Joan Holz became a campground owner because life forced a decision, and she chose to bend instead of walk away. Years ago, she stepped into Holiday Camping Resort at a moment when her family, the guests, and the business all needed steady leadership. She has been bending and building ever since.
Camping was already woven into Joan’s life long before she ever imagined owning a park herself.
“My dad, when he retired, had a dream of owning a campground,” Joan recalled. “He bought a campground out at Silver Lake, which is the world’s largest shifting sand dune.”
Joan joined in on a whim, but it wasn’t sustainable.
“I went up for Memorial weekend the first year, and I saw all the concerts going on, the boats, the dune buggies, the four-wheel drives, and I thought, ‘This isn’t happening without me,’ “ Joan laughed. “So I quit my job and moved from Cincinnati, but after the summer was over, there was no work.”
Over the next decade, Joan’s family grew the park from 70 sites to a 200-site destination while Joan struck out on her own and became a chef. Joan’s parents were proud of what they’d built, but the busy seasons took a toll on them.
“My mom said, ‘Bill, we should sell this. We’re working harder than we’ve ever worked in our whole lives,’ ” Joan remembered. “At that point, they were in their 70s.”
So they sold the park, moved to the southern part of Oceana County, and contacted a realtor, who just happened to show them another campground.
“Here’s a campground that hadn’t been developed yet, with 70 acres, two parcels east of the church mom and dad belonged to,” Joan said. “Plus, there was an executive home on property that suited my mom and dad quite well. So Dad said, ‘Well, what else will we do?’ “
They went back to what was familiar. What started as raw land slowly became Holiday Camping Resort. The work felt steady, and the future felt predictable—for a while.
Although Joan’s parents jumped into park ownership again, they still wanted to slow down a bit. So Joan’s younger brother, Glen, started buying the park from them. It felt like a natural transition.
Then, suddenly, it was not.
“Glen went on his first vacation after 7 years,” Joan shared. “He ended up having a heart attack and dying on Christmas Eve. I just felt it. We were two years apart and very, very close. I had told him the night before, ‘Glen, call us on Christmas.’ He had never not had Christmas with us. He was down in Texas.”
At the time, Joan was living a different life. She had carved out a successful career as a chef and had built a loyal following at the restaurant where she worked. But the loss of her brother shook everything loose.
“I told the restaurant owners that I couldn’t even see my mom and dad having to run the park that summer,” Joan said. “They’d lost their youngest son. So I took a leave of absence from that restaurant. The campers fell in love with my family. They begged me to buy the park. They said, ‘You can’t let it go away. If it goes to somebody else, it will be different.’ ”
Joan didn’t make a decision right away. She wrestled with all the big questions.
“Am I doing this for my mother? Am I doing this for my father? Am I doing this for my little brother who’s no longer with us?” Joan asked. “I knew this was a life decision I had to make for Joan, and I deserved to be happy.”
In the end, she chose the park because it was the path she felt called to take for herself.
“And that’s how it all started 23 years ago.”
The park was not neatly wrapped and ready for a smooth transition. In fact, one of the first challenges Joan faced was sitting unfinished in the main bathhouse.
“When my brother died, he had taken all the toilets out of our main bath house and painted all the floors,” Joan recalled. “So I had 9 toilets to set. I had never set a toilet in my life.”
Help came from a neighboring park owner and his team. They showed up, taught her how to set toilets, and helped her get the park ready to open for the following season.
Then, technology brought its own learning curve. Joan had no background in computer systems. Once again, the same fellow park owner took the time to walk her through the basics.
“They had the same program, so they had to come teach me,” Joan said. “It was an old MDOS system. I’d lock it up. It was a wonderful learning experience, though. You keep growing. That’s part of what is so much fun about this industry, you grow and change with the situations.”
Then came the season no one could prepare for.
“Having a park during COVID was wild,” Joan confessed. “I had to set up sanitation stations. We had to cut a pass-through from the office because we couldn’t have more than one person in there at a time. The rules were crazy.”
Through each season of change, Joan learned valuable lessons she could carry on to the next. She learned business by doing the work, by leaning on the campground community when she needed to, and by staying present through every change.
Once Joan found her footing in the day-to-day realities of ownership, she began shaping the park in ways that reflected who she was. And food became one of the first places she experimented.
“I’ve always loved to cook, so I started doing quite a few cooking events,” Joan remembered. “I had an oriental buffet. People brought oriental dishes to share. We started bringing in food trucks, and that has become hugely popular. We had a brick oven pizza truck. We had a blast with them. I didn’t want to bring in food trucks for burgers or things you can cook on your campfire.”
“I just started doing more events and paying attention to which ones were loved and which ones weren’t,” Joan added.
Joan’s brother built the camp store, but she started running it with an eye for what campers actually need when they pull in.
“Your transients are typically the ones who will buy groceries more because they don’t want to go out,” Joan said. “Make sure they can go to the camp store and buy a pack of hot dogs or a pizza, or whatever you have to offer, like eggs, bacon, and sausage.”
After more than two decades of ownership, Joan remains hands-on when it comes to running the park, even down to the books and the accounting.
“I haven’t slowed down yet,” she admitted. “It keeps me out of trouble.”
Holiday Camping Resort sits in one of western Michigan’s most naturally inviting areas. Guests are close to Michigan’s Adventure, Lewis Farm Market, the Silver Lake Sand Dunes, and a paved bike path that once served as a railroad line. And Lake Michigan is only three miles away.
“You can drive down to Lake Michigan, sit on the beach, and watch the sunset,” Joan said. “It’s like being at the ocean.”
But what surprises a lot of guests is what the park feels like after the sun goes down.
“My property is a dark space,” she said. “To be there in the summer when the Northern Lights are flashing colors, and you’ve got the shooting stars… if you come here and you’re bored, it’s because you choose to be.”
That mix between activity and stillness is a big reason people keep choosing this place.
“I have one couple still camping here since before my parents owned the place,” Joan said. “And I have the 4th generation coming now. They’ll come in and say, ‘I remember you. Do you remember me?’ Once you find customers that fit you and like how you do things, they come back and come back.”
Even after more than two decades of ownership, Joan continues to adjust with the industry.
“I’m still kind of stubborn,” she admitted. “But the thing is, the only thing that doesn’t change is change.”
That mindset is part of what led her to CampLife many years ago, when online reservations were still new, and not every park owner was ready to make the change. Since then, she has continued to watch the industry evolve and has stayed open to the next shift.
“I’m going to investigate Dynamic Pricing,” Joan said. “It’s becoming more of the norm.”
Her outlook on change goes beyond business.
“I finally accepted that nothing is static,” she said. “Everything changes. Even things like my faith. I don’t lose it. It grows.”
And after everything she has lived through, she still sees purpose in the road that led her here.
“After my brother passed, I have to believe I was blessed to have this opportunity.”
At CampLife, we are proud to support park owners like Joan with tools that meet them where they are and help them prepare for what is next: whether that means online reservations, guest communication, reporting, or exploring tools like Dynamic Pricing when the time feels right.
If you would like to see how CampLife can support your park as you grow, we would love to talk with you. If you're already a part of the CampLife community and are curious about tools like these, our Customer Success team is here to help. And if you’re still exploring what CampLife could do for your park, reach out anytime. Visit software.camplife.com/contact to get started.
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