‘I lived there five years ago, in a tent’, campsite owner Gidus Hopmans (41) points to the lawn behind him. When Hopmans, a tall man with curly hair and cowboy boots, wriggled out of his sleeping bag in the summer of 2017, he saw an almost bald spot next to a forest. Only a fire pit and toilet block were provided, plus a handful of campers.
Who now awakens on the edge of the Robbenoordbos near Slootdorp sees purple bushes, many trees and a stream overgrown with reeds. Hopmans: ‘This is a room in the woods’. There is a worm hotel in the grass, a bright orange hot tub further on, a stair tractor is parked somewhere. Hidden among the trees are six wooden houses with asymmetrical walls and slanting windows ‘to see the stars from bed’.
On the camping fields there is, among other things, a Volkswagen van with a Persian carpet in front of the door, a woman on an air mattress is reading to children. All 35 free camping spots are occupied. ‘We don’t make reservations,’ says Hopmans. There is a sign on one tent: ‘occupied’. It turns out that the Time For Yourself-Tent can be used by everyone. Inside someone practices yoga.
conveying nature love
Between the fields in the top of North Holland, Gidus Hopmans and Sasja Wiegersma have been running camping Het Bos is calling for five years now! from. They overflow with enthusiasm for nature, call themselves ‘forest encyclopedias’ and wrote a manifesto for the forest. They want to transfer that love of nature to guests who they attract with the promise of tranquility, sustainability and a bit of luxury.
In five years, the camping site grew into a popular destination among nature campers. ‘Our guests are a cross-section of society, they come from the city and the countryside. We are also there for those who live three floors behind.’
In order to entice such a varied audience, Hopmans and Wiegersma received almost two hundred thousand euros in subsidy from the EU, from the fund for the development of rural regions. They used it to design and build a series of sustainable holiday homes, tents, a greenhouse and a toilet block. ‘We are improving our cycle with solar boilers, good insulation and rainwater collection’, says Hopmans. The campsite thus serves as a testing ground for more sustainable living.
Hopmans worked for years as a designer in Amsterdam. It started to heat up five years ago; he wanted to do odd jobs himself and investigate to what extent it is possible to become self-sufficient. Just then, Staatsbosbeheer was looking for tenants for the nature camping site right under the Afsluitdijk, near the farm where Hopmans grew up.
Moving ‘head over heels’
Wiegersma, Hopmans’ sister-in-law, was also interested in it. They wrote a plan together. ‘Suddenly we were running a campsite. We wanted to build up slowly, but we also wanted to open right away.’ So Hopmans moved ‘head over heels’ to the campsite. First with a tent, then he lived in a caravan, then in a house. Two months after the contracts were signed, the barrier of Het Bos is calling!
‘In the first few years we focused so much on ourselves that we didn’t dare to look at other campsites.’ That confidence is now there. Wiegersma has just been camping elsewhere for a week, later this summer Hopmans will also go out with his tent. ‘We have experienced staff who can keep the campsite running.’
After their third summer, Hopmans and Wiegersma were exhausted because of all the work. The working time of the campsite owners is now more defined, the evening round to meet new guests, for example, became a rotating task. ‘We started naively, it turned out to be ten times as much work as we thought. You always have to be social and you sometimes don’t get around to what you planned to do for a whole day’, reflects Hopmans, who also had three children in three years.
Kombucha, no wifi
Hopmans takes a bottle of kombucha from the greenhouse that serves as a communal space. Grapes ripen on the ceiling, there is a piano by the door – ‘disabled, otherwise children will be hammering on them’. Anyone can grab a drink from the fridge, checkout is done later on trust. Wifi has The forest is calling! (not yet.
‘We offer comfort up to a certain level,’ says Hopmans. That is exactly what attracts someone like Annemieke Grossenbacht from The Hague. ‘There is not much fuss,’ she says, sitting in front of her caravan amidst her children, dogs and an inflatable crocodile. In May she camped next to the Robbenoordbos for a weekend. ‘Everyone here is equally relaxed people.’
‘The spelled bread is in the oven’, a camping employee reports. Just before that, she was lugging a wheelbarrow of laundry from one of the cottages and showing a guest the way to the nearest beach. Each staff member can perform all tasks, Hopmans clarifies. He and Wiegersma also sometimes scrub a toilet.
‘Started right on time’
The duo sees themselves as part of a new generation of campsite owners: ‘Most campsite operators are over fifty’. Does that coincide with a new generation of camping guests? ‘Camping is in. We started right on time. People want to go on holiday in an environmentally conscious way and are more often looking for peace and quiet in our urban society.’
There may be wifi, despite the promise of peace. In winter, guests can then work remotely in the holiday homes. The children of camping guest Mirjam would probably welcome the internet: ‘They lasted a day and a half without it. So now they’re back to our house near by.’ Mirjam reads a book in front of her caravan, ‘nice and quiet now’.
With a little good will, you can hear that tranquility everywhere on the campsite: in the twitter of birds, the rustling of reeds and the splashing of swimmers diving into the water. Hopmans: ‘As an old farmer in the neighborhood used to say: The forest is calling.’
The forest is calling!
Where: Slootdorp
Since: 2017
Employees: 10 (4 FTEs and a group of students)
Annual turnover: 300 thousand euros