The 100 Question Glamping Business Checklist UK

Tom Marsh MRICS • June 11, 2022

The 100 glamping questions to answer, “how to start a glamping business in the UK”.

Turn acres of beautiful rural land into a tranquil glamping escape. Attract the increasing stressed-out urban worker who needs to recharge in nature.

Start researching how to set up a glamping business in 90 days to achieve annual revenue of £153,300 from five off-grid Tiny Homes. No planning permission or infrastructure needed.

We ask all the questions to provide a glamping business plan template. Your answers will help you to understand your glamping business income, what glamping pods to buy and how become a successful glamping business owner.

The Glamping Business Checklist

Setting Up The Glamping Site

1. How much glamping business income can you make?

If you have 5 plus acres of land on which you put five high-quality Tiny Homes. You can charge £120 per night on average and achieve an average occupancy rate of 70% throughout the year. That is £153,300 per year. That is a comfortable six-figure income each year. Thus your initial investment of around £200,000 on Off-grid Tiny Homes is repaid in no time.

2. Reviewing your Glamping Site

Do you own a large enough plot of land that is not overlooked by houses? Is the glamping site flat? Where are the beautiful views? How many units could it fit without it being too cramped? Where would the access be? Would there be space to park? How far do they walk from the car park (can provide wheelbarrow if greater than 400M)? Is the site safe during harsh weather? What is nearby? Any pubs or shops?

3. Researching your Local Glamping Market

How many other people are doing glamping or short-term rentals (cottages, Airbnb)in the area? You can search on google maps for other glamping sites. Or search Pitchup, Coolstays, canopy & stars, and Airbnb. What glamping units do they have and what do they charge? Are they booked up? What are their reviews like? Should get a rough idea here.

4. How do you get planning permission from planning authorities?

Do you want to apply for a planning exemption license? Allows you to operate up to five glamping units all year. Subject to the type of glamping unit - cannot have 5 Shepherd Huts. No planning permission is required from the local planning authority.

Or do you go for full planning permission to apply for a change of use to set up a bigger glamping site?

How fast do you want to set up your glamping site? How much time and money do you want to spend putting together documents for the planning department. Planning should take 13 weeks but this is rarely the case and can take 12 months.

Escape Off The Grid can provide free advice on setting up a planning exemption license - book a call below.

5. How much does it cost to start a glamping business?

Planning costs? £20,000. Infrastructure costs? £40,000. Glamping Pod costs (excluding glamping tents)? £25,000 - £60,000. Website costs? £20,000 Marketing Costs? ~£50 per customer Legal costs?

6. What glamping pods to buy?

How long does the glamping product last? What is the glamping unit's return on investment? What provides a different offer in your local area? Can you operate them all year round? What glamping unit works best for your planning scenario above? What other amenities will the glamping accommodation need i.e. external compost toilets?

Glamping accommodation can include Bell Tents, Yurts, Safari Tents, Tipis (teepees), gypsy caravans, shepherd hut's, tree houses, pods, bubble domes, and Off-grid Tiny Homes.

Our recommendation is Off-grid Tiny Homes. They are a glamping trend. They are sustainable being powered by solar. They are well insulated for the winter. They maximise the number of units you can have with the planning exemption license. They are temporary structures.

7. What glamping infrastructure is needed?

Will be down to your choice of glamping accommodation. The planning you have from the planning department.

For an exemption license, all infrastructure needs to be temporary. No permanent impact on the land.

What foundations do you need for your glamping product? Do you need an electrical installation on-site or can you run off-grid with solar power? How are you dealing with drinking water? Do you need external sanitary facilities? How do you deal with grey water? Do you need to install a septic tank for brown water or install a compost loo? What shared amenities do you want? Do you need to install a WIFI or 4G router?

Running Your Glamping Business

8. Setting up your glamping name and website

Can you buy the domain for your glamping domain and register it with companies house? Do you build your website (recommend Duda) or pay someone? What Online Travel Agents should you use? What booking platform should you use?

9. Managing the glamping operations?

Who will clean the glamping units? Who will deal with customer service? Who will deal with maintenance? Who will buy the consumables? Who will maintain the land? Who will collect the bins? How will you deal with check-ins - personally or lockbox? Buying the right mattress, bed sheets, and cutlery? Do you have a CO2 & Fire Alarm Monitor?

10. What marketing strategies to use for your glamping site?

Who is your target audience? What Online Travel Agents do you use? Do you get someone to put together a marketing plan? What social media platform do you set up? Do you spend money on social media advertising? Do you write blogs? Can you get PR? Referrals? Influencers?

11. What experiences can customers do in the local area or what can you provide?

Yoga Wellness Retreat. Adventuring / Hiking trip. Arts & Crafts. Digital Detox. Farm Visit. Wild swimming / SUPing (Paddle Boarding) Places. Viewing Historic Landmarks & Villages. Tree Planting. Local Pubs. Local Beaches

12. Customer Aftercare

Who follows up with customers? Who gathers customer research? How can customers provide reviews?

