DENVER — A Colorado company is on a mission to reimagine the country’s campgrounds. It’s starting by building tent- and trailer-friendly accommodations near the state’s national parks.
In 2023, Ramble opened its first campground on a 640-acre plot near the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Alamosa, Colo. It features 25 camping sites each equipped with amenities like a smokeless fire pit, chairs and a built-in camp stove. It’s preparing to debut its second location near Mesa Verde National Park this spring.
The Golden, Colo.-based company’s goal, according to founder and CEO Matt Oesterle, is to create an option between dispersed camping and glamping that meets the needs of modern campers — something Oesterle felt like he lacked during a cross-country trip with his family in 2020.
“We rented an RV and stayed at a bunch of traditional, parking lot-style campgrounds, and I was very disappointed with the experience. Just a lot of people with very little space, lots of noise and light pollution. In general, it didn’t feel like being outdoors,” Oesterle said. “I came back from that trip with a goal to start a chain of campgrounds across the United States where at every Ramble location you can sit at your campsite and feel like you’re in nature.”
Inspired by the likes of Disney World, Oesterle aims to standardize Ramble campgrounds and their amenities so travelers know what to expect every time they stay there, no matter which location they visit. He does so through partnerships with Pollywood, which makes the furniture; Camp Chef, which provides the stoves; and Solo Stove, which makes the fire pits.
Providing chairs, cooking equipment and self-contained fire pits makes camping accessible to a wider range of campers, Oesterle said. Sites always include a shade structure, a propane grill and a tent pad, and some also offer an outdoor food-prep area with a sink basin and power outlets.
Campers have access to shared bathrooms with flushing toilets and showers with hot water. Internet access is also available for free via Starlink, Oesterle said.
Nightly rates fluctuate based on the time of the year and demand, but at their cheapest range from roughly $55 for the lowest-tier campsites to upward of $350 for group sites that sleep up to 20 people.
“It’s kind of a combination of trying to create the feeling you have when you’re car camping on BLM or Forest Service land where you have lots of space, but then to give you the amenities to make the trip successful, particularly if you’re with a group or with kids or folks where it can be intimidating just to have your tent, your car or your van and nothing else,” he said.
Paramount in that equation is ample access to outdoor activities. The property near the Great Sand Dunes, for example, is about a 30-minute drive to the national park and maintains its own 2.5-mile biking trail as well as a nine-hole disc golf course. When the Mesa Verde-adjacent campground in Cortez, Colo., opens next year, it will have a trail that connects to Phil’s World bike trail system, Oesterle said.
Ramble is gearing up for an expansion blitz with five new campgrounds in Colorado and Texas opening by 2026 and dozens more in the coming years.
The next Colorado campgrounds are expected to pop up in Buena Vista, Pine and Montrose, along with locations in Spicewood, Texas, and Cleveland, Texas. Oesterle said those will come online in 2025 or 2026.
After that, Ramble is eyeing destinations in the Southwest, and then possibly the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and the Northeastern and Southeastern U.S.
“Our focus across the country is eventually to have Ramble within 50 miles of the vast majority of Americans,” Oesterle said.
Ramble is preparing to wrap up “a substantial fundraising round” to bring its aspirations to fruition. Based on the popularity of camping, especially during and after the pandemic, Oesterle is confident right now is the time to reinvent the beloved pastime.
“If you look at existing campgrounds, people haven’t really reevaluated how those are done since the 1960s,” Oesterle said.
