Heritage Tourism and Outdoor Recreation Are Telling the Same Story
Updated: Oct 20
Heritage Tourism Conversations, Episode 4 · Recorded live on Zoom September 2, 2026
Laura Scharle of Scharle Outdoor Recreation Consulting and Delmarva Trails and Waterways joined Heidi Schlag to explore the overlap between heritage tourism and outdoor recreation. Her operating philosophy is that you can't tell the story of a landscape without its human history, and the reverse is just as true. The conversation covers how one video brought new visitors to Furnace Town, why bathrooms are an interpretive asset, what she's learned from selling print guides, and how AI is changing the way people plan trips.
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About the guest
Laura Scharle is the owner of Scharle Outdoor Recreation Consulting and the creator of Delmarva Trails and Waterways, a hub for outdoor recreation on the Delmarva Peninsula with more than 40,000 social media followers. She spent more than 10 years as interpretive programs manager at Delaware Seashore State Park, including the Indian River Life-Saving Station Museum, after starting as an environmental education intern and seasonal interpreter with Delaware State Parks. Today she works with historic sites, municipalities, DMOs, and outdoor recreation businesses on marketing and interpretive planning.
What we talked about
Nature and history belong in the same story. In her Delaware State Parks job interview, Laura was asked whether she was a nature interpreter or a history interpreter, and she answered that you can't separate the two. As a supervisor, she trained rangers to open every program with a 90-second orientation to everything the park offered, whether visitors came for a kayak tour, a hike, or a lantern tour. Visitors who came for one kind of program started coming back for others.
One good video can move foot traffic. Furnace Town, an 1820s and 1830s village inside Pocomoke State Forest in Maryland, struggled with visibility because of its remote location. A video Laura posted to Delmarva Trails and Waterways reached roughly 400,000 views, and the site's director saw a measurable increase in fall visitors. Together they developed the tagline "Discover the Village, Wander the Wilderness," which the site adopted into its marketing.
Meet basic needs first. Furnace Town has some of the only flushing toilets and running water in the Pocomoke State Forest area, and Laura sees that as a real asset. Visitors can't connect with a story until their basic needs, like parking, restrooms, water, and maps, are met.
Fill the information gap visitors face. Laura built Delmarva Trails and Waterways during COVID because outdoor recreation information was scattered across federal, state, county, municipal, nonprofit, and private websites. After years of doubting print, she released a downloadable regional guide that sold about 50 copies on its first day, and she has since released two more. Heidi added that research shows visitors still want printed materials, even as budgets push organizations toward digital only.
AI pulls from personal voices. When Laura used AI to plan her family's Southwest road trip, it drew most heavily on Yelp and independent travel blogs rather than official tourism sites. That's a partnership opportunity for DMOs and heritage sites to work with bloggers and creators. Heidi's standing advice is to add an FAQ page that answers the questions visitors might ask an AI assistant and to keep your Google and TripAdvisor listings accurate.
Spread visitors out and build advocates. Laura has retired the phrase "hidden gem" because it invites a sense of ownership, and she reminds her audience that public land belongs to everyone. Her simple rules: stay on the trail, dispose of waste properly, and if the parking lot is full, come back at a quieter time. She also steers people toward lesser-known spots, like Robinson Neck Preserve on Taylors Island in Dorchester County.
Join the next conversation
Heritage Tourism Conversations happen monthly on Zoom, and each one brings together people working in museums, DMOs, scenic byways, heritage areas, Main Streets, and outdoor recreation to learn from each other. Join my email list to get the invitation for upcoming conversations, and see what's coming up next on the Heritage Tourism Conversations page.
Full transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.
Heidi Schlag: Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us. Just letting people join. And while we wait, if you all could drop into the chat who you are and where you are and what brings you to the webinar today, Laura and I would love to just know who we've got in the room with us. And we'll give people just a second to get settled. I've got a few more people popping in here. Hi, Lara. From the coastal regions of Virginia. Hi, Joel. Hi, John. I've got Claudia. Aaron from Northwest Pennsylvania.
Laura Scharle: Hi Claudia hi Joanie.
Heidi Schlag: Hi, Dia.
Heidi Schlag: Hi Grace.
Laura Scharle: I'm going to be talking about you a little bit oh good.
