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All right, welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip podcast.

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We're joining Ryan Appleton today from the Lazy Tiger hostel in Asheville, North Carolina.

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We're joined with my business partner and co-founder of ITH Hostels, Robert Dyer.

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I'm here at the ITH Santa Barbara hostel hanging out with my good friend Yogi right there.

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And we're super excited to dive into a new episode and hear what's going on in Asheville

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and how your experience was and what brought you to doing this experience.

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I find that hostel owners are always very eclectic and interesting people at their core.

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So I'm always excited to hear.

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But let's swing it over to you, Ryan.

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What was your first hostel exposure?

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How did you get exposed to the industry?

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Yeah, officially, I'm Yogi.

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My first hostel was in Rome, the Yellow hostel.

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It was a post-graduation college trip.

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There were six guys that went over there and I done a little bit of traveling as a kid,

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but that was the first time, you know, without parents paying for it.

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We did a two-week trip across Europe and kind of the standard classic traveler mistake of

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over-traveling and overbooking.

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And so we did six cities in two weeks across the continent and it was mostly drinking and

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running around and not a whole lot of sightseeing.

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But stayed in a bunch of hostels, met a lot of cool people.

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That's awesome.

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Yeah, my first hostel experience was in Dublin, Ireland.

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I studied abroad there and we started hopping around all over Europe and hostels.

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And it really, that was the first taste for me and that I really had a yearning to try

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to see how we could maybe bring the industry more fruition over here in the States.

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And it's been a wild journey thus far in doing so.

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But now, how did you come up with the name the Lazy Tiger?

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The Lazy Tiger was kind of maybe the fourth or fifth attempt at a name.

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I really just wanted something like catchy and memorable and cool.

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So I went to school at Auburn as where the tiger came from and I was like, oh, cool.

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I just like the idea of hostels having mascots, you know.

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I tried a few things.

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I did a long trip through South America and when it was going with some Spanish words

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and those didn't really play and some of my redneck friends were like, what if we can't

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pronounce it?

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And it ended up with something very easy and memorable, the Lazy Tiger.

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And here we are.

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Wow.

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Are you from that?

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I'm not.

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I grew up outside of Atlanta.

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So I spent the majority of my time in suburban Atlanta and then moved up here in the end of

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2018.

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I grew up here about five and a half years now.

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Very nice.

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Now, what about the, okay, Bob?

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Yeah, I was going to say, what made you decide on Asheville?

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Because there's a couple of hostels there, but how did you bring your dream to Asheville?

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Yeah, so I wanted to stay in the Southeast.

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I didn't love the Atlanta market.

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And so I was looking around at a few different cities around the Southeast and looked at

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Nashville, looked at Charleston, looked at Key West, looked at New Orleans.

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And it was kind of this sweet spot of, you know, there's, there are some competition

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here, some other hostels here, but they're both kind of small, cool, independent hostels

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too.

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You know, real estate was reasonably affordable as opposed to some of those other bigger cities

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and the type of traveler that comes here.

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So it's a nice mix of adventure travelers that want to get out and hike and bike and

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kayak.

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And then you also have the folks that want to hang out downtown and hang out at the breweries

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and go to the shows.

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And there's like the, there's plenty of folks that come into town that would be open to

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staying at a hostel, even if they haven't already.

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And that's the market I kind of wanted to tap into.

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Nice.

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I was to follow up with that.

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Now how you did the amazing thing of building it from the ground up, which is pretty rare

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in the hostile world.

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A lot of times, you know, most people renovate older buildings, but why did you decide to

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go that route?

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And how did you go?

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Yeah.

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How'd you get there?

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I didn't plan on it.

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My plan was just like everybody else's to buy an old house and renovate it.

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And I just got up here and had a hard time finding a house that worked.

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You know, the city zoning was going to be tricky in the city limits of Asheville.

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They didn't really know what a hostel was, even though there's two here.

