Last spring we paid for an annual membership into a camping option called Harvest Host. If you aren't familiar with this concept, it provides descriptions and directions to businesses that allow self-contained RVs to stay overnight on their property. We paid the annual membership of $67.15, and even upgraded to include golf courses for an additional $19.95. We thought it might be helpful in finding camping spots when we headed west during the busy summer 2021 camping season. Almost all of the camping options provided by these businesses have no hook-ups, but they are free. But you are only allowed to stay for one night, and you should request permission to stay in advance because many of the businesses have limited parking options. Also, Harvest Host asks that campers spend $20 for merchandise from the businesses that provide a night of free camping. We were excited to use this new camping option last spring as we started our trip north from south Texas. Our first overnight stay was at a winery in central Texas. We were granted a reservation, and had a beautiful camp site beside a lake with views of the vineyard.
Because the winery was closed the day we visited, we weren't able to make our $20 purchase. We were relieved, as we aren't wine drinkers and we weren't sure what we would buy. So it was an over-all positive experience. The only negative was having to drive several miles out of our way on dirt roads to get there.
Our second Harvest Host experience was at a tiger refuge in eastern Texas. This was a huge parking lot, and we could hear the wild cats roaring overnight. Instead of purchasing merchandise, campers were required to buy tickets to the zoo-like refuge. It was interesting, and we enjoyed our day seeing all the cats. But it wasn't a cheap camping experience.
When we traveled and camped in Alaska, we looked at some Harvest Host options. But that state has so many beautiful free places to park, it would have been silly to camp in a business's parking lot. So it was useless to us in Alaska. We didn't use it again until the summer, when we used it twice in Colorado. Our third Harvest Host experience was in Pueblo, Colorado. We lucked into a cool front that allowed for a cool night stay at this lower elevation stop. Our hosts at the Trolley Turner welcomed us as soon as we arrived, and invited us to a wood lathe demonstration later that evening. It was fascinating, and we enjoyed it and learned a lot! We even got a turn at the lathe during the demonstration. We don't have room in the motor home for one of the lovely wooden bowls that we saw created, and they are quite pricy. So it was harder to find something to buy at this stop. But the hosts were great, and they invited us into their home for coffee and conversation that evening.
This is our windshield view of their yard where we overnighted, as well as the wooden mallet that we helped create on the lathe!Our fourth Harvest Host stay was at a golf course in Colorado Springs. This was great because we couldn't find an open campground space on the weekend anywhere near this popular tourist city. This golf course didn't require you to golf, but we learned that most of the Harvest Host golf option do. To show our appreciation, we picked up trash around the parking lot.
So we are at the end of our year of our Harvest Host membership, and it doesn't feel like it was a good value for us. While the summer was too hot to get much good from it, our winter trip was too cold. But as we neared southern Texas, we found a good option. Boykin Pecan Farm is on our way, and is 102 miles from last night's stay at Choke Canyon State Park. They accepted our reservation request, and Mr. Boykin met us at the road to lead us down the lane between his pecan trees. We didn't even need to unhook the pickup for our one-night stay.
We are hosts for BoondockersWelcome.com which was bought by HH a few months back. You might find this is a better fit. The camping is truly FREE if the host does not provide hookups. We have FHU and charge $10.00 a night. The most a host can charge is $15.00. And never does a host charge when the guest does not use the hookups. We've had several that truly Boondocked. We started hosting in Oct 2020. We've had 103 RVs here. We expect two more on Monday. We have two sites BW has over 2,000+ hosts throughout the country and Canada. The host decides the max length of stay. We allow 4 nights. A guest cannot stay with the same host more than 5 nights in a 90 day period. Check us out on the site. We are in Cullman, AL. The East Estate. We have had so many great experiences and met some really fine folks. The is next best thing since we are unable to travel anymore.
ReplyDeletePhyllis, I think we will try Boondockers Welcome this year. Thanks for your advice! You can be sure that we will stop by if we are in Alabama!
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