April and Ken Pishna from Camp Carpe Diem share tips for finding community on the road, based on four years experience hosting the annual fun gathering for nomads.
Carpe Diem! What does that mean when it comes to living the nomadic life? And how can nomads feel a sense of community on the road. Jim dives into answers to these questions and more with April and Ken Pishna, half of the team that founded of Camp Carpe Diem.
It can be difficult to find community centered around fun and adventure while working from the road. Camp Carpe Diem meets this need, and is now hosting their fourth anual gathering of RVers and other nomads. It is an informal fun event unlike your typical RV rally. The main focus is all about building community and forming relationships that last long after the campfire burns out.
Discover the challenges RVers have for finding a sense of community on the road, and how to overcome them. Find out how this can be done through adventurous activities – even with people from differnet walks of life, or vastly different definitions of adventure.
Hear about the tools and apps they use to plan and collaborate with the team when working remotely, and for promoting the event. April and Ken share their most successful methods for attracting sponsors or developing brand partnerships. AND: They offer a special discount of $15 off registration for the 2024 gathering just for RVE Podcast listeners.
Camp Carpe Diem Registration:
2024 Coupon Code: RVECCD
How Nomads Can Feel a Sense of Community
With Camp Carpe Diem co-founders April & Ken Pishna
Your Host: Jim Nelson
RESOURCES MENTIONED
The RV Entrepreneur Summit: https://therventrepreneur.com/summit
Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/
Zoom: https://zoom.us/
What’s App: https://www.whatsapp.com/
Asana: https://asana.com/
Listen to The RV Entrepreneur Episode #320
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The RV Entrepreneur #320 Full Episode Transcript:
How Nomads Can Feel a Sense of Community with Camp Carpe Diem co-founders April and ken Pishna
KEN: Going back to that whole entrepreneurial spirit is having the freedom to do the things you want to do, but also trying to stay focused on the business at times is very challenging.
RV LIFE: Welcome to the RV Entrepreneur podcast. The weekly show for nomads, where campers are RVers and entrepreneurs looking to earn a living or build a business while enjoying the RV lifestyle. This week’s host is Jim Nelson. Let’s settle in and enjoy the RV entrepreneur podcast brought to you by RV life.
JIM: Carpe diem. Seize the day. What does that mean when it comes to living the nomadic lifestyle or being an entrepreneur? This is Jim with RV life, and you’re listening to the RV entrepreneur podcast for this episode, I sat down with April and Ken Pishna, half of the team behind Camp Carpe Diem. This annual gathering of RVs and other nomads is an informal, fun event, unlike your typical RV rally. The main focus is all about building community and forming relationships that last long after the campfire burns out. We discussed the challenges our viewers have for finding a sense of community on the road, and how to overcome them. We talk about how this can be done through adventurous activities, even with people from different walks of life or vastly different definitions of adventure. We dive into the tools and apps they use to plan and collaborate with the team when working remotely, as well as for promoting the event, and they share their most successful methods for attracting sponsors or developing brand partnerships. April and Ken discuss the different income streams from their own business at Living the Stout Life, and I can totally relate to the niche community building they’re doing there too. As it turns out, Camp Carpe Diem evolved after this couple met like minded folks at the past RV Entrepreneur Summit, and with their fourth annual gathering taking place in spring 2024, they are offering a generous $15 off registration just for listeners. So keep listening for that coupon code or check the show notes. But first, the best way you can support this podcast is to consider these offers from those who make this show possible.
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JIM: Hey, you guys, thank you so much for joining us today.
APRIL: We’re excited to be here.
KEN: Yeah. Thanks for having us on.
JIM: All right. So we’re going to talk all about camp Carpe diem. But first, since this is the technically The Life Entrepreneur podcast, I like to ask two questions of all my guests. And the first one is like, when were you guys first introduced to the RV life, and what does that look like now?
APRIL: Uh, okay. So our first foray into RV living was actually through the RV entrepreneur podcast years ago, when Heath and Alissa were hosts of that. We had initially had plans to move to the mountains. We’re from Denver. Basically. We raised our kids and family in Denver, Colorado, and we had plans when our kids were kind of starting off on their own and getting into their own careers and things to move to the mountains, and that didn’t work out like we were hoping. And on my hour long commute to teach, I was getting a little annoyed and just like, ugh, why am I letting somebody else tell us where we should live and how we should live? And I came across this podcast that said, you can live in an RV and work in an RV. And I was like, what? You can live in an RV. It was just this, uh huh. And came back and presented the idea to Kenny and the ball started rolling.
KEN: Yeah, yeah, that was back in 2017. That April 1st came across the podcast and it snowballed pretty quick. After that. We just decided, yeah, let’s go for it. And we ended up going to the RV Entrepreneur Summit in 2018. And that’s when it was still back in Texas.
JIM: Awesome. And you guys got an RV and hit the road, or are you full time or do you travel part time? How does it work?