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I think those folks are kind of grandfathered in and they kind of wanted to call me a hotel

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and there's all sorts of regulations around hotels here in the city limits of Asheville.

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And so I found this piece of land right outside the city limits.

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It's only eight or nine minutes from downtown, but it's just over the line in the next town

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up and they were much more open to doing business with it.

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The zoning was fine.

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And so I just said, well, that's that.

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And yeah, I came up here just so naive thinking I was going to be open in six months or when

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I moved up here and it took me about five years.

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So I just missed the mark on that.

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The cool thing about building, building by yourself is our building from scratch as you

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get to set it up exactly how you want.

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I got to kind of lay out perfect for my dream and it just took a little bit longer and cost

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a little bit more.

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That's an awesome experience though.

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And so cool for, you know, anyone listening that's in the same situation, like what a

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great insight you might have problems in the city's ordinance that you're working in.

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If you just go over an imaginary line into a different town or a different county, you

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might find that these are much more friendly to your business model and they're much more

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helpful, but you're still within the same market demographic target that you were looking

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for.

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So that's a, that's a great story there and a great insight for people.

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And then the bill to sue, you know, that's such a unique experience for how standard

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it is, how we started, you know, we moved into a house that was built in 1886.

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Oops, you're breaking up a little bit, Jimmy.

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He was saying, yeah, we, we started our hospital journey in a house from 1886 that was an older

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property.

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There he's back.

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What a, now that you built the property.

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That bill to sue it, that bill to sue is such an interesting experience.

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Hindsight me in 2020, what did you learn from building to sue, Ryan?

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I learned how little I knew.

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I'm just a, an optimist by nature.

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So I just kind of thought everything would go fine.

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And then you talk to anybody who's ever built anything and they'll tell you that's absurd

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to think that.

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And I got, I got really fortunate all my family is in except for me.

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And so they were resources.

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Oh, that's right.

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Three consultants is what I called them.

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So I asked them all the dumb questions and then I could have intelligent conversations

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with my builder.

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But yeah, it's just the, the really is the decision overload that hits, right?

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So you just don't realize how many small decisions have to be made about what doorknob

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you want here and, you know, type of crown molding.

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I didn't know there was more than one type of crown molding until I got it.

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It's just, yeah, you have to make a decision on everything possible and not just like,

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no, I want to run a hostile mouth, you know.

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Now were you living there like nearby to make sure everything was staying tight?

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Are you managing the construction from afar?

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So I was living during construction and my apartment was about a mile north.

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So I could pop in every single day.

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I don't know how crazy my builder was about that, but it was the, I was able to keep an

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eye on things, which was nice.

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Yeah.

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And I drive by it every day and it would drive me crazy when it'd be a Tuesday and I wouldn't

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see anything happening.

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And it's just how it goes sometimes.

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But you know, builders and contractors, they have one of the jobs going on, but I had one

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care in the world was to get this thing going.

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And so it was an exercise in patience sometimes.

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Yeah.

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Now, did you work in hostels before or what kind of experience did you bring into this?

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No, not at all.

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I mean, all my experience was as a traveler.

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I might, I had a job in corporate America for seven or eight years doing software engineering

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and data analytics, which just doesn't prepare you to run a hostile at all.

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And then I just slowly fell out of love with that work.

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I out-of-anted around South America trying to figure out what was next for me and, and

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up staying at a bunch of hostels down there.

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I decided it's what I wanted to do.

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And I had no, I mean, I had worked in restaurants and stuff, but no real lodging experience.

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But when I moved up here, I got a job at a bed and breakfast and worked there for two

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and a half years.

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And it's obviously a very different product, super high end, but they learned a lot about

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hospitality and I was doing mostly housekeeping there.

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That's where I really cut my teeth on cleaning toilets and making beds and folding sheets

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and all the fun stuff we get to do.

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Right.

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That's great.