Heidi Schlag: All right. Just admitting a few more people here. Oh, thanks, John. I went out to catch up and hear how your presentation went. All right. Well, let me hit record before I forget. And I'm admitting a few more people. And. All right. I think we're ready to go. Thank you all so much for joining us today. Laura and I are really excited to have this conversation and thrilled that you're all with us. A couple housekeeping things. First of all, I'm having a thunderstorm here in Frederick, Maryland, and then it's going to go north or southeast and hit Annapolis, which is where Laura is. So we're hoping that our technology will hold out. And we apologize for any snafus that may occur. Secondly, for those of you who might be new to these conversations, I'm Heidi Schlag. I run Heritage Tourism Studio, and one of the things that I had been noticing in my work is that all of the various aspects of heritage tourism, whether that's museums, main streets, scenic byways, outdoor rec, DMOs, tourism offices, all tend to function in silos. And they don't always, they're not always enabled to talk to each other the way that we wish they would. And a lot of that is just because of governance and finances and capacity issues.
So one thing that I was hoping to do with this series is just bring practitioners together to be able to talk about issues that are common to all of us and network and find solutions, meet each other. So that is why I've created this series. I did four over the summer. This is the last of the four. And it was an experiment to see how many people would be interested, and the response has been great. And I thank all of you who have joined us for this one, and those of you who've been on previous sessions also. So I decided that I'm continuing them, I'm going to do one a month. And all of you, by virtue of the fact that you're here today, are on the email list now. So I'll send out announcements each month as I get them scheduled, and you can, if you're interested in the topic, we'd love for you to join us; if it's something that doesn't resonate with you, you can skip it. And then I do record them all and put them all on my YouTube channel, so you can always catch up with them after the fact if you're unavailable. So with that, I want to welcome Laura Scharle, who is joining me today. She's also in Maryland. We're both Maryland girls. And, Laura, do you want to just kick us off by introducing yourself and the type of work that you do?
Laura Scharle: Sure, so really excited that everybody's joining for this topic, it's a topic I've become very passionate about over the years. I currently work as an independent contractor, so I help historic sites and municipalities, occasional DMOs, and outdoor recreation businesses, mostly with marketing but also with interpretive planning and anything else that they might need. But I started my career with Delaware State Parks. I was an environmental education intern. I majored in biology and all I wanted to do was teach people about horseshoe crabs. So I worked there as an intern and then as a seasonal interpreter for a few years, until I was offered their full-time role as an interpretive programs manager, which included overseeing all of the interpretive programming in the park, whether it was kayak eco-tours, guided hikes, or the history side of things. So I was in charge of a small museum, the Indian River Life-Saving Station Museum, an old coast guard station built in 1876, and that's where I learned about historic collections and exhibits and interpretive planning and historic reenactments. I was in that role for a little over 10 years and got a lot of great experience from that. And then, as I started my new step in my career with contract work, I've continued to work in this field, and I'm so very lucky.
Heidi Schlag: Great. When we did our prep call a few weeks ago, you told me a story about an interview question they asked you at Delaware State Parks that I think really sort of sets up this conversation nicely. So can you tell us about that?
Laura Scharle: Yeah, it's kind of like one of those little defining moments in your career. I was interviewing for the full-time role for that interpretive programs manager position, and, spoiler, you guys know I already got it, but one of the questions caught me off guard. I was so, so nervous because I wanted that job so badly, and one of the questions was, you know, a lot of us interpreters consider ourselves to be either a nature/outdoor interpreter or a history interpreter. Do you identify with either one of those, or do you think they should be mixed together? And I was like a deer in the headlights. I was not prepared for that question, so I said, okay, I'm going to think out loud here, and I said I started my career as more on the nature/outdoor side of things, but as I talked through my thoughts it came out, and I said: you can't tell the full story of an outdoor landscape without talking about how human history affected it, and vice versa, you can't tell a story from a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, without talking about how the natural resources in the landscape around it impacted that story. I think it wasn't the most polished answer, it wasn't like I'd prepared for it, but they must have liked it. I still think about that moment. I can still see the people interviewing me around the table, and them nodding along with me.
Heidi Schlag: Well, we're getting some hearts, so people on the webinar agree with you, as do I. And I think that is so important, and isn't something that you see at all parks. So I really applaud you for carrying that through your work. Can you talk a little bit about how you then took that attitude and passed it on to your rangers, in your actual job?