APRIL: Okay. Usually wait wait wait, I have to back up. Usually Kenny doesn’t just stop talking, he just keeps talking. So I’m not really sure where that came from anyhow. But yeah. So when we learned we could live in an RV, we pretty much immediately started asking around and looking for an RV and did this whole search and recorded all the stuff that we were doing because we didn’t know what kind of business we were going to do on the road. So we figured we should just record everything as we’re looking for it and bought one. But the funny thing is, is with RV entrepreneur, when we went to the actual conference, is Kenny was out of town hanging out and partying with some friends in Breckenridge, and I noticed that there are like two probably a marketing tactic tickets left to get to the RV Entrepreneur Summit. So I called him. I’m like, should I buy these? It was just kind of on a whim. And he was like, I don’t care what we’re doing, I’m having a fun time, so buy what you want. So sitting at a brewery, I was online right away buying the last two tickets to the RV Entrepreneur Summit, which basically set us off in this whole realm that we’re heading towards now, and this whole journey towards what we are now doing with cam. Carpe diem.
JIM: Awesome. So with that in mind, what does being an entrepreneur mean to you? What does it take to be an entrepreneur? What does it mean?
APRIL: What do you think, Kenny? You got that?
KEN: I don’t know, I thought you had that. No, you got that, I mean.
APRIL: Oh, well, actually, I think the first word that comes to mind with that is freedom. That’s it just gives you the freedom to kind of do what you want. But also, I don’t know, in a roundabout way, it really doesn’t because you really work a lot more when you’re an entrepreneur. Well, it gives you.
KEN: A lot of freedom. But it’s also kind of scary because that’s kind of a dual edged sword. There you have all this freedom and you’re self reliant, I think, for the most part. But with self-reliance becomes self-dependence where you have to make things happen or, you know, you can be screwed. So it is it’s it’s interesting. It’s fun to me. It’s it’s freedom and scary at the same time.
JIM: Exactly. The best thing about it is all the freedom. And the worst thing about it is all the freedom. And you’re often doing it on your own. So there’s a lot of challenges on the road to connecting with other fellow nomads and getting together is one way, but that can be challenging too, because we’re all kind of adventurous spirits and outgoing, but we’re also a lot of us are introverts. So tell me, what exactly is camp? Carpe diem. It looks totally fun, but what can one expect there? And how often do you guys do these gatherings?
APRIL: Okay, so I can say camp Carpe diem is totally fun because that’s the purpose of it. I think one of the reasons we thought about creating it was because our RVers we have found know damn well how to work on the road. They really do. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re working hard to create your business, but you’re also in these beautiful places. And because of all the work you’re doing, you kind of forget to have fun. So a piece of that was like, we want to make sure that these rv’ers also get out there to enjoy the places. But then the whole other purpose of that, too, was go ahead was.
KEN: Really the community. It’s because it’s very easy to be on the road, and whether you’re working from the road or just traveling around on the road, you know, you could be retired or something. And traveling. We found a lot of people feel isolated and alone on the road after, especially if you’re on the road for a long time. And so we kind of wanted to help build that community. And like April said, you know, there’s a lot of good things out there, like the RV entrepreneur. The summit from the RV entrepreneur was a really great way to learn how to work from the road and build up a kind of a community built around the work side. But it also kind of led us to just the overall community side of it, and I guess. At some point we just found more and more people on the road that said they were lonely and stuff. And so that’s how we came up with the idea for Carpe Diem with Barry and Deb Benton, who run the virtual campground, and they’re also RV entrepreneur pals of ours. Like that’s where we met. So we travel around a lot together, and we kind of brainstormed around a campfire one night that, yeah, why don’t we just have some get togethers? And we kind of that blossomed into something more than just a get together. And we wanted it to be something where it was more intentional about trying to build some community on the road for fellow travelers.
APRIL: And when we started it, we started it in our first one was in Eureka. Well, actually, it kind of started around the Salida Buena Vista area of Colorado, because that’s where we just kind of had a very informal meetup with a whole bunch of friends, and that’s when we’re like, well, let’s really do this. So our first official camp, Carpe Diem, was in Ouray, Colorado, and it was in the fall. And then we decided we were going to do it again. And so we did it again in the fall. The second one was in Brevard, North Carolina, and then we decided we were going to do it again. And then from there, we’ve decided that we’re going to do it pretty much every year, if not maybe twice a year. And it doesn’t have to always be in the fall. Our third one was again in the fall last actually this year fall in Montana up by Glacier. And then the one that we’re doing now for 2024 is actually going to be in the spring in Hot Springs, Arkansas. So we’ve actually already had questions from people. Wait, are you changing it? Is it in the fall. Is it not in the fall? We’re like, it’s just wherever we get people to come and show up and enjoy community and have fun and the beauty of the country.
JIM: Awesome. That kind of leads into my next question camp. Carpe diem. Seize the day. What does that mean as it relates to camping and the nomadic lifestyle? Tell us a bit more about how Camp Carpe Diem came to be in the mission behind it.
