{"id":14686,"date":"2022-12-02T12:56:29","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T18:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=14686"},"modified":"2022-12-02T12:56:29","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T18:56:29","slug":"harvest-hosts-attract-vanlifers-and-rv-tourists-boondockers-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2022\/12\/harvest-hosts-attract-vanlifers-and-rv-tourists-boondockers-welcome.html","title":{"rendered":"Harvest Hosts attract vanlifers and RV tourists, Boondockers Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/p>\n

RV travelers, vanlifers and other self-contained nomads can stay at interesting destinations with Harvest Hosts<\/a>. Stays feature w<\/span>ineries, farms, breweries, museums, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s a membership fee for campers to join, but no camping fee when they stay. Guests are encouraged to buy at least one thing from their hosts during their stay.<\/p>\n

One guest<\/a> summarized the exchange as, “buy a bottle of wine, camp for free. Ok.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harvest Hosts also owns Boondockers Welcome<\/a>, another membership site for RV tourists. Boondockers’ hosts offer private property but aren’t necessarily commercial. Camping spaces may be just a parking spot in a driveway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Both sites are geared to self-contained campers, not tents.<\/p>\n

Rural tourism potential<\/h2>\n

\"FromBy definition, a large proportion of the Harvest Hosts sites will be in rural areas or small communities. <\/span><\/p>\n

The appeal is obvious, in this list borrowed from Erin at Gyspyn’ Around<\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vineyards vs. Parking lots
\nStarry skies vs. Streetlights
\nPeacefulness vs. Ruckus<\/p>\n

For rural tourist businesses like wineries and agritourism farms, <\/strong>it may make sense to sign up as a host.<\/p>\n

Tourism pros: practical steps to take<\/h2>\n

For rural tourism promoters, this is a tool to watch.<\/strong> Whether you work at a tourism bureau, chamber or other organization, make time to learn more about this.<\/p>\n

Find out which of your businesses are listed by asking them.<\/strong> Ask around to see if you know a member who can let you browse for others nearby. Does your state or territory tourism group have a membership so they can browse for you?<\/p>\n

Recommend it to appropriate local businesses.\u00a0<\/strong>Start with wineries, farms, breweries, museums, and your agritourism folks.<\/p>\n

Tie in with your blogger or influencer tours.\u00a0<\/strong>Get inspired by Deb Brown’s story of a Harvest Tour<\/a> you could copy.<\/p>\n

Use it as a way to help potential campsite owners to test the waters.<\/strong> Anyone who owns some empty lots could potentially support a few visitors, and serving as a free host may help them find out if they’re interested in growing a business.<\/p>\n

Add more lodging for special events.<\/strong> Hosting a major event, but lack the hotel or lodging space needed? Maybe some informal RV camping will help.<\/p>\n

Does your organization have some property that could host self-contained RVs?<\/strong> Think of empty lots, undeveloped parks or underused properties. See if you can find a way to list it and boost visitors.<\/p>\n

What about local RV camps? Won’t this competition hurt them?<\/h2>\n

Both Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome limit stays to just one or a few nights, provide no or only limited services like hookups, and restrict what type of campers are accepted.<\/p>\n

In other words, there’s plenty of other business to be had. A few overnights at wineries won’t hurt your RV campsites. Sooner or later, those RVs or vans will need to stop for services.<\/p>\n

Encourage your Harvest Hosts to share info about nearby full-service campsites with their guests. Win-win.<\/p>\n

Top photo CC by sf-dvs<\/a>, small photo CC by Suzanne Schroeter<\/a>, both from Flickr<\/p>\n

Subscribe to SmallBizSurvival.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RV travelers, vanlifers and other self-contained nomads can stay at interesting destinations with Harvest Hosts. Stays feature wineries, farms, breweries, museums, and more.\u00a0 There’s a membership fee for campers to join, but no camping fee when they stay. Guests are encouraged to buy at least one thing from their hosts during their stay. One guest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":14688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3,8,2],"tags":[708,709,469,710],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Harvest-Host-RV-camp-at-winery-photo-CC-by-sf-dvs-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14686"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14695,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14686\/revisions\/14695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}