Sometimes you just need a night away, right? There are a lot of times where we need someplace to stay with our RV for a night. We might want something a little more unique than the whole campground thing. Or maybe there not be a convenient campground near where we want to go. When this happens, we check out Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome!
Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome are membership programs where, for a small annual fee, you’ll gain access to a network of places that will allow you to camp on their location in your RV for free! Many Harvest Hosts are businesses, which sounds weird at first. However, it really works out perfectly; these businesses are generally places that we would go anyway. Most of them are wineries, breweries, farms, or even museums! (Check out our post about staying at Briali Winery!) Your Harvest Hosts membership agreement states that stays should be for just one night unless you’re invited to stay longer. Boodockers Welcome functions a little differently. Hosts are oftentimes private residences, and they invite guests to stay for up to 5 days. A majority of Boondockers Welcome hosts offer hook-ups, such as water and electric, for a small fee.
What Your Membership Gets You
Basically, after you sign up for the membership, you get access to their website directory and their app. Both allow you to search for places to stay in the US and Canada; there are even a few hosts starting to pop up in Mexico. Currently there are about 4,800 hosts in Harvest Hosts’ network and over 3,000 more locations in Boondockers Welcome. In October 2021, the two companies merged to share one platform. You can choose various levels of membership. Each level includes different parts of one or both of these access networks. The “All Access” plan includes everything, even Golf Courses and locations offering access to dump stations. This is the plan we chose.
Finding Your Unique Campsite
Once you have membership set up, you can locate hosts to stay with in a few ways:
- Browse a map
- Plot a route to find locations along the way
- Focus on specific regions like a state or province
- Search for a specific location or address
No matter what you search, you can find all of the host options in your desired target area and start checking them out. The interactive map indicates what type host are using color-coded markers for quick identification. Members can even select dates to see who might have availability. Typically, there will be photos of the establishment, usually of the parking areas, and a description of the business. The photos can be posted by the host, but you can also see photos posted by guests from their stay. Key facts, like number of spaces and maximum rig size, are in the details when any location is selected. You’ll also find reviews from previous guests; we find these to be really helpful.
Now that you’ve found a location you’d like to visit, reach out to the host through the app or the website with the dates you’d like to request. Once the host confirms if the space is available, they’ll give you any details extra you might need to check in . Most Harvest Hosts locations are available for one night stays only, but we’ve found several that allow multiple nights if they have the space. Expect Harvest Hosts amenities to be limited to none. That being said, we’ve been surprised quite a few times with power available for use. And some (especially breweries with good water) will let you fill up your potable water tank from an outside spigot. On rare special occasions, they may even have full hookups available!
The “Catch”
(Not Much of a Catch Though)
There’s no free lunch though. Harvest Hosts asks that you try to patronize the hosts during your stay. After all, that is why the hosts probably signed up, right? To get more business? The program recommends spending at least $20 to support that business. A camping spot would have cost $20-35 at a local or state park or $40-80 for a full service RV park. Besides, that’s half the reason we stay at Harvest Hosts in the first place…we were going there anyway!
Staying at a winery or brewery is a great way to visit those places when your are traveling! Not only do you have food and drinks right near your campsite, home is just a short walk from the barrel room! We’ve met so many nice people inside a tasting room or at a brewery’s trivia night. And when these folks ask where we’re from, we just point and say “right over there!” They usually laugh and smile jealousy when they figure out that while we are staying on site, they have to drive home and get ready for work the following morning!
Support Local Businesses
The other nice thing about Harvest Hosts is that you get to visit and patronize a lot of really cool local small businesses. These aren’t big box stores we’re staying at. These are people’s passions. These are artisans and farmers and people who make a living doing what they love to do! And that means the businesses feel more like family, and their products are made with love.
Oftentimes when we stay at places we meet the owners and end up visiting with them and learning about each other. Its not unusual for us to get a knock on the camper door around dinner time and open it to be surprised with a sampling of the local fare after visiting with the locals for an afternoon. To us, that’s part of the adventure…meeting new people and trying new things that are local to the areas we are traveling through. So we patronize the host business, but it doesn’t really feel like a chore. We were going to buy food and something to drink either way, but doing it this way sure is a lot more fun!
Boondockers Welcome: For the Love of Camping
If you like meeting people who share a love of camping and adventure, then the other side of Harvest Hosts, Boondockers Welcome, is worth checking out. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, in the RV world, “boondocking “has taken on the meaning of camping in non-traditional spots. You’re typically “off-grid.” – basically not in an RV resort and without amenities. Boondocking, for those who do it, means you can camp almost anywhere you like with some imagination. But Boondockers Welcome makes finding a place to camp easier and faster. It matches up people looking for a place to stay (you and me) with people who have a great spot for an RVer to camp for a night!
You search the same way as for Harvest Hosts and you can see the hosts location, space available, and amenities (if any). You find one you like and contact them through the app or site to see if it’s available and works for both sides! Its a good way to meet other RV-minded people and meet some locals in areas you aren’t familiar with. They may have an extra spot in their driveway in a neighborhood or some extra land out behind their barn or even a pad with full hook-ups that their in-laws use one month a year. Mostly, they are just friendly people. They want to help others on their adventure and maybe meet some interesting people in the process. You can even become one yourself if you’ve got the parking space for a fellow adventurer!
A Fun End to a Full Day of Driving
With these resources, we can affordably change some of our long driving days into adventures. A few years ago, we would have been looking for a less glamorous place just to pull off the road and sleep after a long day. Someplace like a Walmart parking lot, truck stop, or Cracker Barrel. But now we are looking for places to try local foods or fresh produce as our stopover. The fantastic folks at Harvest Hosts have really hooked us up! By clicking on any of the links throughout this post, you’ll be able to enjoy 15% off of your membership! We hope that you’ll enjoy your unique camping experiences like we do. Please share your stories in our comment section.
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