resorts, all with a similar model. Ours was located outside the rural town of Columbiaville (hence "The Thumb") and had about 50 sites, each with a glamping trailer. Inside, guests are provided with a queen bed ..read more

For the past few months, ever since we had to part ways with the land in Howell, we've taken a new approach to finding land for our eastern Michigan glamping resort. In short, we've started looking for landowners who may be interested in a lease or partnership arrangement as opposed to a flat-out sale. To support this new approach, we created a Real Estate inquiry page for landowners to describe and submit their land to us and start a conversation. Over just a couple of weeks of putting the form out there, we’ve had seven people reach out. This is pretty good considering our strategy so far h ..read more

In addition to ready-made products for purchase, The Glamping Store is now offering customized items. Since our products are glamping-focused, we thought that there may be businesses within the glamping industry that want their business name or logo added to one of our products to either sell to customers or to wear themselves. We also thought that the customization may be desirable for glamping groups like a family glamping for a reunion or a corporate group out glamping as part of a retreat. Customization allows our customers to personalize our already awesome glamping gear. For a very smal ..read more

The Glamping Store is pleased to offer customers a new rewards program as well as the ability to purchase gift cards to use on The Glamping Store products. The rewards program allows customers to earn points for many of their actions at The Glamping Store and its parent company, Mitten Getaways Glamping Co. The points schedule is shown below. The points add up quickly and can be converted into cash discounts. Earn 25 points and immediately receive a coupon for $5 off your next purchase. Earn 50 points and get 10% off your entire order. Customers can sign up for the program on the Rewards page ..read more

We're excited to announce that The Glamping Store opens today. The Glamping Store is the custom, curated store for glampers, luxury campers, and glamping resort owners. While it is hosted on the mittengetaways.com domain, it can be accessed simply by going to theglampingstore.co. Up until the launch of The Glamping Store, if one were to go out to try and find glamping-specific items, they'd find that there really isn’t a dedicated retailer in the market. There are some manufacturers and distributors, but they are usually selling only one or a few products. And the few items that larger retail ..read more

In addition to providing consultative and contracted services, the Mitten Marketer also offers a toolbox of highly recommended products. These products, referred to as “The Best Products”, are ones which I have personally used and with which I am very satisfied. Otherwise, the product wouldn’t be recommended. On “The Best Products” page, visitors can see all the recommended products in summary view, but click on any one of them to reveal a much more detailed review of each one. That review includes a simple reason why I like the service, a more in-depth review, expected pricing, and the main ..read more