Enhance your RV road trip and camp at unique spots like a moonshine distillery, maple sugar farm, or aviation museum.
RV travel is booming this year, with record sales and rentals. As a result, finding a parking place while on your road trip can be a challenge, especially now many state parks and campgrounds are closed or have reduced their number of RV slots.
Enter Harvest Hosts, a membership-based network that provides access to free stays at over 1,300 wineries, breweries, farms, museums, and other attractions. There are locations in 49 U.S. states (only Hawaii is missing), as well as Canada and Baja California. Unique options include an aviation museum, a wildlife rescue facility, a moonshine distillery, an alligator ranch, and a maple sugar farm. (Check out photos of some of the sites here.) To keep up with demand and ensure members have plenty of parking options, the company is adding an average of 100 hosts and locations per month.
An annual membership costs $79. For an additional $40 per year, users also get access to 350 golf courses and country clubs. Both memberships come with a three-month 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee.
Members can search for hosts by state, location, route, or permitted vehicle size. Stays, which are free, are reserved via the Harvest Hosts app. Stays are limited to 24 hours, unless the member and host arrange otherwise. Nearly all hosts permit pets.
Most hosts do not provide the electricity, water, or sewer hook-ups typically found at an RV campground. Generators can be used, but members must ask beforehand so the host can provide a parking spot where no one will be disturbed. Members must have a self-contained RV (interior cooking facilities, water holding tanks, and interior or portable toilets); no sleeping in tents, campers with tent pop-outs, minivans, or trucks/cars.
Hosts are not compensated, so members are encouraged to spend a minimum of $20 at the host’s site as a show of appreciation.
Twist’s Take: Joined the RV craze? Consider a Harvest Hosts membership for free, unique camping options.