Laura Scharle: Yes. It was a work in progress. It's not always an easy thing to mesh together from the start and have everybody understand the importance of it. But I think as I got more experienced supervising and training seasonal staff, it became easier and easier. I want to say that the park I was working in always had this constant identity crisis, because we were this barrier island, not technically an island, a barrier beach park, a long skinny park between Bethany Beach and Rehoboth Beach, and Highway Route One bisects the whole park, so there are like 13 different entrances into the park. Most people think it's just a random gravel parking lot off the side of the highway. They didn't even realize they were in a state park, and when people came to our programs they would meet in all different locations, whether they're doing a hike or a kayak tour or attending a lantern tour at the museum, they're all going to different places. So most of my college interns would come in with an environmental education background, and they would be leading kayak eco-tours and guided hikes. And I realized that people were just signing up to go on a kayak tour, just pulling off at the side of the highway at a spot called Savages Ditch, just this gravel parking lot, and they weren't connecting with the rest of the park. They weren't realizing that we had a museum. They weren't realizing that we had a whole story to tell. And so probably by year two or three I said, you know what, we need to be not just introducing ourselves and saying welcome to Delaware Seashore State Park, we need to be saying, if you're not familiar with this park, it is six and a half miles long, there's so much to offer. Today we're launching our kayak tour into what's called Station Cove because it's right across from the Indian River Life-Saving Station. Let me tell you about that for a minute, and then when we're done our tour, I invite you to come back and check out the museum. This kayak launch is called Savages Ditch. Savage is the name of one of the surfmen who served in the Life-Saving Service in Delaware. So it's all connected. And once I started training my staff to go out and just say that 90-second plug at the beginning of every program, it really helped consolidate everything and connect everything. And it worked. After a while we were seeing people who came on a kayak tour come to a historic reenactment later that week, or we had a family that was on a guided hike and loved it so much, they heard their guide was going to be leading a lantern tour that night, so they would go sign up and learn more about the local heritage, not just the birds and the turtles and everything, which are really exciting too.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah, I think as park folk, I used to work with the C&O Canal, we live the park and we know the boundaries, and we forget that the visitor doesn't necessarily know the boundaries. Along the C&O Canal, everybody had their own entrance point. For those of you not familiar, it's very long and skinny, so it became a place where you could access it from your community, and it's where you walked your dog or went for your evening run, and not everybody was aware that they were within a park boundary. And it sounds like the same thing was going on in Delaware.
Laura Scharle: Exactly.
Heidi Schlag: So I know that you spend a lot of time kayaking and doing other outdoor rec activities, and you told me about how you feel more connected to history when you're out in your kayak. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Laura Scharle: Yes, definitely. So in 2012 I set a personal goal to paddle the entire Delmarva Peninsula, to circumnavigate it. It's 600 miles. It took me 11 years to complete. I just did it in little chunks, little 8-to-12-mile trips.
Heidi Schlag: Quickly, for people who aren't from the area, tell them what Delmarva is.
Laura Scharle: Yes, sorry, Delmarva, it's the Delmarva Peninsula. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia. I say it's all the land east of the Chesapeake Bay. Pretty simple, but yeah, that's a term I use all the time, and I realize a lot of people don't know it. So anyway, I set out on this goal, and anytime I would go cross off a couple more miles I was driving to some of the most remote boat ramps in the region, a lot of times before sunrise, down these sometimes dirt roads to get to where I needed to launch my kayak. And it was in those moments when I felt like I was the only human for miles and miles, and I may have been. But it's when the rest of the world quiets down and I see less and less signs of modern life that my mind starts to wander, and I'm like, well, what was it like to be the first human to paddle up this creek? Wouldn't that be exciting, or wouldn't it have been scary? Or maybe they were hunting, foraging. There are just so many stories I would start wondering about. And so when I got back from paddling I would normally go look up some of the history of the area. A lot of the places I would go were so remote that there's not going to be an interpretive wayside there, that's for sure. But it's when I am out immersed in a natural landscape that I feel like I can connect most with the people who came before me. It sounds really cheesy, but it's so true.
Heidi Schlag: Now, I have that sense too, and I'm not a kayaker, I hike, but I think that's why preserving the natural landscape is so important. I know I'm preaching to the choir for people on this call, but what you said at the top, about how history and the natural landscape are linked, is so true. And it's those types of experiences where you're sort of in awe of what is surrounding you that, I think, makes such an impression on people.
