Harvest Hosts: A Great Way to Save on RV Travel

For those familiar with RV travel, the quick overnight stay can sometimes be a distraction from the experience. There are times when you just need a level spot to park the rig while resting for the night. Choices may include an expensive RV park, a crowded park campground, a rest stop parking area, or as a last resort - the Wal-Mart parking lot. A new service seeks to give travelers better options when seeking a place to bed down for the night. Harvest Hosts LLC, has created a network of farms and wineries throughout the US and Canada that allow and encourage overnight visits for RV'ers and campers looking for a place to stay.

The membership service has created a network of sites that include wineries, farms, orchards, breweries and even an alligator farm. Harvest Hosts is run by Kim and Don Greene, two individuals who have ben traveling in the US and around the world for over 20 years. Harvest Hosts was modeled after France Passion, a European network that gave motorhome travelers and campers overnight places to stay at farms and wineries throughout France. The goal of the program is to provide places to stay while exposing the products and services, offered by participants, to new markets. While it is not a requirement of membership, it is good etiquette to purchase a few products offered by the host.

For a $30.00 annual fee, this provides members with a membership card and access to the database of Harvest Hosts participant host locations. The locations are updated monthly and locations are available only to members. The directories include a profile on each participant, including the participant name, address and type of operation run by the host. Also included in the profile are amenities at each site, such as picnic areas, winery tours, number of RV sites and the size of vehicle they can accommodate, wifi, if pets are accepted, and if winery tours are offered. Members are allowed to stay at participant locations with the understanding that the stay will not exceed 24 hours. A strict code of conduct is posted on the Harvest Hosts website. Visitors need to remember that they are guests on other peoples' property and in many cases, are parking next to their homes.

As of writing this, my family is two months into a 12-month trip around the US and we have used our Harvest Hosts membership several times. Overall, we are very happy with the service and have recommended it to fellow travelers we have met along the way. The places we have stayed include:

Purple Haze Farms, Sequim, WA: This was our first Harvest Hosts stop, and we loved staying at this Lavender farm on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. The farm was peaceful, quiet and provided a quiet place to stay for the night. We arrived too late and left too early to shop at the store, but still enjoyed our visit.

Our second stay was at the only other lavender farm in the program. Lavender Wind Farms is located east of Purple Haze, across Puget Sound on Whidbey Island. While Purple Haze offered a quiet shade tree to sleep under, this location had a stunning view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and we watched the ships head to and from the Pacific Ocean. At the suggestion of the owner, we tracked the ship names and activities on www.marinetraffic.com. We purchased lavender tea and scone mix from the owners which were enjoyed by all.

Our third Harvest Hosts stay was in Okanogan, WA, at Smallwood Farms. This was a farm located near the Canadian border that grew and sold fresh fruits and vegetables. We were able to park away from the highway near the fruit trees and ran through the sprinklers on a hot July night. The owner was very happy to have us and we chatted with him about his property and business. We found that there is a pride in ownership that you cannot find in a public campground or even a private RV park, and we find that very refreshing. While this location did not offer the views of Wind Farms or the quiet seclusion of Purple Haze, we still enjoyed (and purchased) the food grown on the property and would stay there again. Plus, my wife was able to purchase a mocha sold at the farm store; a nice bonus in the morning.

Our fourth and most recent stay was at Wilde Prairie Winery in Brandon, South Dakota. This is a 70-acre farm located about 20 minutes outside of Sioux Falls, SD, near the Minnesota border. When the founders of Harvest Hosts created the network, I suspect that this is what they had in mind. The farm was a few miles off of I-90 in the rolling hills of Eastern South Dakota and was nestled among several corn farms. They were growing both red and white wine grapes as well as fruit, and were bottling close to a dozen different variations. The owners were kind enough to provide a tasting in the early evening and we ended up buying two bottles of fruit wine and enjoyed drinking one of them while our boys caught fireflies. Some travelers might be tempted to rush through this part of the country but we truly enjoyed our stay at this site.

Harvest Hosts is not without its drawbacks. Some states have a large number of participant hosts, while others have only a few. Other states may have hosts grouped in one region while the other side of the state offers little or nothing. Also, there seem to be a few hiccups in the system. While in British Columbia, Canada, we contacted one member winery with the intent of staying for the night. While the winery was listed in the directory, we were informed that they had not finalized their membership. The location has since been removed from the directory. But this is like anything related to RV travel: you will hit a few bumps in the road here and there and need to be flexible.

Despite this one issue, I still strongly recommend Harvest Hosts to RV travelers. The service offers RV'ers places to stay for the night far more comfortable that the Wal-Mart parking lot. My personal experiences with hosts have been extremely positive and our stays at host farms have been the highlight of our visits to some states. This is a great way to save a little money, help out a local business and have a beautiful place to stay for the night.

UPDATE: I have decided to update this post as I visit more Harvest Hosts sites.

UPDATE 8/23/11: I visited another site in the Harvest Hosts directory, although we opted not to stay there. The site was Maiden Rock Winery and Cidery. The orchard/tasting room is located outside of Stockholm, WI, about three miles north if the Mississippi River. This site is a little remote, but despite that, the tasting room was packed on a Sunday afternoon.

While we were there, I opted to taste only their hard ciders, but they offer their own apple wines and grape wines from nearby vintners. I sample three ciders that were very good and I considered buying a few bottles. Then I tasted their Honeycrisp Hard Cider and loved it. As they were sold out of bottles and only offered it on tap, taking some to go was not an option. Or was it? I convinced the owners to fill my beer growler from the tap and we enjoyed this cider later that evening.

The farm looked like an excellent place to stay for the evening, but it was only 1PM, and we had another 100 miles to travel. Had that not been the case, we would have enjoyed staying there.