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Now, what are the other two hostels in town?

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You said you were the third one.

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Yeah.

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So they're Bompall and Sharkies over in West Ashgrove.

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I think you all have talked to Joe before.

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Yeah, we know Joe.

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And then there's one downtown called Sweet Peas.

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Oh, okay.

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And you, but you're the most recent Asheville addition to the hostel industry.

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Yeah.

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They've both been open at least 10 years, I think.

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And so I'm going to keep it on the block.

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How do you find it?

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Is it, do you find that there's a bit of camaraderie?

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Like a lot of times we'll meet up with other hostel owners and operators in the towns that

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we have multiple hostels operating in?

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Or do you find it difficult with that many hostels in town?

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How's that going?

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I mean, I don't find it difficult at all.

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I don't know either of the owners.

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I certainly know people who know Joe and everybody speaks highly of him.

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I don't know much about the folks that run Sweet Peas at all.

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I know some folks that have worked at both and that's always kind of fun, just exchanging

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stories and...

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Sure, sure.

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I'm very, I'm not one of these people that know where my business plan is to say that

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other hostels have to fail for mine to succeed, right?

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I agree so much on that.

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There's combined maybe 80 hostel beds in town and something like 2200 hotel rooms.

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So I think there's a lot for us to grow.

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So I so much agree with that.

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And that's why I think everyone should always be welcoming, excited to see small operators

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joining the market, you know, because that's just a sign that the market's getting stronger.

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Now you're going to attend the North American Hostel Association Conference coming up next

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month in April?

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I'm not next month.

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I would love to.

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I'm currently still employee one of one and a half.

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So I have one part-time employee that helps me, but I do not have the staff to turn this

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off in April just yet.

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I'm kind of planning the seed for 2025 is the time for the team to be big enough for

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me to get on out there.

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Nice.

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Cool, cool.

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Now what about...

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I'll say for your hostel, what kind of, how are you different?

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How do you feel about negotiating yourself to try to appeal to the, you know, different

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than the other hostels in town?

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Yeah, I think for me, it's, I have a little bit more space for folks to spread out.

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So I mean, obviously there's pros to being downtown or where a sweet PZ is for example,

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but you're also kind of in a condo building down to, you know, in the middle of town and

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you have to pay 20 bucks a night for parking.

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And there's just some, some things that come with that.

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I'm on about a half acre lot here with a quarter acre of green space in the back.

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And so I think it tailors probably more to the folks that want to come in, you know,

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get out and do adventures during the day, mountain bike, kayak, that kind of thing.

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And then come back and have a place to relax and lounge around.

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We have a big back deck that overlooks the backyard and a small creek that runs back

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there.

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So it's maybe a small bit of serenity in the pretty damn close to the city.

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So.

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Very nice.

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So you get many hikers from the Appalachian Trail passing through?

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Not a ton.

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I get the occasional call and we've had a few, but the closest exit point of the trail

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is about 30 minutes drive.

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So they're going to have, they'd have to shuttle down and we're not too far away from Hot Springs,

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which is a trail town.

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So I think a lot of folks just load up there.

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I take care of packages.

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I welcome folks to come.

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Nice.

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Now, what do you use for your reservation software?

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Are you a cloud beds person or are you like hostile snap or what you find best for you?

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I actually use a software called Servoy that I stumbled on.

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It speaks to how cool hostile owners are.

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I met this lady, this is back when I still lived in Atlanta when I just had the idea,

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posted on some random Facebook group looking for WordPress advice and she said, you know,

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I helped manage one down in Costa Rica, but she lived in Atlanta and she's like, you want

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to grab coffee and we met for two hours and she talked about how all of their systems work

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and they were on Servoy.

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And so that's been kind of my mind ever since and it was way more affordable than cloud

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beds.

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It has to be desired too.

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So I don't, you can see myself eventually switching to something more sophisticated,

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but for now it gets the job done.