Laura Scharle: And I feel like what I just said was very focused on what I'm seeing, but there are times when there are other feelings too, I'm tasting, I'm smelling. For example, I remember paddling through a narrow creek somewhere in Dorchester County, and I was getting attacked by greenhead flies. There was mud, there was a mud incident, black needle rush was poking at me, I was bleeding, and all I could think about was, this is the same landscape that Harriet Tubman and freedom seekers were trying to navigate to freedom, and they had to put up with all these really aggravating things, probably even more of them. And here I know I'm totally safe, I'm just uncomfortable. So when I start feeling that sensory experience, it just makes it all the more real. Or sometimes when I hear a specific bird, I don't know, a Carolina wren or something, sometimes I get sort of teary-eyed, I think, you know what, my grandmother loved Carolina wrens, and I know they sounded the same. It's just a nice link to the past when you hear those things, smell those things, feel those things.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah, I love that. That was very evocative, what you were talking about, that's what Harriet Tubman was experiencing, or the Native Americans, or the first Europeans to explore the Delmarva area. So yeah, that was great. So let's turn a little bit to Furnace Town, which is a client of yours. Do you want to talk a little bit about who they are and the type of projects you're helping them tackle?
Laura Scharle: Yeah, for sure. So Furnace Town is a historic village set in the 1820s-1830s. I feel like my teacher is listening to me because the director is on the call today, so if anybody has really specific questions about Furnace Town, we could redirect to her later. But anyway, it is right smack dab in the middle of Pocomoke State Forest, thousands of acres of undeveloped land. And the first time I ever went there was March of 2020, when everything just got shut down. I was trying to get my kid out of the house, and we were going to go for a hike in the state forest, and I had heard of Furnace Town, I didn't really know much about it, and I had heard there was a trail that left from inside the Furnace Town boundaries. And there were some volunteers there that were gardening and doing some site cleanup, and they were like, yeah, come on in, we don't know what the world's doing, go hike this trail, we're closed but come on in. And one of the volunteers I got to talking with, I said, this is really beautiful here, you have a really beautiful location. And she said, yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. Basically, because it's so far off the beaten path, I mean it's not that far off the beaten path, but it is off the beaten path, it's a good five miles from the closest town, there's not really another reason to turn down that road unless you're going to hike or you're going to Furnace Town or you live there. And she said, it's beautiful, but a lot of people don't even know we exist. I was like, oh yeah, I get that. So anyway, kind of the universe puts things in your path for reasons sometimes, and I was hiking with some friends in Pocomoke State Forest, and we met at the parking lot right outside Furnace Town, because it's located at multiple trailheads. You can hike a two-mile trail, you can hike a mile trail, you can hike the entire 12-13-mile Algonquin Trail, there are so many options just from this one parking lot. And I was hiking with a friend, and then I was like, you know what, I really want to go into Furnace Town, I hear they just repaired one of their trails that had been closed for a little while and I've never been able to hike the whole thing. So we went in and hiked the trail, and I took some video and put it on my social media, Delmarva Trails and Waterways, which is a whole other conversation, but it kind of went viral, like some 400,000 people saw it, and the director even said she reported an increase in foot traffic that fall because people had seen this little video I did of the trail, and they pay admission to come in so they can access the trail. So that was this just silly thing that I did that turned out really well. And then the director there, Claudia, she even knew, she knew in her gut that there was an opportunity here to harness that outdoor recreation visitor and try to get more visitation at her site, but she just wasn't quite sure how to do it. So we were connected by a mutual friend. I did this reel on Instagram and Facebook that went sort of viral, and then next thing I knew I was sitting in Claudia's office, and we're brainstorming on how to help her increase foot traffic at her site and get more people at events and just spread the word about Furnace Town.
Heidi Schlag: I love that. So how are you accomplishing that? We don't have to give away all your secrets, but...
Laura Scharle: Yeah, no, it's a work in progress. I think what I would like to do more of, we started doing this, but we started almost with a tagline. It was a tagline I just threw on my initial proposal for scope of work, and I was like, I'm going to put a cute little tagline on this, and I called it Discover the Village, Wander the Wilderness. So right there you're getting people interested in this historic village, this living history site, and you're getting people who are interested in wandering the wilderness and getting out on the trails. Their team loved that little tagline, and they've started using it in some of their marketing materials. I used it in a reel that I created for their social media, and they have seen an uptick in new memberships, so that was exciting. And I think their team fully understands that Furnace Town wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the natural resources that surround it. Some of the people there were harvesting bog iron from Nassawango Creek, which is not far away, and logging trees and burning timber to create charcoal. It's a really important location, situated between this swamp, Nassawango Creek, and Pocomoke State Forest. So again, you can't tell one story without the other when you're there. And I'm excited to see, as we help them grow that theme a little bit, appeal to all kinds of visitors, not just the people who are there to learn about the history, but people who want to learn about the surrounding forest.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah, I'm glad you made that point, because that's what I was thinking about too, that the people who lived in Furnace Town, back in the day, were living off of that landscape and using it in a way that we can still appreciate today.
Laura Scharle: Exactly.
