A comment from HistoryWatcher on the WaPo article "Two Harvard guys based their million-dollar business on a whole lot of nothing." The business is Getaway — rentable tiny houses in the woods, with no amenities.
They cluster the tiny houses in groups of 20 or so on leased woodland, just outside major cities. Each outpost has a long-term lease on private land. Cabins are spaced 200 feet from one another, allowing sufficient privacy.... For $100 to $200 a night, you get running water, a shower, a stove, a small fridge, a clean bed, a toilet and a big window....This is like camping for people who need a little more security and bathroom access than you get in, say, a tent at a state park campsite. The landscape doesn't sound very interesting, so maybe it's good for people who mostly want to stay indoors — perhaps to read, write, or have sex — and look out a big window at trees.
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41 comments:
"The landscape doesn't sound very interesting, so maybe it's good for people who mostly want to stay indoors — perhaps to read, write, or have sex — and look out some big windows at trees."
You can do that at home.
This HistoryWatcher isn’t better than the millennials he lambastes. He sounds unglued. Chicken Little.
This Walden Pond Leavittown doesn’t appeal to me either. But might be a fun place for the younger folk to get high and have sex. There will be more generations.
Two-effing-hundred?!?!?! In the right rural area I can have a room in a Hampton Inn with free hot breakfast for about half that.
"You can do that at home."
Not if you don't have a tree outside your window.
There are many things you could do at home but you might nevertheless want to relocate yourself to force yourself to do. Like in "When You Are Engulfed in Flames," David Sedaris relocates to Japan to quit smoking.
Big margins. Nice business. I’m guessing their total costs less than $10 per night. Probably employs illegals to clean the cabins.
It sounds a lot like "KOA cabins" which are located at regular Kampgrounds of America sites.
mccullough: This HistoryWatcher isn’t better than the millennials he lambastes. He sounds unglued. Chicken Little.
My reaction, too. "I wonder if the younger generation subconsciously Sees What's Coming (sea level rising WAY more than 'predicted') and possible species extinction (ours)"? Yeah, sure dude, you're not one of *those* millenials.
This sounds appealing, though $200/night is a bit pricey, but then you're not going there to live permanently. If the landscape is not so great then it seems likely, as you say, that people go there for other things, mostly being off the grid.
"Not if you don't have a tree outside your window."
Ha! As if the Althouse portal to backyards does check the box the same as these boxes do. She's got a big window and trees. Same thing!
tcrosse said...You can do that at home.
Maybe you can, but, as the excerpt notes, these things are right outside cities--which are full of people who can't do that at home.
you get running water, a shower, a stove, a small fridge, a clean bed, a toilet and a big window.
I'm sorry, what's that about "no amenities"? One of us is unclear what "amenity" means.
I wonder if they have a cabin w/ a window that looks at a wee little bike track. That'd be nice so that parents could keep an eye on the kids playing outside.
”This is like camping for people who need a little more security and bathroom access than you get in, say, a tent at a state park campsite.
This isn’t camping, but then neither is what those people at the state park are doing.
Is it just me, or do a lot of us wish we lived in harder times. I do for everything except health care. The thing that makes the future unattractive to me is the expected lack of daily challenges. I imagine widespread boredom and wasted lives, but anything is possible. Bring on the zombie apocalypse so we can have some fun.
"you get running water, a shower, a stove, a small fridge, a clean bed, a toilet and a big window...."
What Tim said. No amenities?
I guess no cell phone reception, not Internet, no Netflix.
I wonder if the younger generation subconsciously Sees What's Coming (sea level rising WAY more than 'predicted') and possible species extinction (ours).
It’s an old shtick, first you create an imaginary villain, then you offer to protect the gullible. Jews, Climate Change, Eternal Damnation, it hardly matters, it works.
I suspect, like the less sex thing, one of the main drivers is being constantly plugged in, and for many, having to be plugged in to get ahead.
Trees block the view of the forest.
200 feet from one another...For $100 to $200 a night,
$0.50 to $1 per foot is pretty good.
What you mean is 'it is like camping for women'.
Most women
I suppose if you have the misfortune to live in an urban shithole, $200 a night is a reasonable price to get away from it. Of course, most of the people in the urban shitholes, especially the ones paying $200 a night for a view of a tree, weren't born there. They moved there, for what must have seemed good reasons.
