Take a Trip This Fall and Get Away with Getaway

There’s nothing quite like escaping into nature, especially as the last little bit of summer turns, like the leaves, into a crisp and cozy fall. There’s something about the beautiful trees, full of their oranges and reds and browns, and the air, with a little chilly breeze, and the way the sun sets earlier and earlier that just makes being outside at the beginning of fall feel magical.

There’s no better way to enjoy this nostalgic time of year than by waking up in a gorgeous cabin just outside of the city. That’s where Getaway comes in to make your fall even dreamier.

Getaway is the perfect way to enjoy nature and disconnect from the stressful hustle and bustle of the city. Getaway creator and CEO Jon Staff started Getaway because he knew early on that people need nature to live happy, fulfilled lives.

“Science has shown that there is a measurable effect to what they call … the soft fascination of nature, [which is] the proven effect of watching leaves rustle or campfire flames flicker,” Staff says. “They relax us … it’s different than watching paint dry.”

From his early life, growing up in the picturesque wilderness of Minnesota, Staff knew that this connection to nature was crucial. After an unfortunate fire burned down his family’s bar, Staff says that his parents had to make the difficult financial decision to abandon either a cabin in the woods that they’d just begun building or their house. For many reasons, including, importantly, that the cabin was closer to his mom’s new job, Staff’s whole family picked up and moved into the small cabin in the woods.

“That’s where I grew up, in this house that was meant to be a cabin. Nine hundred square feet, on a lake, on the Mississippi River,” Staff says. “My childhood was wandering through the woods, and sitting around the campfire. And exploring the little beaches … it was idyllic.”

Outside of the science of it all, Staff says “As soon as you’re in [nature], you know it’s good.”

This childhood among the trees, lake and wilderness is part of what inspired Staff to create Getaway. Staff says he began the company as a way of “bridging the urban-rural cultural divide, the idea that you’re either a city person and that’s all you are or you’re a country person and that’s all you are.”

This idea that you have to choose one is diametrically opposed to Staff himself.

“Starting Getaway was twin things that people too often think are opposed. One is, I moved to the city, and I loved the city. Now I live in Brooklyn and I love restaurants and bars and museums and art and music and people and energy that you find in the city,” Staff explains. “But I also had this amazing childhood in Minnesota in nature, in the woods, disconnected, out on the water … and I love those things. I wanted people to have both sides of that coin.”

It isn’t about leaving the city behind or leaving nature behind. Starting Getaway was the perfect way to bring these two different worlds together in a lovely harmony.

Staff laughs, saying “My joke is: I never went to summer camp and I think my career is just me desperately trying to make up for the fact that my parents didn’t send me to summer camp.”

He continues. Of course, he didn’t go to summer camp, living out there in the woods with the lake and the campfire and the trees.

“Life,” he says, “was sort of a summer camp.”

Staff also recognized that spending time in nature, especially for those living in the city, was probably even more difficult for people who hadn’t grown up in such idyllic natural surroundings.

“I felt the struggle of ‘I can’t easily get to nature,’ and I spent way too much time being connected,” Staff says of a job he had when he was younger that required him to always be available.

Knowing that so many others felt this way too, Getaway was a perfect solution. Accessibility to nature should be something everyone can enjoy, after all.

“We believe deeply [at Getaway] that free time is not just what you get if you’re rich enough or you check everything else off your list, or something you get once a year, but something we can all weave into our lives … what we’re providing there [with Getaway] is free time,” Staff says.  “Getaway was a way for me, and eventually others, to hopefully have great fulfilling, energetic lives in the city, but also have a way to easily escape the city and be immersed in nature and have a counterbalance from hustle and bustle … and stress.”

That’s exactly what Staff and the Getaway team have created through their glamping properties, each located just outside of major cities. Of locations all over the U.S., the one just an hour and a half from Minneapolis holds a very special place in Staff’s heart. It’s the property beside the cabin where he spent time as a child. Staff says the location outside of Minneapolis is a beautiful property with 49 tiny, private, isolated cabins on it.

“It’s not just a cabin in the woods, it’s a special time and place to either create or build on your ritual of having free time,” Staff elaborates. “What is more core to humanity than having time where you make choices about how to spend it and have the ability to spend it with the people you love most?”

And the best part of all: Getaway is “everything you need and nothing you don’t … There’s a comfortable queen bed, there’s a kitchenette, with a two-burner stove and a mini-fridge and a sink, there’s a bathroom with a toilet and a shower, and it’s on-grid, so you don’t have to worry about running out of water.”

Basically, Getaway is truly a breath of fresh air. You can learn more about Getaway (and book your stay!) on their website here!