Harvest Host

BRinSCupstate · 10-17-2022, 07:35 PM

Anyone do the Harvest Host? $99 for a year; stay one night at a time… farm, brewery, winery, or distillery? Thinking it might be interesting to occasionally make a stop on the way to or from a campground. Checking here to see if anyone has any experience.

kenandterry · 10-17-2022, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BRinSCupstate

Anyone do the Harvest Host? $99 for a year; stay one night at a time… farm, brewery, winery, or distillery? Thinking it might be interesting to occasionally make a stop on the way to or from a campground. Checking here to see if anyone has any experience.

You might also want to research using “Boondockers Welcome”.

Harvest Host took over the operation of BW recently, and there are differences.

We prefer BW because it’s hosted by other RVers, not operations/farms/wineries/etc. that know little about the RV recreation itself. Nothing against HH, but check it out yourself and decide.

**bikendan** · 10-17-2022, 08:13 PM

There hundreds of Harvest Host posts on the Forum, most are in the General Community Discussion section.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Forest River Forums mobile app

BRinSCupstate · 10-17-2022, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kenandterry

You might also want to research using “Boondockers Welcome”.

Thank you for the information. “Boondockers Welcome” looks pretty interesting. I like that I can see some information about host prior to joining. I wasn’t able to get much insight on HH.

BRinSCupstate · 10-17-2022, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bikendan

There hundreds of Harvest Host posts on the Forum, most are in the General Community Discussion section.

Thanks for directing me there. I was able to find a few posts. My search results, even using quotation marks, always seem to have a lot of other subject post.

tomkatb · 10-17-2022, 09:16 PM

The DW signed us up.

We have stayed at a number of the Harvest Host places.

Horse farm in Ky. Bought fresh eggs from the owner.

Stayed at a museum in Roswell New Mexico. Toured the art museum.

A restaurant in Illinois. Food was great. We had power and water!

A winery in Ky. Four bottles went home with us.

A volcano in New Mexico. Two nights! Just a neat place!

Treated warmly. We like Harvest Hosts.

We have started looking for boondocking sites.

mysery1 · 10-17-2022, 09:42 PM

Used Harvest Host a few times this past year and always had a good experience, highly recommend.

kenandterry · 11-08-2022, 05:12 PM

Here’s an easy comparison chart of Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome.

NXR · 11-09-2022, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BRinSCupstate

Anyone do the Harvest Host? $99 for a year; stay one night at a time… farm, brewery, winery, or distillery? Thinking it might be interesting to occasionally make a stop on the way to or from a campground. Checking here to see if anyone has any experience.

Since Boondockers Welcome is now owned by Harvest Hosts I had both added to my membership. One interesting thing about the membership is they have some real high quality discounts. For example, if you buy a Wholesale Warranties extended service contract through HH, you get their Wheel and Tire policy thrown in. I have just that policy and it cost me just over $500 three years ago.

I believe you always could ask a HH place if you could stay an extra night even though that graphic says you cannot.

Ray

mysery1 · 11-09-2022, 05:09 PM

Never had a problem extending a visit with HH as long as they didn't have a previous reservation booked. Always dealt directly with the host.

sherman12 · 11-10-2022, 11:28 AM

I have had HH for a couple of years now. I signed up before a long 6-week trip from WNY to Key West starting last February thinking during that long of a trip we would save hundreds of dollars. We used it once at an alpaca farm in So. Carolina and had a great stay. We did have a reservation for a winery on our return trip in again SC but bad weather and the threat forecast of tornados changed those plans. We found there were very few HHs in Florida, certainly anywhere near our routes down the East coast to KW and then again up the Gulf coast on return. We probably used Walmarts half a dozen times or more during the whole trip.

I vacillated re-upping my membership this year, but they sent me an email guaranteeing me to lock in my membership price of $63.99 for as long as I remain a member. So, taking into consideration that we had a two-month coast-to-coast trip planned this year starting in May, I renewed my membership. HH came in handy twice in Kansas, both times staying at wineries. The second stay was awesome as 7 or 8 campers pulled in and we all seemed to meet at the tasting room at the same time. Great night to include a campfire at the RV of one of the couples we met. Again, two months on the road and these were the "only" two nights we took advantage of HH. It seemed every time we looked to utilize the service either there were none near our daily destination or way too far off the interstate and out of way from where our next stop was. Once again we relied on Walmart's 7-8 times (an aside, we also used them as our #1 re-stocking resource from Def fluid to wine and vodka spending close to $1000 there during the trip).