With the right accoutrement, I could live like a noble savage for at least a weekend and maybe even a whole week.
What was that quote? 'It costs a lot of money to live simply.'
Don't forget that Thoreau was what we now call a 'trust fund baby' who farmed out his laundry to the nearby town. I don't know if he even cooked for himself.
This smacks of that variety of 'roughing it.'
Camping for people who don't really want the work and inconvenience of actual camping. NOt that there is anything wrong with that. If this is within your means and is your choice, it is certainly a good thing to do. I'm not going to denigrate people who are 'trying'.
We often go camping, even though we live surrounded by nature, trees, quiet, wildlife, above a nice river and don't have neighbors in close proximity. We have nothing to get away FROM and are surrounded by the very things that people come TO for that $200 a night experience.
Then why do we get into our 1978 trailer and get away?
1. Change of scenery
2. Isolation from technology, phones, internet, media, television (this is huge). We do bring music though.
3. Concentration on each other and on selves.
4. Ability to focus even more on the small details of life.
5. Meet some new people with no lingering commitments.
6. Relax. No obligations, other than those activities of daily living that must be done...like eating and cleaning up the area :-) No schedules. No nagging chores. No pressures.
Everyone should do this, in some form or another, for your own sanity and to nurture your soul.
“ ‘I wonder if the younger generation subconsciously Sees What's Coming (sea level rising WAY more than “predicted”) and possible species extinction (ours).’ ”
I weep for our future.
That there are people who seem seriously to believe this tripe boggles the mind.
Althouse,
Where's the "tiny house" tag?
Cottages like these used to be all over the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the Poconos and the east end of Long Island when I was a child. I assume they were everywhere within a days drive a large city.
When they were becoming rare in the 70's, my husband and I stayed in one in the Adirondacks that had 1939 World's Fair ashtrays and smelled of mold. The owner had run it with her husband since the 20's. I've seen a few renovated and made modern on Long Island.
The movie "it Happened One Night" (1934) had key scenes in one. Sinclair Lewis described them. I think everyone who works in the news business is not only under the age of 30, but they don't know anyone over the age of 30 and don't read or watch anything more than 2 yeard old.
I bet almost all of them bring their 4G phones with them.
And I doubt there is a lack of cell phone service "just outside" of any major metropolitan area.
@Leora,
As I understand it, before air conditioning it was common for New Yorkers to leave the city for those places in the summer.
But, like Marilyn, some like it hot....
Did anyone else besides me read "UN grounded suckers" as i.e. "United Nations grounded suckers"? Sounds very millennial and progressive.
@Nancy Yeah, I did.
There's also a story out there about a company making tiny traveling motel rooms. The car does the driving and you sit in what amounts to a little motel room working on your computer or sleep or watch movies or as a last resort, you look out the "large windows" at the highway. It has a skylight and a drone can deliver pizza or whatever through that skylight. I think it's terrible yet I also wanted one. It's another thing like the Internet that I think an older person can use better than the kids. Kids lose all reason and become Edward Phone-Hand; older people can put the phone down. And this tiny travelling motel room, sleekly designed to look like your own personal travelling bubble, could be a better way to travel.
Those tiny hotel rooms sound like a modern version of carriages, with drivers, footmen and servants to fill one's whims...albeit with a technical slant.
I understand the appeal, but really, what is the difference between paying someone to cater to ridiculous sexual demands and someone catering to their non-sexual ridiculous demands?
I have seen SOME women speak to service people in ways that I wouldn't speak to basic training recruits.
Nancy,
Yeah. I saw that too.
What is "UN grounded suckers"? I'm totally baffled.
My mind is not blown. This kind of getaway seems quite sensible. Warmer than a fishing shack. Further away than a garage. Drier than a basement. Safer than a tree stand. Cleaner than a tent. Makes sense, no?
I enjoy tent camping, but you have to really commit to it and choose your partners wisely.
”I enjoy tent camping, but you have to really commit to it and choose your partners wisely.”
Or go alone.
It's all about the branding. Sort of like when Holiday Inn appeared in the '50s. Consistent service, no [bad] surprises.
I think any decent B&B could provide this service just as easily, but there's nothing new or aspirational about going out "into the woods," even if it is someone's private land.
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