APRIL: So we have some friends who kind of inspired us to that have always had this kind of momentum for life as to like, don’t wait. You know, everybody was like, well, I’m going to do this someday. I’m going to do this someday, and I’m not going to get like, I don’t want to be like this vulgar sailor language. But basically it’s this, this whole like f someday thing. So why are we waiting for someday? Like, do it now? And so that was kind of a piece of our motivation too, is like, we’re always like, we’ll do this someday, and someday never comes and you never do what you want to do. So it’s like, seize the day now, seize the moment, seize it. And that’s kind of when we were trying to figure out the name of it is camp Carpe Diem. It’s also for adults to come and have fun and revisit kind of things that you haven’t played with and had fun with in a long time. You have something to say, Kenny?
KEN: Well, yeah, and I think it’s kind of funny. We’re we’re both talking about the same thing here. But but you, you’re talking more about that having the fun and everything, but it all still boiled down to the point of bringing people together to share common interests and build camaraderie with each other. So what we do at Camp Carpe Diem is us, April and myself, Barry and Deb. We kind of organize everything and set a lot of things up. Different activities, different places to go, different things to do at the different areas that we visit so that when everybody else comes, all the attendees who come to camp, they just get to hang out and have fun and say, okay, where are we going now? They might have to make a choice between this activity or this activity, but at the end of the day, they just get to come hang out and connect with each other over common interests where we take all the hassle out of it. We, you know, from deciding what are the best options for places to go so you don’t have to scout out and waste your time looking and searching. We get to put everything together for you, so you get to hang out and have a good time. And I think that just fosters more time for people to connect on a deeper level. And that’s really the main goal of what we doing.
JIM: Awesome. I want to get into those details in just a second, but why do you think it’s so challenging to kind of feel a sense of community when so many of us have kind of a similar wanderlust or a sense of adventure, but especially when first hitting the road. Why do you think it’s so hard to find your tribe?
KEN: I mean, for me, I think it just boils down to the way as a society, we grow up. It’s like most of us grow up in a house or an apartment or something like that, where you have a community around you, just naturally you have there’s a neighborhood around you. Whether you choose to interact with it or not is your choice. But I think we just kind of naturally are thrown into a community around us. Whereas when you’re out on the road, a lot of people, like you said, are sometimes introverted, and it’s not easy to just go up and talk to a stranger and say, hey, how’s it going? You know, I mean, for us, that’s kind of been our mission on the road because even our other business that we built, living a stout life, is centered around building community as well through craft beer and travel. And so us approaching people we don’t know is very common. But I think for most people, that’s not their way usually, you know, I think it’s it’s very intimidating to just walk up to somebody and say hi, even if, even if you’re doing the same thing, you’re out on a mountain bike trail together. You know, you don’t want to. You don’t want to disturb somebody else who’s having a good time. You feel like you’re intruding on them. So I think more people are open to that intrusion than you think when you get out there. And so, I don’t know, I think to me, that’s what part of it is, is just it kind of goes against our nature to spread our wings like that, because we don’t have that normal neighborhood around us.
APRIL: Well, I think though, too, in today’s world it’s the media and just all the not just the media, but just all the things that are going on in our world that everybody has instant access to. It puts this this fear in you that you shouldn’t go out there and say hi to strangers because those strangers might be bad people. But all in all, the more you get out there, people still are generally just good people and want to say hi and hang out and have that community. But if you don’t have the space to do so or the additional community, that’s kind of funny. It’s kind of ironic if you don’t have the community to get you to the community. Yeah, it’s hard, but that is it. And that’s kind of what there is. There’s that stigma around going up to people nowadays. And an RV park, for example, you’re like one after another right next to each other and genuinely just like you do. You stay in your RV, you stay in your little bubble and you don’t talk to people. And so we want to give people that space to do so.
JIM: Exactly. We’ve noticed that over the years when in the typical RV park setting, everyone seems to go in their RVs and some of us are working, other people are just watching their TVs. But I found like either when boondocking or especially at. Rally type events in the niche community. Like we’ve just downsized to kind of an overland truck camper. When you get out there among your people, it’s a little more open. But but it sounds like you’re working on your fourth or fifth event now. How has camp evolved since the first one?
APRIL: So this will be our in spring of 2024 will be our fourth event. And what do you have an easy answer to that how it’s evolved I mean, we’ve learned we know from we knew from the beginning we wanted to keep it kind of intimate and small. So it gives that space for people to get together and to connect and not feel like they’re in this huge 4 or 500 person conference where you can never where you’re still just one number. So we totally have kept that.
KEN: But I would say that one big thing we’ve learned from the beginning is that because we’re charging people for this, we feel a responsibility to make sure that they get their money’s worth, that they’re having a good time at their. There are a lot of good activities to do and things they’re going to enjoy. But I think out of the gate, we maybe overdid it a little on packing the schedule with lots of things to do, and sometimes people, because they knew they were coming to camp. Carpe diem to build community, not just go to this activity or that we may be overwhelmed them a little bit with too many activities. And so we’ve actually dialed back the activities a little bit and tried to space things a little better so that there is more time just to sit and connect and talk beyond the times when we’re, you know, we’re out mountain biking or hiking. Those are great times to connect to. But I think sometimes we got a little too deep in the woods with too many activities.
JIM: Let’s dive into those activities for a second. Is there any sort of educational agenda that takes place? Do you have seminars, presentations, or is it strictly fun and networking? Or how does this differ from a typical rally or gathering?
