A popular destination for nature lovers or those simply wanting a getaway in the woods long before the COVID pandemic struck, Hocking Hills has become even more desirable since then.

It started last year when most indoor activities were shut down or very limited due to state health orders, so people fled to the outdoors, with many escaping cabin fever by heading to cabins at the popular destination.

At the same time, many people were forced to work from home and children attended school remotely, allowing families to be mobile, which meant they could work and study from just about anywhere, including the picturesque southeast Ohio region.

It all contributed to a nice boost to the Hocking Hills cabin-rental business.

“We got really busy during the week, with people slipping away, kids in school remotely and people working from home. We have lots of outdoors activities … people were more secure in what they were doing,” said Valerie Freda, who, along with her husband Robert, owns Cabins by the Caves, which owns 10 rental cabins and lodges and manages another 44 properties in the Hocking Hills area.

She said when as the pandemic was worsening, people could feel safe in their “bubble” at a cabin out in the woods.

“We were closed during the stay-at-home order, but once we re-opened (in May 2020), we were extremely busy,” said Freda. “We were very fortunate because a lot of the hospitality industry took a hit.”

Though the pandemic is receding and state health orders have been lifted, the momentum from that increase in business has so far shown no signs of waning, Freda says.

“A lot of people booked really early this year. We had a lot of new guests (last year), so hopefully we’ve gained some new customers,” she said. “We’ve always been busy, it’s just that now we’re even busier.”

Even though the cabin business was busy during the height of the pandemic, Freda said her company had to make adjustments, just like other business, including increased cleaning and sanitizing of the cabins and their contents.

She said under normal circumstances one housekeeper cleans each cabin, so social distancing among her 30 employees was less of a problem than it was for other businesses, though some office staff did work remotely for a while.

“It was really about, ‘What do we need to do here to make our guests feel safe?’” said Freda.

One amenity that didn’t need extra attention during the pandemic, however, were the cabins’ hot tubs, since the hot tubs’ water is treated with germ-killing bromine, she said.

Other adjustments were also made, such as the company arranging for grocery delivery to cabins.

And smaller cabins, with two-to-four guests, were rented more often than larger cabins due to the state health orders’ limits on gatherings.

“For some bigger places it was more of a challenge for them with cabins that sleep up to 24 since you couldn’t have big groups,” said Freda.

Outside of the cabins there were also some limits. Hocking Hills State Park was closed for a while and once it reopened its trails were re-routed so they were one-way only for hikers. Freda added that while the state park was closed, other nearby nature preserves and a Metro Park remained opened, so there were opportunities for visitors to enjoy the outdoors.

She said Hocking Hills had been steadily seeing more visitors every year before the pandemic and she expects that trend to continue now that the pandemic is dissipating.

She said the region has grown from about 2.5 million visitors annually in 2006, when Freda, a licensed Realtor, and her husband, a civil engineer, started their business, to about 5.5 million visitors annually before the pandemic started.

Not only is the region seeing more visitors, more people are also looking to buy their own cabins as opposed to renting them.

“There’s a tremendous demand in Hocking Hills. If one of these rental properties were put up for sale, it’d be sold in a day to someone who wants it as an investment or people who have really enjoyed the area and want to live here,” said Freda.

Since demand for cabins is strong, so is the demand for building new cabins and lodges, but builders can’t keep up with demand since there are only a few homebuilders in the area, said Freda.

That means someone wanting to build a cabin may have to wait a year or two for it to be built, she said.

She said that unlike some tourist destinations that may not be popular year-round, demand is strong 12 months a year for cabin or lodge rentals in Hocking Hills.

“We see couples come to stay in cabins that hold two-to-four guests and those will be occupied 90 percent of the year,” said Freda. “The bigger lodges where you might see a big family or a couple of families stay, those are mostly booked on the weekends in the winter, so those might be 60-to-70 percent occupied.”

And people keep coming back. She said she has many repeat customers.

“It’s a nice place to stay if you have a larger family and you don’t want to eat out every night and all of the parks are free so it’s a great place for family time without spending a lot of money,” said Freda.