All right, welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip podcast.
We're joining Ryan Appleton today from the Lazy Tiger hostel in Asheville, North Carolina.
We're joined with my business partner and co-founder of ITH Hostels, Robert Dyer.
I'm here at the ITH Santa Barbara hostel hanging out with my good friend Yogi right there.
And we're super excited to dive into a new episode and hear what's going on in Asheville
and how your experience was and what brought you to doing this experience.
I find that hostel owners are always very eclectic and interesting people at their core.
So I'm always excited to hear.
But let's swing it over to you, Ryan.
What was your first hostel exposure?
How did you get exposed to the industry?
Yeah, officially, I'm Yogi.
My first hostel was in Rome, the Yellow hostel.
It was a post-graduation college trip.
There were six guys that went over there and I done a little bit of traveling as a kid,
but that was the first time, you know, without parents paying for it.
We did a two-week trip across Europe and kind of the standard classic traveler mistake of
over-traveling and overbooking.
And so we did six cities in two weeks across the continent and it was mostly drinking and
running around and not a whole lot of sightseeing.
But stayed in a bunch of hostels, met a lot of cool people.
That's awesome.
Yeah, my first hostel experience was in Dublin, Ireland.
I studied abroad there and we started hopping around all over Europe and hostels.
And it really, that was the first taste for me and that I really had a yearning to try
to see how we could maybe bring the industry more fruition over here in the States.
And it's been a wild journey thus far in doing so.
But now, how did you come up with the name the Lazy Tiger?
The Lazy Tiger was kind of maybe the fourth or fifth attempt at a name.
I really just wanted something like catchy and memorable and cool.
So I went to school at Auburn as where the tiger came from and I was like, oh, cool.
I just like the idea of hostels having mascots, you know.
I tried a few things.
I did a long trip through South America and when it was going with some Spanish words
and those didn't really play and some of my redneck friends were like, what if we can't
pronounce it?
And it ended up with something very easy and memorable, the Lazy Tiger.
And here we are.
Wow.
Are you from that?
I'm not.
I grew up outside of Atlanta.
So I spent the majority of my time in suburban Atlanta and then moved up here in the end of
2018.
I grew up here about five and a half years now.
Very nice.
Now, what about the, okay, Bob?
Yeah, I was going to say, what made you decide on Asheville?
Because there's a couple of hostels there, but how did you bring your dream to Asheville?
Yeah, so I wanted to stay in the Southeast.
I didn't love the Atlanta market.
And so I was looking around at a few different cities around the Southeast and looked at
Nashville, looked at Charleston, looked at Key West, looked at New Orleans.
And it was kind of this sweet spot of, you know, there's, there are some competition
here, some other hostels here, but they're both kind of small, cool, independent hostels
too.
You know, real estate was reasonably affordable as opposed to some of those other bigger cities
and the type of traveler that comes here.
So it's a nice mix of adventure travelers that want to get out and hike and bike and
kayak.
And then you also have the folks that want to hang out downtown and hang out at the breweries
and go to the shows.
And there's like the, there's plenty of folks that come into town that would be open to
staying at a hostel, even if they haven't already.
And that's the market I kind of wanted to tap into.
Nice.
I was to follow up with that.
Now how you did the amazing thing of building it from the ground up, which is pretty rare
in the hostile world.
A lot of times, you know, most people renovate older buildings, but why did you decide to
go that route?
And how did you go?
Yeah.
How'd you get there?
I didn't plan on it.
My plan was just like everybody else's to buy an old house and renovate it.
And I just got up here and had a hard time finding a house that worked.
You know, the city zoning was going to be tricky in the city limits of Asheville.
They didn't really know what a hostel was, even though there's two here.
I think those folks are kind of grandfathered in and they kind of wanted to call me a hotel
and there's all sorts of regulations around hotels here in the city limits of Asheville.
And so I found this piece of land right outside the city limits.
It's only eight or nine minutes from downtown, but it's just over the line in the next town
up and they were much more open to doing business with it.
The zoning was fine.
And so I just said, well, that's that.
And yeah, I came up here just so naive thinking I was going to be open in six months or when
I moved up here and it took me about five years.
So I just missed the mark on that.
The cool thing about building, building by yourself is our building from scratch as you
get to set it up exactly how you want.
I got to kind of lay out perfect for my dream and it just took a little bit longer and cost
a little bit more.
That's an awesome experience though.
And so cool for, you know, anyone listening that's in the same situation, like what a
great insight you might have problems in the city's ordinance that you're working in.
If you just go over an imaginary line into a different town or a different county, you
might find that these are much more friendly to your business model and they're much more
helpful, but you're still within the same market demographic target that you were looking
for.
So that's a, that's a great story there and a great insight for people.
And then the bill to sue, you know, that's such a unique experience for how standard
it is, how we started, you know, we moved into a house that was built in 1886.