KEN: I think for us, how it differs is that we do organize all these different activities to do like they center around hiking, biking, photography tips and training craft breweries, craft breweries is a big one and distilleries, things like that. We typically work with a lot of local businesses, wherever we are, to help the people that came to our camp explore that area and get to know some of the local businesses and local people in the area. So breweries is just something that is a common theme with a lot of the people that we know. So it became an integral part of Camp Carpe Diem, because it’s just a good way to connect with people.
APRIL: I would say like, so there might be a tad bit of kind of an educational component, just depending on what past attendees have said that they want or have missed out on. So that’s kind of how we go with that. A lot of people really still love RV tours, so there’s that in there, and there are some people who really want to know more about. Since we since we center a little bit around mountain biking, there are definitely a group of people that want to know more about mountain biking, maintenance, or how do you find the trails that you ride, or same with hiking. Last year we had one of our sponsors was MIT solar, and they came and did like a solar presentation and was out there to answer any questions that people had to get solar on their rigs. One of the first years we had kind of a 101, we had a couple of people who were really new to Rv’ing and they had some questions. So we kind of did a rally around that. We also have some time and flexibility, because it is so small and intimate that we can have spur of the moment kind of conversations and talks and put that together to what people actually want and need for our attendees at that moment.
APRIL: So, for example, you were mentioning earlier, Kenny, that we time we packed everything with all the activities we realized from past attendees and how we did that, that we needed to have something called a chill zone. And so this last year we we invested in and got like hammocks. And I’ll tell you how we invested in we got hammocks and we had cornhole games and we had a spot where people can just relax. And that was great. And speaking of like business wise and how we evolved, kind of backing up a little bit is we realized what our sponsoring partners needed from us, as well as what we needed from them. And that took us a couple of years to realize that. And so this year, I need to do a little bit of name dropping here. This year we have our big sponsor is Hammock Universe. And so Hammock Universe is our presenting sponsor for Camp Carpe Diem because we listen to our attendees and got hammocks and made a chill zone. So we really that’s a really big difference there, I think, between a gathering.
KEN: The sponsors in what they need out of a.
APRIL: Partnership. That’s a big difference, I think, between the conferences and the other gatherings, is we really try to focus on what our attendees want and what our sponsors need, and try to really put that in there to make it match up with the location. As to where we are to.
JIM: It sounds like a fun break from the typical rallies where you have back to back presentation on, you know, Black Tank or when in terms of the entrepreneur events, we’re going to have, you know, presentations and seminars about how to make money on the road in different niches and such.
APRIL: And that’s what that should be. And that’s exactly what those should be, and that’s exactly what the other ones should be. And now we have Camp Carpe Diem, which is what that should be. And I would.
KEN: Say at Camp Carpe Diem, a very small portion of it is educational as far as a structured class or like a presentation such as the solar presentation that MIT solar did last at our last event. That’s a very small portion of it, and most of the educational component is hands on, kind of more less of a class. But just like as we’re out mountain biking, there are some people who don’t need hardly any tips on the mountain bike when we’re out there. But we have very good, well educated, fantastic riders leading our rides. And so there are other people who are a little more intermediate or beginner that are riding out there, and they do want tips on how to take this curve, or how to better pedal up a mountain or down a mountain without, you know, hitting a rock and falling over things like that. But that’s how a lot of that is not a structured class, but it’s giving you some guidance out on the trail.
APRIL: But that’s how we can reach a huge variety of demographic, of a huge variety of people, is we can have someone who’s, you know, 24 years old, really excited, a van lifer, really excited to, you know, be mountain biking and out there and we can have that level. And then we can also have someone who’s, you know, 65 years old, maybe retired and wants to learn more about photography tips. And we we hit each of those levels in between.
JIM: Awesome. So back to the community building aspect of it. Do you guys ever host any like any sort of like challenges or trust building stuff or ropes courses that kind of help build the community bonding, or is that kind of done through the adventures you guys are doing? Like all going out and doing something similar? Y’all like, like a good hard bike ride.
KEN: We’ve focused more on the adventure side of it and we, like we said, we try to make it fit all levels. So we’ve got different ways to challenge people, like on our say, for instance, when this last CD we had up in Montana, we went to Glacier National Park with everyone, and we did hikes there, but we broke it into several different hikes so that people who were very athletic and really wanted to be challenged went on a more advanced hike. You know, that that really challenged them on the mountain. And then we have people who have maybe different abilities or or have had, you know, a knee surgery or something like that where they’re not quite as mobile at the moment. And so we would do a different hike with them where they could still go out and enjoy and be with other people, but still get out there and do it. And so we do a lot of things on different skill levels, but we don’t have like we haven’t done like a ropes course or something like that, that you’re talking about a more structured challenge event.
APRIL: But what was really cool about watching all these attendees in their different groups and stuff like that is it wasn’t like a ropes course, but you still see everybody, all ages, all different types, encouraging others to follow through and get things done. Like if someone was really struggling because, you know, they had something that wasn’t feeling right, like a sore ankle or something like that, but they knew they could continue to go. Everybody was always like, oh my gosh, you got this. That was this was great. Or our mountain biking group was more like, you can push this, you can do this. Let’s session it like, we can do this again session. It means let’s let’s back it up. Let’s try that climb again. And everybody was super encouraging with that. So I loved it.
