Ann Singer never planned to go into the campground business. She loved her job as a commercial airline pilot for American Airlines and planned to keep flying until she retired.
But after being diagnosed with cancer in 2004, she was medically disqualified from flying commercial aircraft and had to find another way to support herself.
She wound up purchasing a campground in the scenic mountains of western North Carolina in 2017 and signed an agreement with the park’s former owner to retain his services as a park manager and share the park’s income. Singer lived in Florida and needed someone on-site to run the park in her absence.
Things didn’t work out as Singer had planned, however.
Instead of managing the park and sharing the net proceeds as they had agreed, the former owner pocketed the money. He also trashed the park, literally allowing refuse to pile up on site.
Singer wasn’t initially able to do anything about it, however, because her health was deteriorating. One of her doctors told her in 2019 that her latest cancer relapse was serious and that she had only “four to eight weeks” to live. She then sought the opinion of another doctor, who gave her a ray of hope.
“He said, ‘I think I can treat this,’” Singer recalled.
The second doctor was right. After multiple rounds of chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation, Singer survived.
“I felt like I got very lucky,” she said. “Ninety-five percent of the cases of my particular type of cancer in the central nervous system are not treatable. I was in the 5% that were treatable.”
But for several years — from 2019 to 2021 — Singer not only endured intensive treatments, but the loss of her father, which added further stress to her life. She couldn’t turn her attention back to her park just yet.
“When you’re fighting for your life,” she said, “you have to choose your battles. The park wasn’t my battle then.”
Singer managed to recover enough energy, however, to file suit in 2021 against her park’s former owner. At the same time, she had to find management to take over running the campground during the busy Fourth of July weekend in 2021. The case wasn’t heard by the court until late 2023, but she won a judgment against the former owner that included a restraining order, which forced him to leave the park, which is located in Piney Creek, N.C.
Singer then set her sights on cleaning up the campground and restoring it to the attractive escape that piqued her attention in the first place. She renamed the park River Country Campground & RV Park to give her business a fresh start.
One month after assuming control of running the campground, Singer’s other building, located two miles from the park, a clubhouse with amenities, was destroyed by fire. Then came Hurricane Helene last September. She hardly had time to recover from the news that her campground was under ten feet of water when she had to start her own evacuation in Florida for Hurricane Milton. She had to find a place to evacuate her horses to safety.
The news from her insurance provider was equally devastating: None of her damage would be covered.
“I learned there is no such thing as a flood policy for pedestals,” she said, noting that the RVs that were in her park became “floating projectiles” that damaged her pedestals throughout the park.
Despite these setbacks, Singer, now 65, is undeterred. When Woodall’s Campground Magazine caught up with her in late April, she was busy fixing up her campground in preparation for what she hoped would be a busy summer season.
“We’re open,” she said, adding that her park currently offers more than 50 RV sites, primitive tent camping and one cabin.
After enduring so many challenges in recent years, both with her health and her campground business, Singer is hoping the worst is behind her. But she’s also grateful simply to be alive and to have a campground that has the potential to be the thriving business she always thought it could be.
Her advice to current and aspiring park owners facing serious challenges with their health or their business is straightforward.
“Figure out what you have to do to move forward,” she said. “I find the best way to relieve stress is to face it. Tackle the problem and get it done.”
Life’s challenges, whether they involve personal health or business, need to be dealt with immediately and head-on, she said. The challenges life throws our way, she said, are similar to the challenges a pilot faces when flying around storms or handling an in-flight emergency.
“You have to take action,” she said.
Singer added that despite the many challenges she faced with her health and her campground in recent years, she put her faith in God and stayed focused on the problem at hand. Pilots, she said, have to be clear-headed to face whatever challenges they may encounter in the air.
“I was a B-777 captain with hundreds of people on board. I always had to be on my best game.”
Similar discipline is needed to overcome challenges in business, health and life, she said. Beyond this, she said, campgrounds offer unique opportunities and benefits that park operators need to cultivate.