Heidi Schlag: So can you talk a little bit about, when we did our prep call, you mentioned the flushing toilets and the running water that Furnace Town offers, and, especially for other sites in a similar position who might be listening, how you might not think a bathroom is an asset, but it is.
Laura Scharle: So I have told many people, including their team there, Furnace Town has the only flushing toilets and running water in nearly the entire Pocomoke State Forest. That's a slight exaggeration, because you can go down to Pocomoke River State Park, there are facilities there. But it really is. And when I've gone hiking at other trailheads within the state forest that are nowhere near running water or a toilet, or don't even have a porta-john, and I'm fine with that, I can rough it, but there are a lot of people who are not going to want to do that. So if somebody wants to go hike in Pocomoke State Forest, I would always direct them to the Furnace Town trailheads, because hey, while you're there they have a decent parking lot, they have bathrooms, they have a visitor center with maps, you can fill your water bottle. I'm sure there are a lot of people in the interpretive field on this call, but you all know that one of the first things you learn in interpretation is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You have to make sure basic human needs are met before anybody can connect with the landscape on a deeper level.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah, absolutely. Wanda Maloney's on this call, and she's said multiple times, I spend a lot of time talking about bathrooms in my work, which makes me laugh. But to your point, absolutely, Maslow's hierarchy is key to making visitors comfortable before they're able to absorb any type of information. So you mentioned a little while ago your website, Delmarva Trails and Waterways. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Laura Scharle: Sure. I created it during COVID, when I realized everybody in my life was asking me how to get outdoors. Where can I walk my dog? Where can I take my kids? Where can I go sit by a river that's shaded? I was astounded at how little people knew, but the information out there about outdoor spaces is so fragmented. There's federal lands, state lands, county lands, municipalities, nonprofits, private property you can access, but it's all on different websites, there's not a one-stop shop. So I decided to make this my passion project, and I built this website that has turned into just a beast of a website, with interactive maps and searchable...
Heidi Schlag: Sorry, you froze for a second. Can you go...
Laura Scharle: Oh, I see, hold on.
Heidi Schlag: You froze at "a beast of a website," so if you can... yep, we can hear you now.
Laura Scharle: Okay, you can hear me now? Okay, I'm in a public library, and I just had to reconfirm my... anyway. So yeah, it's turned into a beast of a website. I have 40,000 followers on social media, and it's just this thing that I love doing, and I keep doing it, and I'm starting to partner with the occasional DMOs and private businesses to do sponsored posts. The Lower Shore Heritage Area, I've worked with them, and it's been really fun, and now it's creating a little revenue for me, which is also gratifying, I guess. I will say, though, and I feel like a little bit of a fraud here, because I'm talking all about heritage tourism, and what I've created is so heavy on outdoor recreation, I have not told enough, I've barely scratched the surface of what I could be doing with local heritage and telling the stories of Delmarva. What I have done, and I guess the algorithm has figured it out, the audience I've aggregated is so heavy on hiking and kayaking, which is awesome, but at times I've started to put in little tidbits. I spent like three hours making a reel about the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, how I kayaked and biked it, and it barely reached anyone. So I don't know if that's because the audience I've attracted isn't as excited about heritage tourism, or if it's just a social media algorithm thing. I think it's the latter. But yeah, I'm still working on that. Laura, you said, one step at a time, I like that. I'm working on it. But then again, I recently polled my audience and said, well, why are you here? I did the whole thumbs-up-if-you're-here-for-trails, hearts-if-you're-here-for-kayaking thing, and got a lot of responses, vast majority were definitely there for hiking. Then I said, put in comments if you're here for something else or you have ideas for content, and in the comments people were like, we want to know more about the history of these areas. I had several people comment about that, and that told me, okay, I'm thinking in the right direction, this audience does care. And then another thing that surprised me, a few people said, we want information that's centered around a town. And I'm like, that's a great idea, I could partner with the town of Snow Hill or the town of Cambridge and highlight everything within a 30-minute drive of those areas. So yeah, I again feel kind of disappointed in myself because I haven't told as much of the local heritage as I probably should have from the beginning.
Heidi Schlag: Well, I don't think you should, because look how you grew your site, and you're doing a fabulous job, and you're basically a one-woman show. So don't be hard on yourself.
Laura Scharle: Thank you. Yeah.
