For the record, there is a Bear Mountain in Georgia, but it’s farther south. There is also no town in Georgia called Edgewood; I named it after a neighborhood in Atlanta.

There are 4 primary locations I used as inspiration for Bear Mountain Lodge in the Bear Camp Series:

A men’s clothing-optional campground in the flat countryside outside Atlanta, Georgia.
A men’s clothing-optional campground and hiking resort in the mountains of Tennessee.
A men’s guest house on a tropical island in the Florida Keys.
A rural, queer, neo-pagan community who works hard to protect their location and keep it off social media. (It’s a Mists of Avalon situation, y’all. It’s part of their magic. I will respect their wishes.)

Yes, I’m being a bit intentionally coy with naming them because they all value privacy and discretion.

I’ve lived my entire life in Tennessee and Georgia. So, if that helps you recognize these places and you’re dying to know if you’re right, we can talk about it privately. Or write and tell me about the ones in your neck of the woods.

I borrowed my favorite elements from all of them.

But I put Bear Mountain Lodge in the North Georgia Mountains.

I’m setting up a multi-series world with stories that also take place outside the campground. I love the area. It’s close to my home, and a few of the towns are truly Hallmark-TV-movie worthy.

I wish they had a queer-friendly resort, but they don’t.

What’s different about these real life locations from the Bear Camp in my stories?

To be blunt—they’re a lot more sexually open and polyamorous than you usually find in romance novels. Almost all the long-term couples you’ll meet in these environments are in open relationships. Or in relationships with their own rules and boundaries.

Yet, a lot of my friends have met their partners and husbands there.

True love, soul mates, and sometimes monogamy.

As a character-driven storyteller, these dynamics fascinate me—how even surrounded by options you can still meet The One and become oblivious to everyone else.

That’s romantic.

And it happens!

I center my books around men who find their HEA, while also portraying what my editor and I refer to as the “ambient sexuality” of the setting.

I first discovered this world when I was twenty-six and answered a want ad. That backstory’s coming up in my next email…

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Read the Bear Camp series by Slade James.