Camping Business in Your Backyard

The Survivalist and Prepper communities have been growing steadily and with the advent of the pandemic their numbers have even grown exponentially. But even before this many people have been training and buying emergency supplies each major event that happens in the world.

For example not uncommon events such as an election in America is enough for consumers to go on buying frenzies buying weapons and emergency supplies for fear that there would be social chaos once the new government is put in place. Economic meltdowns such as recessions are also enough reasons for many people to panic and hoard food and other grocery items.

If you are knowledgeable in nature living especially if you have prepper or survivalist knowledge then there could be a market for your knowledge and skills in terms of services and products. You can for example offer to teach survival skills and products on how to live in the jungle or even something as simple as skinning animals for their meat.

You Need a Suitable Environment to Conduct Your Business

Firstly, the people who would benefit from this article are people who have access to a piece of land with an exposed soil ground. It would be very beneficial if you have enough soil space to build tents as well as plants and trees as props for your business. This business could even be conducted in one’s own backyard as long as there is enough space to pitch a tent as well as enough space to conduct physical training.

First things first: Make sure you are legally allowed to conduct business in any area where you are conducting your training including your own backyard. For example there may be local laws that restrict you from starting a fire even a small one especially in your backyard. This laws are understandable as starting and maintaining fires if not done properly could result in damages not only for you but for your neighbours as well.

If you conduct your business in your backyard or near or in an urban area you get customers who are after convenience and could not be bothered to drive on remote areas where these kinds of training are usually conducted. You also offer the peace of mind that should things not go smoothly your customers are still in the safety of urban facilities like hospitals and food establishments.

There are a variety of services and products you can market to potential customers:

You can offer these trainings as individual classes or as packaged training products. One thing to note is that these trainings can take between a few hours to an entire day and you can price your trainings appropriately. You could also create videos using just your backyard as a prop and upload it for example in YouTube or sell it as a group of courses in other online platforms.

Building Shelters:
You can teach people how to build shelters using modern tents and from materials derived from nature like plant leaves, stems, rocks, soil and so on. You would need at least one (1) tent and plant leaves, stems and rocks and so on. You could offer prepared materials or have them prepare it themselves.

For example you could teach your clients how to cut and prepare leaves and stems for shelter building. This however has the disadvantage of you having to supply fresh materials for each of your trainings. You could also be an expert on modern tents and camping supplies and you might even endorse a few products and get paid for this.

Building a Fire:
The act of starting and maintaining a fire is easy enough if you have modern tools but starting a fire using just materials from nature is hard. Keeping the fire burning is also hard especially in wet conditions such as wet materials or if you simulate rain (a shower will do) while trying to maintain a fire.

You could teach exhaustively which materials from nature easily burn and demonstrate each one of them including the proper techniques for each one. This training could last more than a day especially if your clients have to start and maintain the fires in less than ideal conditions. Considering that most people are not physically fit or trained to start fires this training could be long.

Plant Knowledge:
Your knowledge of the different kinds of plants is a marketable product. You can teach which part of the plants can be eaten and how to cook and eat the. You can teach how certain parts of plants can be boiled to make a beverage like tea. This would be very effective if you have the actual plant samples and cook or boil your plant samples.

You can then let your clients taste them. This is a good social event in your class. You can also teach which plants are medicinal and for this to be effective you must also have plant samples to show your clients although they do not have to use it during training. You could also have an activity where your clients create shoes and clothes made from plants.

This is why it is advisable if you have such plant samples actually planted in your backyard or garden. You might even sell these plant samples or their seeds. You can even teach how to grow these plant samples properly. You can also sell digital and physical books related to plants in such areas as food, medicine and so on.

Insect Knowledge:
Insects are everywhere in nature even more so than animals. Nature shows especially survivalist shows are famous for showing people eating insects either cooked or raw. You could teach about how to catch, cook and eat insects. This could be a popular training product for you especially if you are able to successfully minimise the gross factor in it.