Her recommendations include the following:
Having good on-site people who make your guests feel happy and welcome is essential.
Respect the loyalty of your campers: “The campers are what really make the park,” Singer said. “You can have all the amenities in the world, but if people don’t feel good at your park, (based on their experiences with) the staff and other guests, (they won’t come back). Campers are so grateful for what we have done to improve the park. They came in after the storm to help clean it up. I feel an obligation to them to make it better.”
Make sure your personnel who work at the campground feel valued and respected: “Their attitude is a big part of the customer experience,” she said, adding that it is also critical to “respect and keep your manager happy.”
Support your state and national campground industry associations: Singer said she received a $5,000 grant from OHI. The Carolinas Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (CARVC) also sponsored her attendance at CARVC’s latest conference, as well as donated an auction item from a board member to help with her marketing after Hurricane Helene.
“CARVC and OHI were the biggest emotional support for me right after the hurricane,” Singer said, adding, “The decision to join them was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
Keep learning: “My knowledge base is better than it was, but I continue to learn,” Singer said, citing her attendance at industry conferences. “Try to look at best practices at other campgrounds.”
Don’t allow people to leave their RVs at your park if they are not in town unless you have a set of keys to move them in the event of an emergency: Singer also plans to gather more detailed information from guests who leave their rigs at her park, including alternate ways to get a hold of them if they can’t be reached on their cellphone.
“If a storm is coming,” she said, “their camper could become a floating projectile.”
Be grateful and always try to keep your sense of humor and look at the bright side: No matter how rough things get, be grateful for what you have and be thankful things aren’t worse, because they can always get worse,” Singer said, citing her own life experiences these past few years.
“When everything was happening to me with my cancer diagnosis, the lawsuit, the fire, the flood, I remember thinking, ‘What’s next? The locusts?’ I found out what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Being grateful and keeping your sense of humor will help you weather these storms.
“You’ve got to keep your sense of humor and faith in God,” she said.
When WCM caught up with Singer in late April, she was gathering information on the cost of an Aqua Fence, which she was considering buying to protect her bathhouse if she ever has to face another flood in the future.
“An Aqua Fence is very costly,” she said. “But it’s preventing a problem and the stress of rebuilding. It’s worth it for me to pay more money and prevent the problem. My bathhouse is on low-lying land, and I would rather not worry about any potential future flooding.”
Singer was also busy preparing her campground for an influx of campers, but she concedes she still has a lot of work to do, from replacing the gravel on her campsites that washed away to installing new picnic tables, fire rings, and a children’s playground.
“By the end of this year,” she said, “I want the campground totally restored with some new trees, an online presence, and better software. I want to up my marketing, up my technology, get uniforms for staf,f and improve the whole look of the place.”
Singer’s park, she added, still has unrealized potential.
“We’re on the South Fork of the New River, and we have Kings Creek running through the property. I want to enhance the ambiance along Kings Creek. I’d love to get some cabins up there,” she said, adding that she hopes to offer kayaking and canoeing next year.
“We’re talking about putting in some maples to replace some of the trees that were lost near the river and throughout the campground,” Singer added. “The river has a gentle flow and baby rapids so you can relax and enjoy the water.”
In the meantime, Singer told WCM she is simply grateful, not only to be alive, but to have the opportunity to provide memories for people vacationing in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina.
“Some of the people who camp at my park have been coming here for 30 years,” she said. “What draws them is we’re directly on the river in the mountains.”
That beautiful river, in fact, is what captured Singer’s heart eight years ago when she first decided to purchase the campground.
“I wanted that riverfront land,” she said.
But as she moves forward in her eighth year of campground ownership, Singer also has a new appreciation for life and for people who have just been diagnosed with cancer.
“I’m a volunteer with the Lymphoma Research Foundation,” she said. “When somebody receives a lymphoma diagnosis, they can pair them up with me.”