Oops, you're breaking up a little bit, Jimmy.
He was saying, yeah, we, we started our hospital journey in a house from 1886 that was an older
property.
There he's back.
What a, now that you built the property.
That bill to sue it, that bill to sue is such an interesting experience.
Hindsight me in 2020, what did you learn from building to sue, Ryan?
I learned how little I knew.
I'm just a, an optimist by nature.
So I just kind of thought everything would go fine.
And then you talk to anybody who's ever built anything and they'll tell you that's absurd
to think that.
And I got, I got really fortunate all my family is in except for me.
And so they were resources.
Oh, that's right.
Three consultants is what I called them.
So I asked them all the dumb questions and then I could have intelligent conversations
with my builder.
But yeah, it's just the, the really is the decision overload that hits, right?
So you just don't realize how many small decisions have to be made about what doorknob
you want here and, you know, type of crown molding.
I didn't know there was more than one type of crown molding until I got it.
It's just, yeah, you have to make a decision on everything possible and not just like,
no, I want to run a hostile mouth, you know.
Now were you living there like nearby to make sure everything was staying tight?
Are you managing the construction from afar?
So I was living during construction and my apartment was about a mile north.
So I could pop in every single day.
I don't know how crazy my builder was about that, but it was the, I was able to keep an
eye on things, which was nice.
Yeah.
And I drive by it every day and it would drive me crazy when it'd be a Tuesday and I wouldn't
see anything happening.
And it's just how it goes sometimes.
But you know, builders and contractors, they have one of the jobs going on, but I had one
care in the world was to get this thing going.
And so it was an exercise in patience sometimes.
Yeah.
Now, did you work in hostels before or what kind of experience did you bring into this?
No, not at all.
I mean, all my experience was as a traveler.
I might, I had a job in corporate America for seven or eight years doing software engineering
and data analytics, which just doesn't prepare you to run a hostile at all.
And then I just slowly fell out of love with that work.
I out-of-anted around South America trying to figure out what was next for me and, and
up staying at a bunch of hostels down there.
I decided it's what I wanted to do.
And I had no, I mean, I had worked in restaurants and stuff, but no real lodging experience.
But when I moved up here, I got a job at a bed and breakfast and worked there for two
and a half years.
And it's obviously a very different product, super high end, but they learned a lot about
hospitality and I was doing mostly housekeeping there.
That's where I really cut my teeth on cleaning toilets and making beds and folding sheets
and all the fun stuff we get to do.
Right.
That's great.
Now, what are the other two hostels in town?
You said you were the third one.
Yeah.
So they're Bompall and Sharkies over in West Ashgrove.
I think you all have talked to Joe before.
Yeah, we know Joe.
And then there's one downtown called Sweet Peas.
Oh, okay.
And you, but you're the most recent Asheville addition to the hostel industry.
Yeah.
They've both been open at least 10 years, I think.
And so I'm going to keep it on the block.
How do you find it?
Is it, do you find that there's a bit of camaraderie?
Like a lot of times we'll meet up with other hostel owners and operators in the towns that
we have multiple hostels operating in?
Or do you find it difficult with that many hostels in town?
How's that going?
I mean, I don't find it difficult at all.
I don't know either of the owners.
I certainly know people who know Joe and everybody speaks highly of him.
I don't know much about the folks that run Sweet Peas at all.
I know some folks that have worked at both and that's always kind of fun, just exchanging
stories and...
Sure, sure.
I'm very, I'm not one of these people that know where my business plan is to say that
other hostels have to fail for mine to succeed, right?
I agree so much on that.
There's combined maybe 80 hostel beds in town and something like 2200 hotel rooms.
So I think there's a lot for us to grow.
So I so much agree with that.
And that's why I think everyone should always be welcoming, excited to see small operators
joining the market, you know, because that's just a sign that the market's getting stronger.
Now you're going to attend the North American Hostel Association Conference coming up next
month in April?
I'm not next month.
I would love to.
I'm currently still employee one of one and a half.
So I have one part-time employee that helps me, but I do not have the staff to turn this
off in April just yet.
I'm kind of planning the seed for 2025 is the time for the team to be big enough for
me to get on out there.
Nice.
Cool, cool.
Now what about...
I'll say for your hostel, what kind of, how are you different?
How do you feel about negotiating yourself to try to appeal to the, you know, different
than the other hostels in town?
Yeah, I think for me, it's, I have a little bit more space for folks to spread out.
So I mean, obviously there's pros to being downtown or where a sweet PZ is for example,
but you're also kind of in a condo building down to, you know, in the middle of town and
you have to pay 20 bucks a night for parking.
And there's just some, some things that come with that.
I'm on about a half acre lot here with a quarter acre of green space in the back.
And so I think it tailors probably more to the folks that want to come in, you know,
get out and do adventures during the day, mountain bike, kayak, that kind of thing.
And then come back and have a place to relax and lounge around.