Heidi Schlag: I find it so interesting that you spotted this gap and stepped into it, because it's one of my origin stories, how I got into heritage and cultural tourism and decided to build this business. I was trying to navigate the Blue Ridge Parkway, I wanted to drive from Roanoke up to my home in Frederick, and I had like four maps and three different destination guides and a couple of websites, and was really struggling to find the types of things I like to visit. Besides driving that byway, I wanted to stop at the small towns, find the historic sites and the museums and the monuments and the state parks where I could hike. And the way the tourism environment is funded, it's hard for any of those entities to represent all of those things, because, as you stated, national parks have their mandates, state parks have their mandate, DMOs are usually done by county or some other jurisdictional boundary. You're not the only person I know who's recognized this as a problem and stepped into the gap. So I'm curious, how have you been able to work with some of those other entities, the parks and the DMOs and the towns? Have you been able to form partnerships with them? How does that look?
Laura Scharle: Some small partnerships, through doing sponsored posts. I partnered with Maryland DNR, they were doing a campaign with the Maryland Ice Cream Trail, linking it to hiking trails near each dairy farm, so I did a sponsored blog post and some social media posts for them. They were wonderful to work with. That worked really well because they're representing the whole state; part of me wanted to be like, well, now I need to include the dairy farms that are also in Delaware, but I needed to focus on Maryland for that one. And I've partnered with a few private businesses. For example, I partnered with the Dogfish Inn in Lewes, they have a cool tagline, "Mother Nature, Let's Do This," which I think is really cute, and they have free bikes for all their guests, and miles and miles of trails you can access from their hotel, and they really wanted to harness that outdoor spirit. So I worked with them on a blog post and some social media posts, trying to drive my audience that's hungry for outdoors to go check out the Dogfish Inn. That's been successful. I haven't worked with a lot of DMOs, but I think it's just because, like you said, they're very focused on their area because of their funding and the way they're structured, and I totally get that. I have partnered in a different way with my local DMO, Maryland's Coast, I'm actually creating content for them. So it's not on my Delmarva Trails and Waterways, but they got to know me watching that social media channel and my website, and realized, this girl's getting out to all the places where we don't have time to go take pictures and videos. So that's been a cool partnership as well.
Heidi Schlag: And for people on the call who might not be familiar with the term content creator, that's essentially the function you're serving in several of the examples you've given, that you're able to go out and create content...
Laura Scharle: Exactly.
Heidi Schlag: ...that staff aren't able to create. I want to open it up to questions, if anybody has a question or a comment about anything we've been talking about, please pop it in the chat. And is the storm coming for you?
Laura Scharle: Storm is arriving.
Heidi Schlag: And while we wait to see if there are any questions, you had talked about print guides that you created and how popular they've been.
Laura Scharle: Oh, yeah. It's interesting, I have been trying to get away from print for years, and I think I've been defeated. I think print is here to stay in some circumstances. Everybody's like, you should write a guidebook, and I'm like, I'm not writing a guidebook, they go out of date so fast, and who really uses guidebooks anymore? And people are like, we want guides, we want guides. I'm like, but it's all on the website, just use the website. And I finally caved this past spring, I released my first print guide, sold as a digital download you print yourself. I put it in a little online store on my website, and I advertised it in a post around Memorial Day weekend, which I wasn't even thinking would be a good time, and it was really rainy, so everybody was stuck inside scrolling their phones, they all saw the social media post, and I sold, let me do the math here, I sold like 50 of them in the first day. I was like, really, people really want to download and print something? I haven't owned a printer in like 20 years. But the audience ate it up, and I've created two more regions, the beaches of Delaware, Maryland's Atlantic coast area, and the upper shore of Virginia's Eastern Shore. So I'm doing them in small pockets, I've only released three so far, but they've been really successful, and I guess people just like to hold something in their hands. And when you're out exploring, you want to immerse yourself in the landscape, and look at what you're looking at, instead of scrolling your phone trying to find the next place you're going to go. So again, I tried to get away from print because I feel like it's a waste of resources sometimes, it's expensive, it's not great for the environment. But then I did these downloads, and people have loved them. I haven't had to spend my money printing a bunch of stuff, and it's meeting the need that's out there.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah. I've seen a lot of research that supports that people still want print, which I know is a challenge, as costs go up for printing and paper, and lots of organizations have gone digital because they can't afford to print on paper, and by and large are still asking for the print map they can have in their pocket or in the car with them.