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JIM: That’s awesome how you’re addressing all the different needs or fitness levels or whatever. You know, different aspects of the group there. But when it comes to, you know, you do this annually or maybe a couple times a year, is there any sort of online community aspect to this between the event, or is that what the virtual campground is all about, or what? What is that?
KEN: Yeah, I think the virtual campground is more of an online community, but for Camp Carpe itself.
APRIL: No, let me back up. I don’t know if I would say the virtual campground is more of an online community. The virtual campground is the virtual campground, I would say, because it’s a way to get campers per se, or RVers or travelers together in one area to learn about, like being in that lifestyle. But that’s what I think that is. But it is. It’s that that virtual connection through that. But then I would say for us, when Deborah and Barry from the virtual campground and us from living in Salt Lake got together, we really wanted to build that personal connection, and we really wanted it to be face to face and in a group and a group. So we we do really focus more on getting together. However, I’m going to let you tell him about this. Our our main form of communication during the event is WhatsApp. And in a way that’s kind of our virtual connection afterwards because go ahead.
KEN: So we we use WhatsApp basically to provide people with information about the event like before and during and after the event. It’s a way for us to communicate with everybody really easily, but they can also communicate with each other because we have everybody in a single group. Everybody who attended, say, camp. Carpe Diem 2023 is in a single WhatsApp group, so we can communicate with them, but so they can also communicate with each other. And that kind of happened organically out of the very first CD we did because we used WhatsApp, just we thought it would be just for us as the organizers, organizers to communicate important things, schedule changes and things to everybody. But we found really quickly that everybody else used it to talk to each other as well. And even after the event was over, people would communicate where they were going and things like that and would meet up down the road along the way.
APRIL: Yeah. So it was really cool to see all that happening without us even facilitating it anymore. Yeah.
JIM: Fantastic. So you’re fostering these relationships and those do kind of go on and on until the next one occurs via WhatsApp and, and that sort of thing. You guys have obviously put a lot of effort into the project, but gotta wonder, is this your full time job or what do you guys do to make a living on the road?
APRIL: If this was our full time job? Yeah, we joke that if we really actually figured out how much we were making per hour by putting together, we’d probably be making like $0.10 an hour.
KEN: Yeah, we would be breaking all kinds of labor. Probably if we reported this.
APRIL: No, no. So for Ken and I, our full time, I guess job. It’s hard. It’s living a stout life. But even that our website and our blogs, which basically consists of like craft beer guides, we also do a podcast, the Craft Beer Travel and Adventure, where we tell the stories behind the beer and the breweries and the travelers that we meet. So in a way that that is I mean, that’s totally our full time job, but we don’t make money, all of our money directly off of the website. And that either because of that website, we’ve set ourselves up as experts in the craft beer and travel kind of industry. And so from there, we write for other people. Like, for example, one of our big clients is Malt Europe Malting Company. So they supply the malts to the breweries. And so we write for them and do a lot of content and things for that as well. We also do affiliate marketing and affiliate sales. And then I know for Deborah and Barry, our other partners with Camp Carpe Diem there with the virtual campground and Do that. Barry is also a professional photographer. So as a lot of traveling entrepreneurs out there, I’m sure you guys all get it. There’s we got our hands in a lot of pots and cam carpe diem is it’s a.
KEN: Pretty significant part of our business now.
APRIL: It’s getting there and it’s starting to transition into a little bit of more sponsorship levels and getting a little bit of more profit. But our goal with it was in the first place was to just be able to create a community around it.
JIM: I can definitely relate to having lots of irons in the fire. And as Pat Flynn likes to say, the riches are in the niches. You guys have, you know, niche content development, content creators and a community around beer and breweries. And my wife and I operate the large community for three-legged dogs and pet amputation and, you know, helping those people and hosting blogs and providing resources for that. But let’s talk for a minute about the the planning and coordination. You guys mentioned WhatsApp, but what other, if any, what other team, software or tools is the Camp Carpe Diem team using to plan this thing and collaborate remotely?
APRIL: You know what? Honestly, I think I would say our biggest thing that we really use our platform is basically Google Drive. We have a whole drive set up that’s dedicated just to the four of us. So anything that we do can be in there. We don’t have to share it again or anything. It’s just all part of ours. It’s got all these specific file folders that are set up that pretty much make sense to almost the four of us. We can just get in there and find things.
KEN: I was just going to say, because for us as a team, I mean, there’s four of us that spearhead this entire thing. And so it’s the four of us that have direct communication all the time. So really what’s worked well for us is just having a little message group that has the four of us in it, and we do a lot of things through that. You know, we use zoom sometimes for meetings if we want to sit down and like really talk to each other and have a good meeting and because it’s just more comfortable, I think, and I think more productive when you can at least see each other face to face when you’re talking, instead of just a phone call or something. But we keep it pretty simple. It’s it’s zoom and a messaging group and then Google Drive using the the different apps on Google Drive and stuff we.