We have a big back deck that overlooks the backyard and a small creek that runs back
there.
So it's maybe a small bit of serenity in the pretty damn close to the city.
So.
Very nice.
So you get many hikers from the Appalachian Trail passing through?
Not a ton.
I get the occasional call and we've had a few, but the closest exit point of the trail
is about 30 minutes drive.
So they're going to have, they'd have to shuttle down and we're not too far away from Hot Springs,
which is a trail town.
So I think a lot of folks just load up there.
I take care of packages.
I welcome folks to come.
Nice.
Now, what do you use for your reservation software?
Are you a cloud beds person or are you like hostile snap or what you find best for you?
I actually use a software called Servoy that I stumbled on.
It speaks to how cool hostile owners are.
I met this lady, this is back when I still lived in Atlanta when I just had the idea,
posted on some random Facebook group looking for WordPress advice and she said, you know,
I helped manage one down in Costa Rica, but she lived in Atlanta and she's like, you want
to grab coffee and we met for two hours and she talked about how all of their systems work
and they were on Servoy.
And so that's been kind of my mind ever since and it was way more affordable than cloud
beds.
It has to be desired too.
So I don't, you can see myself eventually switching to something more sophisticated,
but for now it gets the job done.
Servoy, all right, cool.
Yeah, there are a lot of options out there and definitely you can find a good deal if
you're willing to look for it.
Now, did you end up joining the Hostel in US or US Hostel in the gals that created that
out of Denver there?
It's the direct booking site for US Hostels.
Yeah, I haven't yet.
I've been keeping in touch with them.
It's cool to see what they're doing.
Marketing dollars are kind of between right now, but when I presented at a group here
locally not too long ago and a common question that we got is like, is there, what kind of
trade organizations are there?
And at the time they were fun.
And so it's so cool seeing Sydney and them spending that up.
I think the back of my face and I'm sure you all have seen this too is it's not like it.
Americans are scared to stay at hostels.
You go to Europe, there's Americans all over the place.
It's just that they don't necessarily always think that it's an option, right?
When you're traveling.
Yeah, the awareness, yes.
And so anything we can do to kind of spread that word is worth doing.
Absolutely, no.
And that's a big part of why we're doing this here is that awareness element of keeping
the word out there and letting people know that there are so many cool hostels.
And that's another great resource that's happening with Sydney out there and working
on that US Hostelink project and bringing all these good US hostels.
Yeah, and they have a great conference.
We're going to do a Western road trip and check out some of the US and I have inside
the US and I need to fix that.
And you're always welcome to come stay at any ICH.
You know what?
We'll put you up for free and happy to have you.
That's one of the great things about being a hostel owner is we can all take care of
each other in that way.
And they have a great conference out there in Denver and November every year.
That's another good one that if you can attend a lot of great people go to and it's just
nice to be there and mix up ideas and share stories.
So hopefully you can make it and attend some of those and meet some of you other fellow
hostel owners there in Asheville.
Now how is that?
Is it picking up over there for spring break and business wise and looking like on a comeback
out of the pandemic?
Yeah, it is.
It's starting to, I was actually downtown last night and it felt different.
Like it felt crowded.
You know what?
Our busiest month is actually October.
A lot of folks come in for leaf season and that's when it really explodes and then it
gets slow in the winter, slows down some and then yeah, getting around spring break is
when it starts to pick back up.
So excited to start getting more folks in town.
It's been a labor of love fighting through this log of winter a little bit as part of
a new business.
I'm very excited to get some warm weather and some warm bodies in here.
Awesome.
Nice.
Now anything in closing that you would say to any prospective hostel owners or people
that might be looking to come to Asheville to visit the Lazy Tiger closing thoughts from
you?
Well, I mean for visitors, I'd certainly love to have them there.
Like I said, there's three options here.
I'd love for you to stay with me.
If you stay elsewhere, I wouldn't blame you.
I just hope it's not a hotel.
But for any aspiring hostel owners, I would just say just keep going.
You know, like I said, I thought it was going to take me a few months.
It didn't hurt to know a lot on anything I tried to do.
And so if it's actually something you want to do, just keep chugging.
The resilience is the number one key, I think.
So true.
Yeah, no, that's such so true.
Stay with it.
Stick with it.
Don't give up.
All right.
Well, thank you so much, Ryan Appleton from the Lazy Tiger Hostel in Asheville, North
Carolina.
So much appreciate you taking the time to do a podcast with us for the Hostel Road Trip
podcast.
And stay tuned for this episode to be released on various formats.
But thanks again, Bob Dyer.
Anything for you in closing?
No, thanks again, Ryan.
It was a great talking to you and we wish you all the best.
We'll be recommending you for any any guests looking to go out to Asheville.
Yeah, if you'll head out this way, give me a shout.
We happy to have you.
Same to you, man.
We'll do.
Have a good day.
All right.
Thank you.