You can also teach about how to avoid insects which are dangerous and how to cure yourself if you touch or get bitten by these dangerous insects. You can teach cures based from modern medicine or medicine from nature. It would also be good if you have samples of insects either living or preserved.

Incidentally there are also people who buy preserved insects such as ones made into keychains or paperweights. Dangerous, colourful and out of the ordinary insects are especially popular with people as these kinds of insects are not seen often by many especially those living in urban areas. You can also sell digital and physical books related to insects.

Animal Knowledge:
You can teach about animals and how to capture, cook and eat them. You can for example use a living animal such as a rabbit or a chicken and teach people how to kill them fast and painlessly. You would be surprised at the number of people who despite eating meat all their lives have no knowledge of how to kill animals for food painlessly and are interested in knowing this.

You can teach how to cook meat with modern utensils using minimal ingredients from nature. You can also teach your clients how to cook meat with no modern utensils like cooking them in hot rocks. You can also teach how to handle dangerous animals and how to preserve meat naturally. You can also sell digital and physical books related to animals. You can even have a barbecue celebration at the end of your training.

Fish Knowledge:
This training is similar to animal knowledge training. However if you have some sort of pond with fishes in your training area then you can teach your clients about fishing and give them real world experience. The thrill of being able to catch a fish might just be the selling factor you need to sell this training especially for people who live very far from water bodies that contain real live fishes.

How to Climb a Tree and Other Structures:
This could be a dangerous training and you need to heavily supervise your clients. This would also be good if you have vertical props which your clients can climb like trees a wall and so on. You could teach your clients how to physically prepare themselves for climbing activities. You could also sell climbing gears. These products could be ropes, gloves, shoes and so on.

How to Apply First Aid and Emergency Care:
You could teach how to apply basic first aid using modern first aid kits or by improvising from nature. You could teach your clients how to make and apply tourniquets using actual clothes and from materials from nature. You can sell first aid kits that are generic or you can make your own set of first aid kits.

How to Tie Knots and Attach Things:
This is basic boy scout training that many forget as they grow into adults. You could refresh the mind of your clients. You could also teach your clients how to make roping material found only in nature and how to tie them. This is a practical skill as real rope is hard to find especially when you need it in remote areas. You could also teach how to attach objects together without using a rope.

How to Create Survival Tools:
Something basic that you can teach is how to make a spear. You can teach about the proper wood, the proper length and how to effectively sharpen a wooden spear. You can do the same thing when you teach about how to create a bow and arrows. Then you can let them practice their aim by using a regular target practice bullseye or by using a target that is similar in texture to an animal or fish.

How to Create A Fishing Net and Similar Tools:
This is where having a small pond as a prop would be most helpful. You can teach your clients how to make fishing nets and similar tools from common clothes like t-shirts and fishnets to materials from nature like leaves and stems to make a fish trap. You can then teach your clients real world experience by letting them catch fish using their created tools.

How to Create Toiletries from Nature:
This is especially an interesting training to sell. You can sell training on how to create soap from nature. I found a website online called www.Survival-Manual.com which has an article titled How To Make Your Own Soap. Though the article is very informative nothing still beats an actual class where you have to make the soap on your own. I hope they also offer such classes.

Creating toiletries from nature is especially interesting. Creating a substitute for toilet paper in nature for example is an interesting subject because it tackles a sensitive subject. Using the wrong materials from nature can be uncomfortable and even dangerous as you may get infected.

Conclusion

There are still so many other training knowledge you can market like how to use a compass, how to use stars as a method of navigation, how to find water and so on. The list of related products and services you can offer could be nearly endless as well. For example if you have a swimming pool, a pond or even a big inflatable pool you can teach pool how to swim or improve their swimming skills.

As you can see this business does not require a lot of investment. You can use your backyard or rent from one who has a big backyard. The props are relatively inexpensive. What it takes however is expertise on the knowledge you are teaching so you actually become credible to teach. This business would suit someone who is interested in nature and survival.

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