APRIL: Also use.
KEN: Most of the time we also.
APRIL: Dabble a little bit using asana. That’s a pretty good little program there that we’ve dealt with a little bit and kind of in and out with that, setting the goals and keeping track of that. So but that’s, I guess, the gist of it.
JIM: There is a beauty in keeping it simple, you know, kiss, keep it simple, stupid. You know, if the fewer things, the fewer moving parts in there is often better when you’re creating something like this. But what have you found to be the most successful methods for marketing or reaching out to sponsors? Is it all via social media, or what platforms do you use there, or methods to use there to reach sponsors and promotion?
KEN: For us. I think social media has been a good outlet, but really engaging directly with our attendees has been one of the best things we’ve done is trying to plan our next event, at least partially before the event that we’re currently holding, like, say, our event in Hot Springs, Arkansas this May. What we try to do is have the next event that at least the next location and the next time of year pretty much set so that we can announce it at that event, because you kind of strike while the iron is hot and get the excitement. And a lot of our best marketing has come from the people have come to our event. And I think that’s partially because we also keep it small. We don’t have to reach tens of thousands of people all the time, because we’re not trying to fill 500 slots or 300 slots. You know, we’re keeping our event pretty small to keep it intimate. So I think the word of mouth thing is very impactful on a group that size.
APRIL: And I would also say too, with our sponsors, it’s more I think it’s a lot of email, direct emails and calling and just talking to people personally and really reaching out and personalizing everything that we do. That’s what we’ve learned over the last couple of years. So basically when we when I set up something that has like a sponsor pitch, I start with a very basic bare bones of what we are, but then I go in there and probably spend an hour fine tuning the email or what I want to say on a phone call that makes it personal. So you have to really research the the partners and the companies that you want to partner together with. You have to know what their mission is and what they believe. And if they don’t match and line up with what we’re doing with camp, Carpe diem. It’s just it doesn’t even make sense to kind of reach out. It has to kind of have a matching up there and a partnership because it has to align. And that’s one thing I’ve learned is to personalize those emails, because that’s what they want to see. They’re the same as us. They want to build a business that makes sense and makes them fulfilled. And that’s what we do too. So finding those sponsorship just takes a lot of time to do that. But it’s worthwhile when you do that. What were you going to say?
KEN: Yeah, because I think along those same lines, understanding what their mission is and making sure it aligns with you is trying to understand what that business needs and what they might be looking for, so that when you present a marketing opportunity to them, because that’s really what a sponsorship is for a business is a marketing opportunity. And so you need to think about what they want or what they might need, or what they could get out of this partnership, and how you can facilitate that, whether it’s like, like just putting their name on an event that has 50 people at it or 100 people at it may not be the biggest sell. But if you can do some, maybe, you know, content marketing with them in addition to that might be something that they see as much more beneficial.
APRIL: It’s not what we need, it’s what we can give to them.
KEN: Yeah, it should be a partnership, not just a hey, come give me money for my event because it’s a fun event and it’d be cool.
JIM: Yeah, the personal touch really does matter. And it’s, you know, finding that pain point and working to address that both in sponsors and promoting it and getting people there, that that is always the best way to do it. But what what have been the most difficult hurdles you’ve overcome when creating Camp Carpe Diem or your own nomadic business and lifestyle?
KEN: I would say for me is going back to that whole entrepreneurial spirit is having the freedom to do the things you want to do, but also trying to stay focused on the business at times is very challenging because you, you know, you need to build your business and then, you know, there are certain things you need to do, but especially in a nomadic lifestyle, it can be very challenging for me to stay focused on that business aspect. When you’re traveling around all these cool places and meeting new people and exploring new places, that that, for me is a very big challenge, is trying to keep my focus.
APRIL: It is, well, especially like right now we’re camped in like southern Arizona next to mountain biking trails. And that’s what we like to do. And so it’s like, well, we should take the whole day and go mountain biking or, you know, Patagonia Lake is just around the corner. We could drive and go paddle boarding and take the whole day to do that. And then Kenny’s like, well, yeah, but when are we going to take the whole day to work and actually build the business that we want so we can continue to have the freedom to do the mountain biking and the paddleboarding and going to the breweries. Yeah. So that is still balance for me, has always been a curiosity of mine, actually. When we interview brewers and we interview other travelers on our podcast, that’s one of the questions I ask them a lot is how do you find your balance to create this life that you really like? And so for us, that’s probably one of the still the biggest hurdles is trying to create that balance and balance, let me tell you, is not ever an equal scale. It’s not ever a 5050 balance. What it is is one week, you’re balance is play, and maybe your next week your balance is work. And that could be that balance. It’s kind of a weird word, but yeah, I think that’s still one of our biggest hurdles is trying to figure that out. I don’t know if we ever will.
KEN: Honestly. And that dovetails into a really big challenge, which is, you know, creating a regular income. Like we don’t have a regular income because of all the entrepreneurial things we do. You don’t have a regular paycheck, you know, like that. You get as a 9 to 5 job for what we do. You know, there’s obviously people working from the road that do that, but we don’t. And so that can be challenging to try and balance your everyday life with an irregular paycheck.
