Personal Column By Wesley Harris
Traveling the country in your recreational vehicle and tired of overnighting in box store parking lots and loud, crowded campgrounds?
Harvest Hosts may be the solution for you.
Harvest Hosts is a RV membership program that allows self-contained travelers to overnight at unique locations around the country.
With a listing of thousands of hosts, including farms, wineries, museums, breweries, and quirky attractions, Harvest Hosts offers a destination for everyone.
One member said, “Some of our most memorable and unique places we’ve stayed and the nicest people we’ve ever met while camping have been at Harvest Hosts locations. We’ve stayed the night at a coffin factory. We played disc golf at a vineyard while listening to live music. We gathered eggs at a farm in Michigan.”
The options are endless: cattle and alpaca ranches, flower farms, apple orchards, golf courses.
Most of the sites do not have typical campgrounds or even standard hookups and amenities like restrooms and showers. “Boondocking” may be necessary, and a self-contained RV with its own water and indoor facilities is required. Pop-ups and tents, therefore, are not permitted.
After paying the annual $99 fee, members have no further required expense to camp at any of the 4,000+ locations. Instead of paying per night, such as one might do at a regular campsite or an Airbnb, the yearly membership fee is all that is required.
One Facebook poster wrote, “Our membership paid for itself on our first one week trip, and the wineries we stayed at were delightful. Highly recommend!” And another wrote, “We stayed at a ghost town with a museum of the town. It was really awesome.”
But the sites do not get a cut of the membership fee. The hosts only make money when travelers spend money onsite.
So campers are encouraged to help out the host by making a purchase—buying produce when camping at a farm, a bottle of wine at a winery, paying admission to tour a museum, or whatever is appropriate at that site.
Some hosts offer an opportunity for kids to feed chickens, see how a horse is shoed, work in a garden, pick berries, and enjoy other learning opportunities.
Generally, the sites listed on Harvest Hosts are used for one night and then the camper moves on, but some will extend an invitation to stay multiple nights.
An Arizona couple started Harvest Hosts in 2010 by building an initial network of 600 places to visit. With over 4,000 hosts today, campers can find their own unique experience.
For more information, visit harvesthosts.com.
