Meet Paul Durbin

We had the good fortune of connecting with Paul Durbin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Paul, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
We kind of fell into it honestly. When we first moved back to the United States after living in China for 11 years, we didn’t have a place to live for a few months. We had a house lined up, but we couldn’t move into it immediately. So, our choices were either to stay with family, live in a hotel, or buy a camper and go camping. We had missed being able to camp while living overseas, so we went with the last choice buying a camper.

We bought a used pop-up camper on craigslist, and there was nothing wrong with it, other than a few cosmetic issues which I spent a few weeks working at. Once I had it painted and looking nice, I noticed an ad on Facebook for Outdoorsy, which is sort of like an Airbnb for RVs and camper trailers. I was intrigued, so I had a friend help me take some nice pictures and and then listed our pop-up on the site. The next morning I woke up to discover that I had nearly 2 weeks of solid bookings in our camper.

I found this to be very exciting, and wondered if we might be able to find another camper to list on outdoorsy. We had to take a trip up north to see family in North Dakota, and while there we stop by a friend of my wife’s father, who happen to have a small fiberglass camper trailer in his driveway that he wasn’t using. He offered it to us, and we bought it and pulled it back to Colorado. I also took some nice pictures of this camper, listed it, and again had many weeks of bookings in a short time.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Basically, I’ve learned that I enjoy learning, as well as creating and starting things. That seems to be the common thread and all of the things that I have done.

Over the past 30 years I have recorded a few albums (which means I have a strong love for music), I’ve written a few books, I’ve learned to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese (I even gave a few speeches while living in Beijing). Along with my wife of 30 years, we’ve raised our four children on 2 different continents and at least five different cities — and even took them camping on an unrestored portion of the Great Wall!

I find I enjoy tackling things that other people say are impossible. I find that I almost take the idea that something is impossible as a challenge to go ahead and do it.

I’ve learned that to get some thing impossible done, you just need to chip away at it a little bit every day. After a while, you discover that the impossible is accomplished.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would definitely have to take a friend down to the Village Coffee Shop in Boulder. I love the Village because it is such a classic diner. The last time I was there, I couldn’t help myself, and I purchased one of their T-shirts which proudly states that their shop is “890 Square feet of reality, surrounded by Boulder,”

Since eating there would likely make my friend and I gain a few pounds, I would then take that friend Chautauqua boulder and hike up to see the first and second flat irons. The views on that hike are the some of the best views of anything I have seen anywhere. Period. Absolutely breathtaking.

We would have to go camping of course, so I would take friends on a tour to take in as many state parks and national parks that we could (all in Colorado of course).

To clean up after that tour, we would have to make a stop in Glenwood Springs Colorado. I love the huge Hot Springs pool that they have there. I’ve always loved Hot Springs, but there’s some thing amazing about swimming in a hot pool that is so massive.

I would also invite them just to hang around our house on a Friday night. For the last few years, we have invited neighbors and friends over to our place on Friday night for dinner, games, chatting, watching a movie, etc. My family and I have been intentional about building a community, and after a few years, I love the friendships we’ve made, and I would love to share those friendships with anyone who happens to be in town.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to give a shout out to Steve Pike. Steve lives in Denver and has started a nonprofit called the Urban Islands project, and has also written a book called the Next Wave. Steve has served as a coach and mentor to my wife and I as we endeavor to start a faith community in Boulder Colorado. Specifically, Steve has encouraged us to think about starting a business to run alongside the ministry that we endeavor to start. The reason for starting the business is to support us as we also launch a ministry.

Website: pauldurbin.co, campboulder.co, belaychurch.com

Instagram: paul durbin.co, campboulder.co belaychurch

Youtube: youtube.com/campboulder

Other: paul.durbin@me.com

Image Credits
The picture with children was taken by https://www.sandquistphoto.com