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Blog 17th June 2026

Welcome to the ScotCampers tri-weekly blog. 

This period can be summarised by; hirers; mountain biking and Socials training.

Hirers.  

Things are really starting to hot up for the season.  July is pretty much full across two vans and August is about half full.  Saw off Gaz last week who was my social media customer (yeah!), surprising his wife for her birthday.  Also Blanca and Costa back for yet another trip.  Fi from the North East went out too – knew her stuff but almost needed an interpreter!  Three bookings in for friends across July too, which is great.  In summary, I’m going to be busy mid-summer and kinda looking forward to a late Autumn break!

Blanca chilling having an Ellon beer!

Mountain biking.  

Two weeks ago I took a road trip in Bilbo to document a route through Dumfries and Galloway, taking in the mountain biking centres there.  So, drove from home to Dalbeattie forest first (20 minutes from Dumfries) and did the Red route there.   Then jumped back in the van and hit Mabie forest (definitely!) around 30 minutes away.  The Red there was different terrain but pretty quick and flowing.

(Point of these trips is to understand the customer experience.  My learnings are embedded on a route on my website now.  Couple of quick takeaways though are; the roads in the area are busy and dangerous (many freight and car users dashing for the ferry to Belfast) and there are overnight opportunities across the area.  For example, Dalbeattie forest mountain bike centre are happy for you to park up overnight for a modest £10 per night.)

After that I needed a decent head down so was off to Oakbank Farm camping near Thornhill.  Basic site but with everything you need.

There are two more mountain bike centres I’d not done in the region but the following day I took the decision to go across the M74 to Newcastleton and the mountain bike centre there.  Tricky to find the start point but great, flowy trails.

I’ll be back to at least one of these across the summer.

Dalbeattie, good to go

No overnight options at Mabie forest but Dalbeattie is a yes

Social media training:  

Finally, Social Media training.

Aside from establishing a business and getting yourself and your reputation out there, this has been my biggest challenge in the last year.  A Gen Z would get it quick but I’m not that and only a segment of my clientele fall into that bracket.  Therefore, a disproportionate amount of my time has been spent doing Socials and learning about Socials.

Sophie from Sophie gets Social has been a real help in helping me sit, plan and reflect.  On the back of her guidance, I post 3 times a week across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.  

Last week I enrolled on one of the free local business startup courses focused on video creation and Insta/TikTok.  By no means anything of an expert at this stage but was fascinating.  Here’s a couple of my takeaways:

  • TikTok is generally 16 to 23 year olds (and I can only hire to over 21s….)
  • Optimum video length to get audiences hooked in is 15 seconds (that’s a school of thought)
  • Followers.  On TikTok, this has little relevance as only around 5% of my views on my content, will come from them.  Unlike Insta, the algorithm pushes the content towards people who should be interested – be they Followers or not.

Anyway, lots of headscratching!

My current strategy for socials is post once every second day; vary between Scotland tips; campervans; my life; dogs; customer content.

It’s taken a year of effort but starting to pay dividends with now two hirers through this channel.  In some ways, you could call that free advertising.

Here’s a happy Alan back to school with Sophie at Sophie gets Social 

Next time sees me having a break from Scotland and the vans off the road.  July is looking full on but that’s a great thing as think I’ll be greeting something like 6 times as many hirers across that month versus 2025.  More hires, more adventures.

Until next time.  Not all those who wander, are lost……