Although HH is a much more charming and peaceful stop, they are not easily found in Florida and the more West we got this year. Often if we found one near our next day's stop they were just too far to drive too with diesel in the $6-$7 range. WM always seemed to be near the interstate.

Finally, HH just sent me a renewal email offering discounts to upgrade from the basic HH to include step up one including golf courses, step three including Boon Dockers Welcome, or step four all-encompassing. They ended the promotion so that I could just stay with the membership I had and renew at my discounted price of $99.99! Remember I am supposed to be locked in at $63.99 as long as I stay a member!

PS, We live near the Finger Lakes Wine region of NYS which we visit several times per camping season. A couple of years back, before being a HH member we noticed quite a few of our favorite wineries along the Cayuga, Seneca, and Keuka lakes wine trails were HH destinations. Today, that has flipped to now just a few participants.

GravelRider · 11-10-2022, 01:01 PM

We signed up for HH last month actually. We were going up to the Finger Lakes area of New York, and were going with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend. They were staying at a hotel that was $400/night. We checked around that weekend and found everything was $300+ a night, and for a last minute unplanned getaway, we didn't want to spend that much on just lodging. To be fair, we didn't check campgrounds.

We had been kicking around the idea over the last couple of years. We love boondocking, and are set up for it, but just never pulled the trigger. We figured for $80 (found a $20 off online coupon), why not give it a try. It'll pay for itself the first night there. We stayed at a great little winery up there. The parking area was literally right in the middle of the vineyard, and was paradise. We had a great time at the winery and with the hosts, and they actually offered to let us stay a second night, which we happily agreed to, and bought some wine from them... So win-win!

We then stayed at two different alpaca farms a couple of weekends ago, and again had a great time!

I will say that we have spent as much on wine, gift shops, farm tours, etc. as we normally do to stay at a campground, so maybe we're not actually saving all that much money!?

The one small alapaca farmer did say that she was very grateful of HH, and that she has made a lot of money with the increased traffic over the last year that she has been doing HH hosting... So it did make us feel good that we were supporting a small local farm with this site.

I don't see us canceling our HH membership any time soon.

RV_Lee · 11-10-2022, 07:38 PM

Just make sure its a real business. Recently saw a video where a guy went to one and it was basically some guys yard and then you HAD to buy some ugly $25 t-shirt, so he didn't and was getting e-mails from the guy to send him $25! It was a whole ordeal.

GravelRider · 11-10-2022, 10:12 PM

^^^ I think that is VERY much the exception, not the rule. There will always be bad apples...

Homebrew · 11-11-2022, 08:44 AM

It would be nice to see a map of all the HH locations before signing up.
Even if it shows the area would be helpful when planning a route.
At this point we plan our route around rest stops, Walmart, Cracker Barrel locations and campgrounds near main highways.

kenandterry · 11-11-2022, 09:16 AM

Decide for yourselves but…..

Given the string of unsatisfactory reviews of Harvest Hosts, why not try signing up for Boondockers Welcome only. Membership is just $79/year.

Seriously, for $79, and considering what other things you may spend your money on, what have you got to lose?

We really love the hosts and experiences we’ve shared with other RVers…..people like ourselves….not business owners expecting some sales.

YMMV

sherman12 · 11-11-2022, 10:19 AM

I'll probably renew my membership at the "guaranteed" $63.99, but not for $99.99. We are planning more East coast trips next season where there seem to be more densely packed locations.

GraveRider, the winery you stayed at sounds like Prejean Winery on Rt. 14 on the Seneca Lake wine trail. Just guessing from your description and how friendly they were. One of our favorites in the region.

GravelRider · 11-14-2022, 05:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sherman12

I'll probably renew my membership at the "guaranteed" $63.99, but not for $99.99. We are planning more East coast trips next season where there seem to be more densely packed locations.

GraveRider, the winery you stayed at sounds like Prejean Winery on Rt. 14 on the Seneca Lake wine trail. Just guessing from your description and how friendly they were. One of our favorites in the region.

It sure was the Prejean Winery! We really enjoyed our stay there, and the owners truly couldn't have been friendlier.

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