Laura Scharle: And I see Laura M.'s comment, wondering if they're afraid of losing signal. And I can definitely relate to that, because I just got back from a road trip through the Southwest, and I was warned there may be times when you're not going to be able to use Google Maps on your phone. So I downloaded offline maps just in case. I don't think I needed them, but I'm glad I had them.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah, so this sort of ties in, oh, Susan says she recently used downloaded maps and weather reports in Rhode Island. Yes, another great point. So this whole conversation about how visitors are combining analog print guides with digital guides, with GPS and mapping, brings us to AI, and how AI is beginning to impact how visitors both plan their trips and then actually interact within a destination. What have you seen through your site and your experiences with how AI is changing things?
Laura Scharle: Yeah, it's a topic we all need to talk about. I've definitely noticed my website traffic has plateaued, it's not decreased a lot, but I think people search for something, get the thing at the top of their search results, and end up not clicking on anything, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's happening for all kinds of businesses and websites. But that's fine, my social media is still doing really well, and it's driving a lot of traffic to my website that way. I have asked Gemini or ChatGPT questions I know the answer to, I quiz it, like, what's the best place to go for a hike in Wicomico County, and it'll come up with a response, and then sometimes I'll say, well, where did you learn that, how did you find that? And a few times it has referenced my website, so I'm like, yes, I'm doing something right. But other times, like I said, I just got back from a vacation in the Southwest, and there was a lot of planning, where are we going to stop, what are we going to do along the way, which route are we going to take, and I did use AI quite a bit to plan, and sometimes I'd say, well, where did you get this information, and many times it led me to Yelp and personal travel blogs, just people like me who have a blog about the outdoors or about traveling. So if there are any people from DMOs on this call, I highly recommend continuing to work with, I hate the word influencer, but bloggers. That's where you might be seeing a website traffic drop on your tourism website, but ChatGPT is pulling stuff from these blogs, and they're really helpful blogs, some of them have really detailed information, I get into the weeds of details when I plan a trip. So that's just an interesting tidbit I found along the way.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah. Laura says, gotta feed the monster. And I did a similar thing, I asked, I think it was Claude, to plan a trip near Frederick for my husband and me, we're history lovers, we like breweries and hiking, something like that, because I wanted to see what it would give me. And it gave me several choices, the top one was Harper's Ferry. So then I said, tell me why you recommended Harper's Ferry, what sites did you check out, and it said it never looked at any tourism or DMO website, it pulled it from TripAdvisor and Reddit.
Laura Scharle: Yeah, oh, Reddit, yeah.
Heidi Schlag: Yeah, and Yelp. And that makes me concerned for the smaller sites, like your Furnace Towns, and all of these small museums, that AI seems to be prioritizing the amount of reviews and the popularity of sites when it's making recommendations. And I don't know how that's all going to shake out at this point. But I tell my smaller clients, if you don't have an FAQ page on your website, that's something you should add, any question a visitor might ask AI is something the answer should appear on your website...
Laura Scharle: That's great advice, great advice.
Heidi Schlag: ...so that AI can pick up the correct information. And checking to make sure your Google listings and your TripAdvisor listings are all accurate, I think, is going to become more important for that same reason. TripAdvisor feeds into AI too, I believe. Yeah. So you mentioned how you planned your trip to the Southwest, can you talk a little bit about what worked, what didn't work?
Laura Scharle: Yeah, honestly, it didn't let me down, everything I researched really worked. It was me, my husband, and my son, my son's 10. We were driving from Las Vegas to Salida, Colorado, and wanted to hit some cool places. I didn't want to go to national parks because they're zoos in August, so I asked for alternative places, and it suggested Bears Ears, so we went to Bears Ears National Monument. It suggested, I can't remember everything, but it did a nice job, and it referenced some blogs that answered my exact question, like, we would love to go to Canyonlands, but we know it's going to be really busy, what's something else we could do instead? And the blog was all about it, so I started reading those blogs in detail. The other thing I asked, I said, okay, we're driving from this point to this point, we're going to take Route 66, what are some really tacky, touristy places a 10-year-old would love? And it sent us to a Route 66 museum on one end of our journey, and at the other end was this tiny little town of Seligman, Arizona, and apparently that town was the initial inspiration for Disney's Cars, the movie, and my son enjoyed that movie, so there are references, all these old cars all over town, a really tacky, obnoxious place to get burgers, fries, and shakes. So we went there, just places I never would have found otherwise. So yeah, it really helped.
Heidi Schlag: Nice. And it's really interesting to me, when we talk about technology today and how important it is for us to put into our messaging, our stories, our interpretation, personal stories, making it personal, making it relate to the visitor, that AI is actually prioritizing those personal experiences, surfacing those blogs and people who've actually been to the place, over the marketing copy we're writing...
Laura Scharle: Yep.
Heidi Schlag: ...as marketers. That's something for us to think about as well.
