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Off-grid and Ignorant in PortugalDespatches from a former BBC foreign correspondent now running an off-grid eco-luxe lodge on the Alentejo coast Author: Alastair Leithead
From Our Own Correspondent-style despatches from a former BBC reporter who's now battling to live off the grid in the Alentejo countryside. Selected audio recordings of his weekly blog which began in 2020. alastairleithead.substack.com Language: en Genres: Personal Journals, Places & Travel, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Marketing 101
Sunday, 7 December, 2025
We have already learned a lot of new jobs in this new career path, and for the past two weeks we’ve been trying to learn another one: marketing.Having just about got to grips with off-grid living (first basic, then advanced level), building site project management, landscaping, interior design (Ana, definitely not me), accounting and basic small-hotelier-ing...we’ve reached the next rung on the career ladder.We built it and they came – in the summer – and now we have to keep them coming back in the quieter seasons too, telling their friends to visit, and drumming up some new business on the basis this is a remarkable place we were very lucky to find.For now we have to do what we can until Adelin arrives – a Swedish communications undergraduate (and Oda’s cousin) who is doing a work placement with us early next year to take control of our social media and play the algorithms at their own game.Until then, we are diving into the world of pricing structures, discount deals, combination packages of rooms and meals...and retreats.Thanks for reading Off-grid and Entertaining in Portugal! This post is public so feel free to share it.We’ve been emailing travel agents, contacting friends of friends who are retreat leaders and working out how to use our website properly...including all the data and marketing information it can provide us.And, dear reader, we do have a couple of things coming up which might be of interest...primarily an introduction to wine by a sommelier, marketing exec and author – our friend Joanna, whose Hutchins Wine Academy is hosting its first wine immersion course at our place in May.She has a coveted Wine & Sprit Educational Trust diploma and is a qualified wine educator…we’re going to have a lot of fun with this in May 2026. First come, first served!Check it out...it’d make a great Christmas present! (see, I’m learning!).I had always considered myself to be quite entrepreneurial while working at the BBC – in selling stories to my editors in the competitive world of limited money and airtime.I’d often get extremely excited about a particular idea and go all-in to sell it hard – often to different TV and radio programmes and online outlets to scramble together enough cash pledges to afford the trip.I didn’t always succeed, but did get a big safari series commissioned in Africa and managed to secure a not insubstantial amount of cash for an ambitious six-week trip on the Congo River filming in Virtual Reality and recording binaural sound.(I still love the fact that in the world of short attention spans and “you’ve got to grab them in the first 5 seconds” our 45min TV doc on the DR Congo on YouTube has more than 20m views!).Having sold the story, our team then had to deliver it...and that often took even more effort to make things happen with a limited time and budget in difficult places.As British military officers in Afghanistan often told me: “no plan survives first contact [with the enemy].”I’ve discovered there are at least a few transferrable skills from journalist to small business co-founder, but dogged determination and bloody-mindedness stand out as perhaps the most useful.Accounting comes into it too: I would often have to keep up with long lists of expenses in a range of random currencies while on assignment.Thankfully the amazing producers I worked with were very good at that...as well as all the other things they don’t get the on-air recognition for, such as securing access and interviews, editing, and managing the “flesh puppets”...annoying correspondents like yours truly.There were times when I had to manage big-ish budgets and I understand why one fellow journalist, on discovering a receipt for $50 was missing, attempted some creative writing while on a flight out of a Middle Eastern war zone.Sadly, the ploy of copying some random Arabic script for a hastily scribbled receipt was uncovered by an Arabic-reading accountant back at head office who queried the $50 claim for a “Your lifejacket is under your seat.”Special Offer for all readers: * 15% off for stays at Vale das Estrelas for all blog readers * Valid between now an April 1st (no joke)* Book before the end of January* Use code: XMAS25 on our booking siteHaving just logged one thousand receipts and more than two hundred invoices for 2025 in this latest accounting job, I think I’m doing OK, but the “sell, sell, sell” mantra of marketeers isn’t as straightforward.For a start there’s the barrage of self-declared influencers looking for a freebie to navigate: “we’d need at least three nights to truly capture the essence of your lodge,” one wrote.There are so many travel sites out there who for a reasonable annual fee will feature our property on their website...but we can’t justify signing up to all of them and it’s a bit of a lottery.We’re happy to be working with Sawday’s and Further Afield, and hope to have more collaborations in fitting with our ethos of sustainability.I’ve been writing a column for the Resident magazine (formerly known as the Portugal Resident) for a while now and they’ve just started a new podcast. I was delighted to chat to Carl Munson about our story. With all the disruption going on in the world – not least in the USA – I’ve done a few interviews telling the story of our dramatic decision to change lives before 50, give up our jobs and retrain in lots of new ones…and hopefully that will bring a few extra guests to our door!Thanks for reading Off-grid and Entertaining in Portugal! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The price of promoting things on social media seems to be going up all the time, and we need to learn how to target audiences better, but that all takes time.We were delighted to be invited to donate a luxury two night package to the Sovereign Art Foundation’s annual Gala auction – and even more excited about being invited along to the event.We were pleased to see it was a very competitive auction and we’re looking forward to welcoming the winners in May!As well as working on making posts and programmes, we’re also learning about how to measure what’s going on through data.I’ve written before about the challenges of managing Booking.com, AirBnB, Expedia and our own direct-booking website...and I’m only now starting to understand how they undercut prices and also pay us a lot less after taking their cut.I’ve also mentioned the desire to host more “retreats” – package trips for groups based around yoga, or painting, or reading (or wine!), corporate get-togethers that are now known as “off-sites” apparently.Even Better Offer for our Pioneers: * If you are one of Our Pioneers and have stayed with us before, we’ll give you and your friends an even better discount* Book before the end of January* Valid throughout 2026 as long as the rooms are available!* Drop us a line and we’ll send you the secret promotional code.The title “retreat” does conjure up the idea of 5am yoga sessions, cleansing shakes and a large amount of wellness.We’ve joked for years about how rather than detox, RE-tox is perhaps a better fit for us: the Retoxification Institute of Portugal, perhaps, or R-I-P for short.At our daughter Oda’s suggestion I can officially confirm we are starting a Detox/Retox package for those who like a balanced diet of healthy morning activities, followed by plenty of wine and a fabulous meal to finish: Detox, Retox, Rinse and Repeat. Would you buy one? Do let us know.We’ve already learned about the seasonal nature of tourism on this coast, and it’s certainly quieter in December.But apparently it’s not just us: for real data you need to speak to the cheesemaker.Queijaria do Mira receives real data from real people in real time…and knows when occupancy rates are down...because they know exactly how much cheese the tourist lodges are buying.Low cheese sales mean low occupancy.Blessed be the cheesemaker and her buying barometer. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alastairleithead.substack.com