Want to set up a successful glamping business today? Speak to the glamping experts.

Escape Off The Grid set up and operates glamping businesses with off-grid Tiny Homes. No planning permission or infrastructure is needed. Saving £113,000 in glamping start-up costs, whilst delivering £153,300 in annual revenue.

Download our detailed Glamping Business Plan PDF or...

Download Business Plan Template

Book in a free consultation & feasibility analysis on your plot of land - BOOK HERE - all questions answered on your glamping business plan template

Living Off Grid UK: How to Live a Better Life: A blog post around the benefits of living off the grid

By tom Marsh • June 5, 2022

Want to live off the grid and experience a minimalist lifestyle? The future of modern life will most certainly be off the grid as traditional natural energy sources become finite. Find out what we have learnt from setting up our off the grid Tiny Home glamping business. We go into detail about: Advantages of living off the grid How to live off the grid and find land for your Tiny Home What renewable energy sources did and didn't work. What appliances are required to minimise your energy usage to live self sufficiently What is Living Off The Grid Living off the grid means living independently, without depending on the national grid for power or other utilities. People who live off the grid care deeply about their impact on the planet and want to reduce their cost of living with a debt free self sufficient lifestyle. Growing communities of people with off-grid properties are thriving! Advantages of Living Off The Grid Minimal Carbon Footprint For Sustainable Lives An off-grid lifestyle is best way to be environmentally friendly. Much like a vegetarian is giving up meat, you are giving up producing carbon emissions through relying on renewable energy for electricity and heating. Improved Mental Health & Physical Health It's been scientifically proven that tree-bathing / being situated in nature reduces stress hormone production, improve feelings of happiness and free up creativity, as well as lower heart rate and blood pressure, boost the immune system and accelerate recovery from illness. The natural environment provides pure tranquility to meditate and be in control of your actions and thought process. Most of our guests do exactly this and use time to their advantage to slow down. Save Money On Your Energy Bills Being connected to the national grid means you’re at the mercy of price hikes as and when utility companies see fit (case and point). Although the initial cost of going off the grid and solar energy can be higher. Installing solar panels, battery storage, wind turbines and buying sustainable appliances has a green premium albeit this is reducing and for Tiny Homes you do not need much off-grid power. The longer term savings are worth it though given we pay nothing for the electricity generated from solar used in our Tiny Homes. Our cost is £17 a month to power the remaining appliances with gas such as a gas boiler & hob. For heating, we spend about £50 a month in the winter to heat the Tiny Homes. But can chop your own wood if want to be fully self sufficient. Going fully off-grid would also mean you have less cash tied up in a house, can have a debt free life and pay reduced property taxes. Exciting Natural Environment Completely Off-Grid Being off-grid opens you up to plenty of adventurous hobbies. For instance, being off-grid in the mountains provides an endless amount of activities from skiing, rock climbing, trail running and mountain bike. The majority of off-grid locations will open up our horizon to historical monuments hidden in the wild thought the endless opportunity of hiking trails and beautiful country roads to cycle. Even paddle boarding (SUPing) and wild swimming down rivers / sea bays are possible off-grid. In one of our off-grid locations in Dorset we are walk able from a Iron Age Hill Fort, The Dorset Gap, a historic trading point where 5 paths and have the largest 55m chalk giant. Not to mention all the Castles around. How Do I Live or Escape off the grid UK The escape option is easy with this shameless plug - stay at one of our tiny houses. First of all here are various forms of living off the grid. Your can disconnect your house from he national grid by installing renewable energy sources and batteries. Or you can do fully off-grid living in the wild. This might involve building a tiny home, installing your own renewable energy, connecting to a rain harvesting system and growing your own food. Living off-grid does require some learning and preparation as will change every aspect of your lifestyle. You will need to work out what you will want from your off-grid lifestyle as your renewable energy system will dictate your usage and appliances you can use. Therefore, you will want to size this correctly This is what we have learnt:- Location / Land / Planning Permission Most people cant find a piece of land. This is tough on a small scale and buying land means you will be restricted to whats on the market. Add Land is a great place to start your search and have a great buying guide here. Renting farmland is a better strategy in terms of having more land available to you and potentially more suitable to your off-grid lifestyle. They also might have an existing planning permission for a rural worker dwelling. Finding other people who want to live off-grid will improve your negotiating power here and make it more worthwhile for a rural farmer to situate you on your land. We will be going into further details on this section in another blog post "Is living off-grid illegal" so make sure you subscribe to stay updated Property - Tiny Houses Off-Grid Tiny Houses are certainly the easiest way to escape off the grid given their affordability, mobility and minimal impact on the land. There compact and minimalist design provide a simplistic way to live without clutter. There is even the possibility to self build your tiny home with your own off-grid home design. In terms of planning, there it is still early days for the Tiny Home and currently sits in a grey area given its temporary nature. Our Tiny Homes for holiday escapes can work under a planning