{"id":1252,"date":"2009-01-06T11:59:43","date_gmt":"2009-01-06T19:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simonburrow.com\/\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2009-01-06T11:59:43","modified_gmt":"2009-01-06T19:59:43","slug":"angel-oak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/?p=1252","title":{"rendered":"Angel Oak"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were in Charlseton, South Carolina for a wedding just after Christmas.\u00a0 There is an album of pictures from the trip on Flickr.<\/strong><\/a> Charleston is a beautiful city. I’ll write more about this visit.<\/p>\n

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the Angel Oak.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"PC260023.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see it is a very large Live Oak tree.\u00a0 That is variously claimed to be between 1300 and 1500 years old and the oldest tree East of the Mississippi the Rockies or the Appalachians.\u00a0 Superlatives and digital cameras are everywhere.<\/p>\n

\"PC260019.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What is not to like: This is a large, beautiful tree with free admission.\u00a0 But what I found most wonderful about it was the way it lived in a perfectly symbiotic relationship with a gift shop.\u00a0 In which you could buy postcards and every other kind of gewgaw with a picture of the tree.<\/p>\n

\"P1060008.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

the superlative postcard<\/em><\/p>\n

Think about this.\u00a0 A large tree without a gift shop attracts no one.\u00a0 A gift shop without a focus attracts no-one.\u00a0 But the symbiosis (great word) of the two creates a destination.<\/p>\n

So the business idea to derive from this is that a destination can be created by adding a gift shop to a place of interest.\u00a0 My ideas include:<\/p>\n