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Servoy, all right, cool.

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Yeah, there are a lot of options out there and definitely you can find a good deal if

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you're willing to look for it.

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Now, did you end up joining the Hostel in US or US Hostel in the gals that created that

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out of Denver there?

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It's the direct booking site for US Hostels.

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Yeah, I haven't yet.

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I've been keeping in touch with them.

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It's cool to see what they're doing.

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Marketing dollars are kind of between right now, but when I presented at a group here

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locally not too long ago and a common question that we got is like, is there, what kind of

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trade organizations are there?

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And at the time they were fun.

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And so it's so cool seeing Sydney and them spending that up.

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I think the back of my face and I'm sure you all have seen this too is it's not like it.

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Americans are scared to stay at hostels.

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You go to Europe, there's Americans all over the place.

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It's just that they don't necessarily always think that it's an option, right?

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When you're traveling.

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Yeah, the awareness, yes.

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And so anything we can do to kind of spread that word is worth doing.

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Absolutely, no.

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And that's a big part of why we're doing this here is that awareness element of keeping

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the word out there and letting people know that there are so many cool hostels.

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And that's another great resource that's happening with Sydney out there and working

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on that US Hostelink project and bringing all these good US hostels.

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Yeah, and they have a great conference.

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We're going to do a Western road trip and check out some of the US and I have inside

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the US and I need to fix that.

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And you're always welcome to come stay at any ICH.

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You know what?

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We'll put you up for free and happy to have you.

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That's one of the great things about being a hostel owner is we can all take care of

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each other in that way.

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And they have a great conference out there in Denver and November every year.

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That's another good one that if you can attend a lot of great people go to and it's just

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nice to be there and mix up ideas and share stories.

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So hopefully you can make it and attend some of those and meet some of you other fellow

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hostel owners there in Asheville.

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Now how is that?

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Is it picking up over there for spring break and business wise and looking like on a comeback

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out of the pandemic?

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Yeah, it is.

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It's starting to, I was actually downtown last night and it felt different.

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Like it felt crowded.

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You know what?

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Our busiest month is actually October.

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A lot of folks come in for leaf season and that's when it really explodes and then it

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gets slow in the winter, slows down some and then yeah, getting around spring break is

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when it starts to pick back up.

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So excited to start getting more folks in town.

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It's been a labor of love fighting through this log of winter a little bit as part of

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a new business.

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I'm very excited to get some warm weather and some warm bodies in here.

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Awesome.

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Nice.

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Now anything in closing that you would say to any prospective hostel owners or people

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that might be looking to come to Asheville to visit the Lazy Tiger closing thoughts from

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you?

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Well, I mean for visitors, I'd certainly love to have them there.

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Like I said, there's three options here.

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I'd love for you to stay with me.

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If you stay elsewhere, I wouldn't blame you.

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I just hope it's not a hotel.

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But for any aspiring hostel owners, I would just say just keep going.

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You know, like I said, I thought it was going to take me a few months.

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It didn't hurt to know a lot on anything I tried to do.

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And so if it's actually something you want to do, just keep chugging.

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The resilience is the number one key, I think.

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So true.

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Yeah, no, that's such so true.

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Stay with it.

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Stick with it.

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Don't give up.

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All right.

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Well, thank you so much, Ryan Appleton from the Lazy Tiger Hostel in Asheville, North

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Carolina.

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So much appreciate you taking the time to do a podcast with us for the Hostel Road Trip

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podcast.

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And stay tuned for this episode to be released on various formats.

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But thanks again, Bob Dyer.

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Anything for you in closing?

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No, thanks again, Ryan.

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It was a great talking to you and we wish you all the best.

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We'll be recommending you for any any guests looking to go out to Asheville.

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Yeah, if you'll head out this way, give me a shout.

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We happy to have you.

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Same to you, man.

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We'll do.

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Have a good day.

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All right.

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Thank you.