exemption license however for more permanent off-grid living a test bed is currently being launched in Teignmouth, Devon. We will discuss this in another blog post so please subscribe to stay updated. Solar Power, Batteries & Renewable Energy Renewable energy technology has improved and the average cost for Solar & wind energy has been reduced dramatically. Our Tiny Homes energy equipment includes Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, Battery storage, Inverter, and a charge controller. We have 1,500 watts of energy currently which are connected to a charge controller and two 110ah batteries to be stored. The battery power is sent to our 12v appliances directly or it converted into 240v by our 300 watt inverter to power our electrical system. All our electrical appliances use less than 300 watts but any item above this such as a toaster or hair dryer will trip the system. Solar Power is the best way to power your Tiny Home as modern technology now means all panels are photovoltaic which means they just need daylight to get power, not necessarily direct sunlight, which is beneficial in the winter months. Albeit for 12 weeks of the year (6 weeks either side of Christmas), off-grid living in the UK is tricky given the very limited amount of daylight hours.Therefore energy consumption will have to be minimal. Even having a big batter bank will not solve this as you will be producing 10% of the power you did in the summer Wind power is not very energy efficient on a small scale. We have a 500 watt turbine conencted to our Tiny Home and they need a good amount of wind to produce any sort of electricity. The majority of the time they are not running and if they are, they are noisy interupting the tranquility. We have tested both a lead-acid battery and a lithium battery. We would recommend the latter even though is 5x more expensive. Lead-acid batteries sulfate quickly (lose there charge capacity) when there charge is consistently reduce below 50% (this was our off-grid living mistake and batteries lasted 2 months in the winter) and therefore the lifespan is much better for lithium batteries. Not to mentioned you can get a 5 year warranty for lithium. Alternative sources of power are hydroelectric power, heat pumps and a bio - digester Sizing your off-grid system is not straight forward and it is very much dependent on your energy consumption and choice of electrical appliances (discussed below) Heating A wood burning fireplace is a delightful and ambient way to keep off grid homes warm. If you’re near to woodlands, you can source free wood which is ideal for the off-grid lifestyle. Wood is also a carbon free natural source however, you should remember that in order to reduce CO2 emissions, burning wet wood is no longer legal. A water heater will be required for hot water. We recommend using a gas water boiler as powering an electrical one would be impossible on a micro off-grid solar system all year around. Would require a much bigger setup with more power, more batteries and a bigger inverter. Water Source Your biggest hurdle to off-grid living will be trying to find a water supply. A natural water source could be drilling a bore hole to get clean water, connecting a pump to a spring for fresh water or rain water harvesting It is also fairly straightforward to mole plough a water line from one of these sources or cheat a little bit by connecting to an existing pump of the land. Having an off grid shower using a natural water source direct to your home is an inspiring wash! But beware, rainwater can be collected, but that’s not always dependable. Sewage What do you do with human waste and food waste? Where does the grey and brown water go? Having a compost loo will solve all your waste problems. There is no plumbing connection as does not require flushing. Effectively have a wee funnel that goes directly into a small soak away outside (legal if not more than 10l a day) and a glamorous bucket where your human waste goes. This can be emptied by taking out the compost bag and putting in a compost bin to create manure. Therefore, the only water waste is grey water which again is filtered into a soak away and can use natural environmentally product, soaps and washing up liquid, to have zero impact on the land. Therefore, you avoid any plumbing connection to the grid or digging in a septic tank which will require emptying every so often Electronic Appliances & Energy Consumption Most electrical items do not use too much electricity given modern technology. Charging you phone will require 50 watts and so will running a water pump. The difficult electrical appliances are your fridge, water heater, washing machine, cooking hob and oven oven. You can forget about a toaster, kettle and hairdryer. An off-grid living mistake was to have an eco-fridge which ran on 40 watts. However, the starter moter required 1,200 watts to start which tripped our electrical system. Therefore, we ran on an electrical cool box for a time period before we could fit a compressor fridge. The compressor fridge is more efficient but it is noisy and therefore our preference would be an electric coolbox which you can turn off when you sleep as holds the cold for 9 hours You will have to buy a weird eco-friendly washing machine or you it yourself with a pumping spin system such as the wonder wash . Food If you are situated on fertile land growing your own vegetables will be a great addition your off-grid lifestyle. We are no experts here but there is plenty of articles to read here Conclusion Living off-grid in Tiny Homes is a growing trend. We are still at early stages of this as a model for living but the technology is there, and experiments are starting with certain local authorities around the UK with regards to the land and planning. Therefore, even though the land and planning piece is currently difficult but possible, it will become much more straight forward in the future. We believe the future way to live will be in off-grid communities situated in Tiny Homes around Europe for those that want to adventure and live a sustainable minimalist nomad lifestyle. Experience the off-grid life in one of our Tiny Homes or subscribe to our blog to support us make this happen

