In-Person/ On the Ground Research

Getting more serious about this goal, I started talking to my family.

Turns out that my mom has some interest in joining in on the adventure.

I was planning a visit to see my brother and sister-in-law in North Dakota and we wanted to take a quick trip to Minneapolis area while I was in town. Since we were going to stay overnight anyway, I floated the idea of all of us staying in a B&B to do some on the ground research.

This ended up being more difficult than I initially imagined.

Did I mention that there were two small children in tow as well? Ah. I guess not.

Most places I talked to have a policy against having young children stay at their B&B, it turns out. There were to main reasons for this:

• First, many places catered to a more romantic atmosphere, and as one owner put it, “Having children around tends to make the couples feel guilty they are not with their own children, and ruins the getaway.” Fair enough.
• Second, there are regulations/ limitations on how many people can be in a room.

At least one place was open to working with us, but we would have needed three rooms – and that would put one adult with one child in two rooms and one adult alone in the third room. Not ideal.

Eventually I did find a place that worked. In large part because they had no other guests booked that night, and because they have a little family suite (that used to be the inn keepers suite).

Being the only guests ended up being the biggest benefit (for a research perspective) of this visit.

Our host told us we could pick the suit, or any two rooms at no extra charge. So, we got to wander around the whole house checking out the various elements each room had to offer.

It also meant we were the only people at breakfast the next morning, and our host was kind enough to answer a lot of questions about his experience entering the world of owning and running a B&B.

Hearing his experience and answers to questions was very helpful – he asked me questions as well. At the end, his statement was, “I think you’d make a good B&B owner candidate.” Talk about confidence building!