APRIL: And it is. I also want to say too like it sounds like we have this fantastic. We do have a fantastic life. But what I’m saying is it’s not all rainbows and unicorns all the time because there’s always, you know, things that just go wrong. There’s, you know, we constantly right now we are talking today that we have to have another conversation about money. If we don’t stop spending it so much, we’re not going to have so much. So we’re constantly having that conversation and talking about it. It’s it’s still a struggle. It’s it’s great that what we how we have, you know, created our life. But in any kind of life, there’s still things that you have to figure out and hurdles to get over.
JIM: It comes back to that blessing and the curse of this lifestyle where we, you know, it’s the freedom to do all this, but then we have the freedom to do all this. It’s all, you know, we still need to make the money, but we want to get out there and do the things. It’s kind of why Renee and I coined live work, Dream as our moniker and our brand when we hit the road, because it’s a life and we work it and it’s the dream life, but it doesn’t always work and just kind of make it dream, you know? So it’s a live work thing and it can be a dream or it can be a nightmare. But back to I know everyone is different. What recommendations do you have for nomads to handle being away from friends and family while living on the road? You guys got some experience there.
KEN: I think for us, we took the opportunity of being nomadic to actually re-engage with a lot of our friends and family that we hadn’t engaged with in a long time. Most of my family was centered around Denver, Colorado, and a good portion of April’s was around Denver or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So that was pretty easy. But we have a lot of extended family and a lot of lifelong friends and such that are across the country or different areas of the country. So for us, we were always intentional pretty much from the get go about trying to think about who might be, if we’re going to say, Maine, to check out the cool fall leaves and explore Maine for whatever reason, it’s like, who do we know along the way or in Maine that we could go visit? And not just to mooch dock off of them, although that’s that’s a little side benefit sometimes. But a lot of times for us, I think it was just being intentional about reconnecting with people that we hadn’t seen in a long time. And now we could, instead of just talking on the phone or saying hi on Facebook or whatever. Yeah.
APRIL: So you may be in air quotes kind of thing, leaving family that you’ve been with and community and neighbors that you’ve been with for a long time, but you’re going to see other families and neighbors or whoever it is that you haven’t seen in a while. And so that is a connection there. But then when you go back to visit, you know, the people that you air quotes again, left, because I always say you never really left anybody. They’re always with you. You’re always thinking about them. But then when you go back to visit, you know, you’re more intentional about it. You’re only going to be there for a little bit of time. So you’re more intentional to make sure that when you go to visit them, you’re really focused on hanging out and having a good drink or a good meal with them instead of just like, oh, I’m here all the time. I don’t have to worry about seeing you. And then you never see them for three months. I mean, even when you’re living right next door. So there’s this. When you’re out on the road, I think there’s just like you said earlier, too, is this intentional piece of it that you get to see everybody and then also, I mean, you can zoom is good for some things.
APRIL: You know, we all are zoomed out or whatever digital thing you use. Everybody’s zoomed out, but FaceTime and all these things that you can actually call and and talk to people and be intentional about it. Actually, I have been working on that as a goal of my own. I don’t even think you know that Kenny is. Over the last few months, we’ve gotten a few phone calls that we never get phone calls from. So what do you do when you get a phone call from somebody? When you never get a phone call from them, you panic because it’s usually bad news and it was bad news. And so me now I’ve been calling people and saying hi, that’s all I want to do is say hi. So then when you get a phone call from me, you know, it’s just me saying hi and not bad news for you to panic. So I’ve been trying to do that now and just calling people. And that keeps me connected too. So you do have to be intentional about it, or you will not see people and you will not talk to people, but again, it’s more genuine and authentic when you do that. I don’t know. That was a very long winded answer from both of us. Did it.
KEN: Help? Not at all.
JIM: Without any ulterior motive. And I’ve listened to podcasts and heard studies about how we can ourselves feel happier and more fulfilled when we do reach out and just say hi or, you know, reach out without a purpose. But I wonder along those lines, what have you been your biggest rewards from creating camp? Carpe diem.
APRIL: Oh, the connections, the community, the people. Oh my gosh, we have so many new literally not just saying this, but best friends that we love to come up and connect with again. Um, the only way we are now lonely on the road is if we purposefully put ourselves lonely. And it’s not lonely is we put ourselves alone on the road because we’ve had too many connections.
KEN: No, there’s never too many, too many.
APRIL: But it’s just time to take a break. The people we have met from Cam, Carpe Diem, sponsors, camp hosts that were campgrounds that we stay at are base camps. The businesses are attendees. I it’s fantastic.
KEN: Yeah. I mean, we’ve met a lot of people, great people and made great connections that we continue even beyond our event. And it doesn’t matter whether we’re working together or not, they’ve just become great friendships. And beyond that is seeing other people make those same connections. Like I mentioned, when we use WhatsApp, that a lot of people beyond the event are still in that WhatsApp group, just chatting with each other about where they’re going to be, and then it’s like, oh, we’re going to be like only 500 miles away from there. We should meet up. And, you know, 500 miles doesn’t sound like a big deal anymore when you’re a traveler. But for me, that beyond the personal relationships we’ve made for ourselves, is seeing other people make those similar connections and continuing them well beyond whether we’re there or not.