Laura Scharle: I know.
Heidi Schlag: Do we have any other questions or comments?
Laura Scharle: Can I add one thing we talked about, just kind of a call to action for anybody who's like, okay, this is great, but what do I do now? I think one of the things I'd recommend, whether you're working at a historic site, a visitor center, or for a DMO, is making sure frontline staff at those sites, if you have one of those really awesome ambassador travel programs, make sure those frontline people have a good sense of the connection between the outdoors and the local heritage. It takes some effort to train and help people wrap their head around that, but if you do it right, once they start telling those stories, you're telling one thing but appealing to a larger audience. So just making sure those frontline people do a good job explaining the connection between the outdoors and local history.
Heidi Schlag: That's a great tip. And it brings up another question, about over-tourism, and how part of park staff's job is conserving those natural resources, making sure they aren't lost to people going off-trail, littering, all the things people do that we wish they wouldn't do outdoors. How do you help your clients walk that line between allowing these places to be used without endangering them?
Laura Scharle: I'd say, as far as the clients I work with, they're ready for more people, they're not at risk of over-tourism right now. However, the discussion of over-tourism and destroying hidden gems always comes up repeatedly in my Delmarva Trails and Waterways social media channels, and I struggle with it myself. But when somebody leaves a respectful comment saying, well, why are you telling everybody about this if it's such a beautiful hidden gem, I've gotten away from using the term hidden gem, because that makes people feel like it's theirs. But I kind of get on my soapbox and say, look, everything I'm talking about is public land, the public deserves to know about it, it belongs to everyone, and everyone deserves to go there. The other thing is, the more people who discover these places and immerse themselves in nature and local heritage, the more they're going to connect, the more they're going to advocate for more of these places in the future. And the other thing I try not to get too preachy about in my social media, but I do have some pinned posts on Instagram and Facebook, I work three things, I have three cardinal rules, you could go "leave no trace" all day, but I say: stay on the designated trail, dispose of waste appropriately, and if the parking lot is full, come back at a less busy time, that means the established carrying capacity of that area has been met. Those are the three rules I try to put out there, not too much, because I don't want to turn into just this person shaking their finger at everybody. But it's important, and I do the best I can. From working in state parks through COVID, when we saw a giant spike in visitation, the place was an absolute zoo, people parked along the side of the highway, trash everywhere, it was a mess. So the other thing I'm doing with Delmarva Trails and Waterways is helping to spread people out. So instead of everybody going to Cape Henlopen State Park, which is so beautiful, and it really is, I say, have you considered going to these 12 other beaches that no one's ever at? That's another point I try to make in some of my posting.
Heidi Schlag: Right, awesome. Do we have any last questions or comments as we wrap up? And while we wait for people to type, can you tell us, for anybody who lives near Delmarva or is planning to visit, where's one spot they shouldn't miss?
Laura Scharle: That's like the hardest question you've asked. One of the places I really love is called Robinson Neck Preserve, in Dorchester County, on Taylors Island, owned by the Nature Conservancy. In the middle of nowhere, nobody seems to know it exists, but it's a public trail, the Nature Conservancy has a presence out there, they even have those, I forget what they're called, you take your picture at a designated place, add to citizen science, they have three different stations for that, to see how the marsh and the forest are changing. They've got some really cool boardwalks that go through the forest there, and there's just, you can't hear anything except the wind and the birds. It's just so beautiful. So, Robinson Neck Preserve.
Heidi Schlag: Okay, and I'm putting your Delmarva Trails and Waterways URL in the chat.
Laura Scharle: Thanks.
Heidi Schlag: So people can check that out. Any last thoughts you'd like to share before we wrap up?
Laura Scharle: No, I feel like I've been talking, talking, talking. I'm just curious if anybody wants to come off mic and ask a question.
Heidi Schlag: I would love that too.
Laura Scharle: But if not, then I guess, oh, thanks, Laura.
Heidi Schlag: It looks like you're attending the Outdoor Rec Summit.
Laura Scharle: I am, yes. Oh, hey, Ruth, hey, I'll see you there.
Heidi Schlag: So, all right. Well, I don't see anything else, so we'll wrap up. Thank you so much for your time, Laura.
Laura Scharle: Thanks for inviting me.
Heidi Schlag: And, yeah, and for everybody who joined us, watch your inbox, I'll announce the next topic and our next guest probably right after Labor Day. And we hope to see you on another call soon.
Laura Scharle: Okay, definitely, I love this series, keep it up.
Heidi Schlag: Well, thanks so much. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.
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