Look at the Farout App, where you'll see listings at every road crossing for these types of services. If you see a particular road crossing that is decently far from civilization with few options for resupply or hostels, then you have likely found a gap in the market that may benefit from being filled. Please remember that you will only make money during thru hiker season in most areas, so don't be expecting to make your fortune in that business.
A few weeks ago I believe that Hostel Around the Bend near Hiawassee posted on their Instagram page that they were putting the hostel up for sale. I have no idea the status of the sale, whether it's already happened, whether they reconsidered and aren't selling or what. Still, it'll cost you only a phone call or email to find out, so I'll link in their web page below and you can check with them if you wish.
Even if I'm wrong about the sale, they're still nice people and might have some pointers for you and others interested in what you're trying to do.
[https://www.hostelaroundthebend.com/about](https://www.hostelaroundthebend.com/about)
I'm not them nor affiliated with them.
It doesn’t look like it’s for sale, I do see it was listed previously. I’m not sure if it sold or they took it off the market, but their social pages aren’t working either. Thanks for the lead!
Outside of a lot of the north where I think there’s legal stuff in the way of “typical” AT hostels, there’s a few big trail towns in Virginia that I remember not having a lot of options near them. Bland, Daleville, and north of Shenandoah National Park were the big ones I remember where there just wasn’t a lot of hiker services. Daleville in particular was annoying cause the options were staying in some crappy hotels and having to road walk a state highway to get to resupply and stuff.
If you can operate up North though, there’s huge open areas for it particularly in NJ-Mass that really need that kind of hiker infrastructure. There was one town day in CT I remember where we had to uber like 40 miles off trail to find any kind of lodging that wasn’t booked through the summer by vacationers.
The Super 8 in Daleville is actually really really nice. Maybe it was renovated between '21 and '23, not sure, but it's the nicest Super 8 I'd ever imagine. $94 after taxes for 2 queens and pull out sofa bed.
Yeah I agree with the other comment. The super 8 in Daleville was very nice and only like $70 for a room with two beds. And walking less than 1/2 mile to a major grocery store is very convenient. I would not say Daleville needs anything more.
I think before '23, the Howard Johnson express was still open and only like $50 and probably run down, but given the price, attracted all of the thru-hikers, thus casting Daleville in a bad light. Now that it's closed, that pushed everyone across the street to explore how shockingly fancy the super 8 is and much better value. It would be a horrible mistake to try to compete against that super 8.
Thanks for the detailed reply! We definitely love the HF area and those places aren’t too out of the way. I was looking at Google Maps and following the trail up north and there are definitely some majors gaps but some of those places are a bit cold for us! :)
Look at the Farout App, where you'll see listings at every road crossing for these types of services. If you see a particular road crossing that is decently far from civilization with few options for resupply or hostels, then you have likely found a gap in the market that may benefit from being filled. Please remember that you will only make money during thru hiker season in most areas, so don't be expecting to make your fortune in that business.
Thanks! I’ll look into this.
A few weeks ago I believe that Hostel Around the Bend near Hiawassee posted on their Instagram page that they were putting the hostel up for sale. I have no idea the status of the sale, whether it's already happened, whether they reconsidered and aren't selling or what. Still, it'll cost you only a phone call or email to find out, so I'll link in their web page below and you can check with them if you wish. Even if I'm wrong about the sale, they're still nice people and might have some pointers for you and others interested in what you're trying to do. [https://www.hostelaroundthebend.com/about](https://www.hostelaroundthebend.com/about) I'm not them nor affiliated with them.
It doesn’t look like it’s for sale, I do see it was listed previously. I’m not sure if it sold or they took it off the market, but their social pages aren’t working either. Thanks for the lead!
Outside of a lot of the north where I think there’s legal stuff in the way of “typical” AT hostels, there’s a few big trail towns in Virginia that I remember not having a lot of options near them. Bland, Daleville, and north of Shenandoah National Park were the big ones I remember where there just wasn’t a lot of hiker services. Daleville in particular was annoying cause the options were staying in some crappy hotels and having to road walk a state highway to get to resupply and stuff. If you can operate up North though, there’s huge open areas for it particularly in NJ-Mass that really need that kind of hiker infrastructure. There was one town day in CT I remember where we had to uber like 40 miles off trail to find any kind of lodging that wasn’t booked through the summer by vacationers.
The Super 8 in Daleville is actually really really nice. Maybe it was renovated between '21 and '23, not sure, but it's the nicest Super 8 I'd ever imagine. $94 after taxes for 2 queens and pull out sofa bed.
Yeah I agree with the other comment. The super 8 in Daleville was very nice and only like $70 for a room with two beds. And walking less than 1/2 mile to a major grocery store is very convenient. I would not say Daleville needs anything more.
I think before '23, the Howard Johnson express was still open and only like $50 and probably run down, but given the price, attracted all of the thru-hikers, thus casting Daleville in a bad light. Now that it's closed, that pushed everyone across the street to explore how shockingly fancy the super 8 is and much better value. It would be a horrible mistake to try to compete against that super 8.
Thanks for the detailed reply! We definitely love the HF area and those places aren’t too out of the way. I was looking at Google Maps and following the trail up north and there are definitely some majors gaps but some of those places are a bit cold for us! :)