How To Start A Glamping Business With No Planning Permission In 90 days

By tom Marsh • May 25, 2022

You have acres of beautiful farm land set in the rural countryside but do not know how to get planning permission for your glamping site or even if it will be a success? Or do you not have the capital to purchase glamping pods to get started? We can help with your Glamping Journey! No planning permission or infrastructure required. Firstly, the majority of glamping site's in the glamping industry are focused on glamorous camping in outstanding natural beauty with glamping tent's (a bell tent, a yurt, a geodesic dome, bubble tents) rather than luxury Tiny Houses or a Shepherd Hut These glamping structure's all require planning permission fro the local authority unless used for under 28 days. But we can avoid planning permission with our off-grid eco Tiny Homes (latest trending glamping structure) as they are fully mobile on a road legal steel trailer and require no infrastructure with solar panels connected. This allows us to successfully create a sustainable authentic glamping resort saving you up to £113,000 in start-up glamping costs with our off-grid Tiny Houses , in comparison to using other glamping pods such as a Shepherds Hut, a Yurt, a safari tent, bubble tents & Pods. How Does Our Unique Glamping Business Work Saving £113,000? Taking the first step with your glamping business plan; is your land feasible. Understanding what area of land is best for off-grid Tiny Houses is part of our expertise. We understand what makes an idyllic spot to make a feasible glamping business so you can concentrate on moving your vision of starting a glamping business forwards. Book a free consultation by getting in touch with us below. Saving time, money & energy by avoiding the need for planning permission. Planning permission can cost £20,000+ and take 12+ months to get, potentially costing another £30,000 in lost revenue. We understand the planning permission process inside and out and work with a planning exemption license to avoid having to put a planning application into the local authority. We have vetted all our land to meet these criteria, so we could have up to five off-grid Tiny Houses ready in 90 days. An average glamping business infrastructure set-up can cost £40,000 - not with us. Working with public bodies to gain access to on-grid electrical, water and sewage connection is time consuming, costly and requires planning permission. Even putting in septic tanks is expensive and needs planning permission. On the other hand, minimal infrastructure is required for our off-grid Tiny Homes. Or tiny houses sustainably designed to run regeneratively off-grid - powered by solar energy and not producing sewage due to the use of a compost toilet. It is also fixed to a trailer meaning no foundations are required and has minimal impact on nature. We provide an opportunity to own off-grid Tiny Homes in outstanding natural beauty, minus the operational hassle. Making money in your sleep with passive income whilst being able to also enjoy your off-grid Tiny Home is now achievable through our business plan. Let us take care of the nitty-gritty, as we can deal with the whole operations side - from website, marketing , guest inquiries, cleaning, consumables, and guest check-ins. Building a website, brand, legal and marketing plan can cost £23,000+ before you even get your first customer. How Are Our Off-Grid Tiny Houses Made? They are a 16sq m (2.44m wide by 7m long) self-contained glamping unit with an en-suite, including a hot shower and a compost toilet. They are built like a house that is attached to a steel trailer. This solid trailer acts as the foundation and means a Tiny House can be simplistically towed to its tranquil, off-grid location. The accommodation has a lifespan of 25 years+ while the frame can last 65+ years and all units are sustainably run off solar, wood and gas to ensure they will always be in demand and are kind to their natural surroundings. They are latest trend in the glamping market providing a luxury glamping structure with a strong differential to other glamping pod's So, How Can We Help You Become a Glamping Business Owner? We practice what we preach. The proof is in the pudding through our very own sustainable and successful glamping business, Shuffle Life. Our off-grid Tiny Home Glamping Site can produce £150,000+ (£30,000+ per tiny home) in revenue with a 75% Occupancy at £120 Average Nightly Rate. We can help you return ~20% return per year on your capital. Much higher than traditional real estate. From setting up a fully fledge glamping business to owning a part or whole of a tiny home in 90 days - we can facilitate any need you have. How we make you money with our three models... In summary, we have three models that align ourselves with you by putting our own capital into the off-grid tiny homes to de-risk the process: You have the land, and we can purchase and operate the off-grid cabins. You receive a 25% profit share for the land *No capital, risk or effort on your behalf.* You want a higher return? You can buy 50% of a tiny home and we share 50% of the profit after your rent You want all the return? You can buy 100% and operate yourself with our assistance on helping you get started. If you want to explore this further by downloading: Our tiny house landowner brochure, Our tiny houses specification brochure Please get in touch with tom@escapeoffthegrid.com to receive the above and find out how to start a glamping business today.