On the 5th of September 2024, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daphne Walker, of Schoonenberg Camping. Daphne is the owner and manager of the natural campsite, together with her brother Mike. There are 80 pitches, set in the forest, and each campsite pitch is surrounded by trees. It is beautiful.

What keeps Daphne up at night?

I asked Daphne what the stressors were in her role as a campsite owner and manager. Daphne said there are usually a few moments in the season when the weather is so bad, that she worries that the guests won’t arrive at the campsite. This year in April it was very cold, and up until June there was lots of rain.

Daphne doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about it, but she does get a bit nervous about the weather.
She can work in the winter, but she would like to have a break as she works hard in the summer.
Daphne is considering the possibility that they could work weekends in the winter, depending on the weather, they wouldn’t have to work the usual hours of 9am to 9pm, and maybe they could work alternate weekends.

Daphne likes to caccoon in Winter. Her brother Mike is very active and can’t sit still, but she likes to have some quiet time. Her husband works Monday to Friday in the week, so they don’t get to see each other much in the summer. Daphne and Mike have been running the campsite for 22 years, and when they started Daphne had just had a new baby and her father had recently passed away, so it was very hard for her in the beginning.

She has 23 years of working experience at the campsite.

It is sometimes stressful dealing with the general public, and knowing how to respond. The other day she was woken up early to the sound of shouting, and had to call the police because one of the guests had completely lost his mind. She had to remain calm, even though the guest was shouting into her face, and 5cm away, until the police arrived.

Afterwards she went into shock and was shaking, and realised how scared she had been as the guest could have become violent if she hadn’t remained in control of the situation, and held her own. So people can be challenging.

Daphne phoned her brother Mike afterwards, who was there within an hour to support her, and all was well in the end.

What are the challenges of managing a campsite?

The work on the campsite itself used to be a challenge, before they got the new toilet block and electrical connections. They used to get daily calls because the electricity on the sites had tripped, and that is why they had all the electrical connections and the fuse box, upgraded.

They are very happy with the new setup.

Daphne works through all of the challenges of running the campsite, and deals with them.

There are only two of them working on the campsite, and as her father used to say “it matters who you know”. They now have a good electrician and plumber, who are always available to them, and this enables them to maintain the professional standards of the campsite.

The plumber also makes the campsite “winter proof”, and the water is closed off in case it freezes. The water is drained from all of the pipework, except that of the underfloor heating of the toilet block, which has a thermostat, so Mike can control the temperature from an app on his phone. They were advised not to drain the water from the underfloor heating of the toilet block, as they would then need special insurance to cover that in case something went wrong.

Daphne says, that in running the business, having the right people around you is the most important thing.

We then spoke about trends in the future.

Daphne said that camping is becoming more and more popular, especially nature camping. It used to only interest the older generation, but in the last 8 years there are more and more young people and families with older children coming to stay. This is a big change. People want nature and quiet, and they are in the Randstadt province where there aren’t many other nature campsites, there are only two others in the north.

People now visit the campsite from all over the world, they are of all ages, and all nationalities.

After Covid, it became even more popular, because people couldn’t cross country borders initially, and this was very good for their business. During Covid, they were allowed to stay open the whole time. In April of 2020, when it became clear that they were dealing with a real pandemic, they were in the safety area so they were told that they had to close the toilet block, and only people with large campervans, and their own toilets, could camp there.

They were amazed that people still came to stay, people were desperate to get out. In the future, in an ideal world, she would love to be able to extend the campsite, but it isn’t possible as they lease the land from the council.

Daphne would like everyone to have the opportunity to know how beautiful the Netherlands is.

They don’t really have the proper four seasons any more, and the weather is so unstable in the Spring. It’s not normal that there was so much rain, and that it was so cold. Some campsites in other areas have become flooded, and they are fortunate in that they only had a few puddles. There is another campsite in the dunes that is 50% flooded.

In an ideal world she would like to have a normal Spring, and for the seasons to go back to normal, as the weather is so uncertain and they are weather dependant.

In the old days people never used so much electricity, but now people are expecting high end electrical gadgets like air fryers and ovens, to work from their campervans. They have really large campervans, which are very expensive to run, with regards to electricity.

This is another reason for their upgrading the electrical connections, from 4 Amp, to 6 Amp, as the fuse boxes used to be blown daily.

Campervans are getting bigger, especially for the campers coming from Germany. Daphne and Mike have had to set a length limit for the campervans coming to their site, of 6.5m.

Some people are now wanting to have big satellite dishes for their TV’s, and complaining if they don’t have good signal in the forest.

The majority of people are able to appreciate the beauty of the forest, and how fortunate they are to be there, in one of the most beautiful campsites in the Netherlands.

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