20/11/2024
Natchez Trace Travel Community,
Remember Me?
Randy Fought - Founder and former Owner of NatchezTraceTravel.com
Earlier this year I sold Natchez Trace Travel (website and social media accounts including this page) to Conrad and Ute Pitts, owners/innkeepers of FarmhouseSanctuary BnB Their bed and breakfast is located just off the Natchez Trace Parkway (Parkway) in northwest Alabama (between mileposts 340 and 338 – only a couple miles from the historic Stone Wall).
I decided to sell the business due to a slowly progressing health condition (In 2007, at the age of 46, my right leg started dragging.).
My background in the hospitality industry spans almost 30 years beginning in 1995 when I created one of the first bed & breakfast directory websites called www.BBOnline.com. By 2005, the site grew to over 5,000 bed & breakfast listings from all 50 states, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. I sold BBOnline in 2006.
In late 2008 I was contacted by Bill & Kay Jones who owned Ridgetop B&B located in Hampshire, TN (near milepost 391). Bill & Kay also owned the Natchez Trace B&B Reservation Service which they started in 1994 (they were one of my first advertisers on BBOnline). They were ready to retire and wanted to know if I was interested in buying their reservation service. Living in the Nashville area, not far from the Parkway’s northern terminus, loving B&Bs (of course) and being curious about the Natchez Trace I was very interested.
In early November 2008 I took a 2-day exploring trip from the northern terminus of the Parkway down to the Colbert Ferry site in Alabama. The fall colors were gorgeous (some of the pictures I took are still on the website!) – I was hooked!
However, before jumping into this endeavor I wanted to find out what was going on with my health. After a couple of doctor visits I ended up at the Neurology Dept at Vanderbilt Medical Center in December 2008.
First, they tested me for MS and ALS. Thankfully, both tests were negative. They switched me to a different neuro doc at Vanderbilt who specializes in mobility disorders. He diagnosed me with Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP). HSP is a group of rare, inherited neurological disorders. Their primary symptoms are progressive spasticity and weakness of the leg and hip muscles.
He told me the symptoms could "level off" or I might need to use a wheelchair within 5 years. But HSP isn't fatal. So, I decided to purchase the reservation service.
Before launching NatchezTraceTravel.com, I spent 2 weeks traveling the Parkway in January/February 2009 meeting each bed & breakfast host to view their property and their area (restaurants, attractions, etc.). Along the way, I took over 2,000 pictures of the B&Bs, area sites and of the Parkway!
I created NatchezTraceTravel.com in February 2009 with travelers, innkeepers, and guests in mind. I wanted to create an "All in One" solution for all things featuring history, testimonials from travelers, photos from enthusiasts, cycling itineraries, travel info, motorcycle travel, lodging (and camping), festivals and events, and more.
I continued making B&B reservations (just as Bill & Kay had – “off line” over the phone) for each type of Natchez Trace traveler – tourists driving cars/trucks, motorcyclists and bicyclists.
Unfortunately, my degenerative nerve condition continued to get worse. Each symptom worsened and more symptoms started. In the spring of 2015 I started having problems with my voice. This was a problem since I was on the phone 2+ hours a day talking with guests and cyclists about their itineraries and booking rooms.
So, at the end of 2015 I decided to change the “business model”. Rather than making reservations I decided to simply charge each innkeeper a flat, yearly fee to be listed on NatchezTraceTravel.com (and guests could book directly with innkeepers).
A few years ago, because of more upper body problems, my neuro team changed my diagnosis to Primary Lateral Sclerosis (PLS). PLS is a group of rare, degenerative, neurological disorders. PLS is caused primarily by degeneration of the upper motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, which results in increasing spasticity and weakness of voluntary muscles. It is often referred to as a benign variant of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease).
At the end of 2023 I knew it was time to give up the website. Earlier this year Conrad contacted me with interest in buying
NatchezTraceTravel.com because of how many of their guests “first found them” on the website. In addition to being an innkeeper and providing a sanctuary for dozens of animals (along with his wife Ute) he has been involved with other businesses that employed software developers and website designers/marketers.
After a couple phone calls I was convinced that they could handle taking over NatchezTraceTravel.com and making many improvements.
Over the past few months, Conrad, Ute and their team (Dillard &
Heather Murphy have been "picking my brain" about the website, the Parkway, cycling and nearby lodging. I have been offering my suggestions and knowledge as they design and build the new website.
When I visited Conrad and Ute at https://www.farmhousesanctuary.com they presented an idea based on their frequent travels to Sante Fe, NM and always using the booking site www.TwoCasitas.com. It allows for guests to make multiple bookings for their trip with a single checkout event. This prevents the guest from having to visit 5 different hosts' websites to book 5 different stays. Since guests travelling the Natchez Trace generally book months in advance this is a seamless solution to offer them. They've trusted Dillard & Heather with building out and re-branding the website given their 20+ years of experience in tech, e-commerce, and marketing.
They plan on launching the new website in the next couple of weeks. I am grateful they are making NatchezTraceTravel.com even better!
For more info about HSP and PLS, see:
https://sp-foundation.org
Currently, there are no cures for HSP, PLS and ALS. However, there is a lot of research and possibly a few cures in the pipeline. I would be most grateful if you would visit the Spastic Foundation website, learn more and perhaps make a donation that will help fund further studies and hopefully discover a cure.
Wishing each of you well as you travel the Natchez Trace!!
Randy Fought
