Like a renovation stalker..
Suddenly the future feels bright again, cause when our B&B is done and ready, we should also be ready to take on bookings..

I (read we) am like a stalker on any TV-show where people are renovating and are watching show like The Block, and the kind of shows where people are moving to set up a new life, like Escape to the Chateau.
In our part of the world we have to national shows which coincides with the set up of Escape to the Chateau. People that buy worn down properties, usually in France or Spain, to set up a business like a Chambres d'Hôtes, B&B kind of thing.
The people that choose France normally go for oversized mansions and smaller chateaus. The people that head for Spain seem to have a way more limited type of house to choose from which often make them end up in a small village. A village that is totally off the grid for any kind of normal tourism what so ever.
However, regardless the destination all couples seem to have a couple of things in common. Which would be the following;
- They know squat about the tourism and hospitality - which of course makes better TV than the ones that do.
- They believe running a B&B is going to be less work than sitting at the office or what ever other work they are currently employed to do "back home".
- They did not check if it is even possible to get a permission to run the type of business they are aiming to run before buying a property.
- They don't know the language in the country where they are moving.
- They'll always end up with serious water leaks, mostly cause they start renovating from the bottom up. In opposite of starting at the top and working their way down.
- They always take on bookings before they are done.
Us moving across to a big house on the other side of the country last year for sure made us land into a couple of the above, which would be number 3 and 4.
The local language is like impossible to follow, and water leaks, well we had a few. Which may not be all surprising since at one point during our first weeks in our "mansion" the whole roof was removed and wide open.
Lately I am working in relation on number 6 of the above list - bookings!
Not as in taking on any bookings before the guest house is ready, but more of the quest in finding an actual booking system. A system that preferably is both easy to handle and easy to maintain.
Which makes me wonder even more about the people as described above. They all seem clueless on point 1-5. At the same time they always seem to have managed to set up a booking system, and have it up and running, with ease I might ad.
How is that possible?
I don't get it!
I am like a tech nerd, I love software for websites and I've been hosting a very much functional web shop, both self- and cloud hosted, for over ten years. I have also worked with other people's website.
But when it comes down to set up a website with booking possibilities I struggle like never before. For one, even finding an easy to handle and manage software have been a struggle.
Initially I thought I could set up a Wix site to do the job. So I set up an account and ended up giving the Wix solution some 5 weeks on the free tier. I also spent 2 full days on a paid tier, but I could not even figure out how to work with the layout of the site using a smaller laptop.
If one cannot work ones website using a laptop in an easy way I really don't see the point in continuing to use the system. But then, out of the blue the other day when I decided to call it quits with Wix, I found something completely different.
The price was right and after setting up a trial, which lasts for 14 days, no credit card required, I came further down the line in 5 minutes than I did for 5.5 weeks using Wix. Suddenly the future feels bright again, cause when our B&B is done and ready, we should also be ready to take on bookings..

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