APRIL: We’ve also grown. I think we’ve also learned how to grow like. And with our business, how to present to other people to work with us and partner with us. Like that’s been a huge benefit as well as is professionally, how to do that and how to connect with.
KEN: And with each other.
APRIL: Partners.
KEN: I think we connect with each other better than we ever have, okay, because we’ve been on the road together for five years now and we’re in a class C, we have less than 200ft². You got to learn how to get along. And, you know, it was definitely challenging in the beginning, especially because we both we came from different work backgrounds and different approaches to hitting the road. And so there’s been a lot of learning over the years just how to respect each other and to communicate with each other better.
APRIL: And how to respect each other, communicate with each other better with our business partners too, because it’s only been us for like, what, two, two and a half years? It was really only us. And then when we started CCD, it was with another couple. So you had to like, really understand that there’s different nuances with other with other people too. There are there are friends, but they’re also a business partners. And so that taught us how to build relationships with that to.
KEN: Business partners with very different attitudes than we have.
APRIL: So which is actually probably why we work really well together.
KEN: Right? Right. We balance each other out, I think.
JIM: And that’s got to be totally rewarding to see those other relationships foster and know that, you know, you were helpful in lighting those fires and seeing them grow. Where can people learn more? Where’s the best place for people to find out about Camp? Carpe Diem and remind us when the next event is.
APRIL: Are you ready? I’ve got this nailed down. Ready? It’s camp. Carpe diem, it’s Camp-crp Medium.com.
KEN: And for anybody like you are our brethren, because that’s where our whole event spurred from was, was our time meeting each other and spending time together at back in the day. And so for anybody who wants to come to camp, carpe diem. We’ve got $15 off discount. It’s just use the code CD and we use that when you check out with tickets and you get 15 bucks off any ticket you want.
APRIL: And and our early bird discount is like, you know, really good. And that’s off the early bird discount too which goes through December 24th. Good Christmas. Oh Christmas or holiday or whatever you want to call it presents yourself or treat yourself. Yeah. But you can also find, like us, our partners like Deborah and Barry Benton, the virtual campground at the virtual campground.com, and us for living a stout life, living a stout life.com on all the social media handles and stuff too, for both of us.
JIM: Well, thank you so much for the offer. We’re definitely going to get the links in the show notes here and remind people about camp. Carpe diem coming up. Tell us one more time when the next event is.
APRIL: It is in Hot Springs, Arkansas, May 16th through the 20th, 2024. And for those rv’ers, you guys all travel right. So Hot Springs, Arkansas, Arkansas is like right in the path of the solar eclipse, which happens right before that. So that’s a perfect timing to be in that area as well as for mountain biking fanatics out there. Bentonville is like three hours north of Hot Springs, and they are doing a big mountain biking festival, which is free to attend right after our event. So you can just come and spend like 1 or 2 months in Arkansas. It’s a beautiful area. We’re excited to.
KEN: And our host campground is actually a hot springs off road park. So if you’re into Jeeping or side by sides and that kind of off road stuff, they have a lot of that trails right from the camp where we’re being hosted that you can go off on and do that kind of thing too, if you want.
APRIL: Can I also throw out if anybody ever like, we’re so not experts, we’re never going to claim to be experts at like hosting events and things like that. We’re doing this now. I mean, we’re we’re good. We’re good at it. Thumbs up here. But I was just going to say, this is a business like an entrepreneurial podcast. And we’ve learned a lot from talking to so many people and just getting recommendations and, and hanging out. So if anybody ever has any questions from us or just wants to know more about how we did it or why we did it, or like if we didn’t cover it on here. We love talking to people and like and just seeing how we can all work together to figure things out in the world. Yeah. So you can just reach out.
JIM: Awesome. Thanks so much for that and for your time. We look, listeners, we hope to see you at camp. Carpe diem.
APRIL: Yeah, we’d love to have you.
KEN: Absolutely.
APRIL: Thank you for having us.
KEN: Yeah. Thanks for having us on. This is. Never could have thought of it. From the day that the RV entrepreneur podcast spurred our journey to now, we’re on the podcast.
APRIL: Yay!
JIM: Well, that’s great to hear because we do have big news coming up really soon about future events. So thanks again for being here. Camp. Carpe Diem sounds like a totally fun event. Get complete details at Camp Carpe diem.com and use code RV CD for $15 off registration for the 2024 gathering. That discount is valid even on the early bird pricing, which ends December 24th, so get your tickets soon at RV life here. We’ve got some really big news coming soon about upcoming events, including the RV Entrepreneur Summit, so be sure to subscribe for blog updates at the Entrepreneur.com slash subscribe! And while you’re there, check out the news blog for complete transcripts and notes from all recent episodes and the helpful articles. All the hosts here are now publishing. As always, let us know how we’re doing with comments on the blog or in the RV Entrepreneur Community Facebook group. Until next time… seize the day. Every day.
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