When we have back to back travel days, we usually book a regular RV Park site long our path. We've never stayed at a Walmart, or truck stop. Occasionally, we've boondocked at a boondockerswelcome.com location but those can be hit and miss when dealing with someone's personal property. If you haven't noticed, our RV is HUGE!
What is Harvest Hosts?
Harvest Hosts is a membership network of breweries, wineries, farms, etc that have signed up to host FREE overnight camping. The membership is only $79/yr and you can also opt for a package that adds 300+ golf courses for $119/yr. (prices are at the time of this post and are subject to change) viktig nettsted
Note: While the overnight camping is free, it is polite to visit the business hosting you and buy something.
If you'd like to sign up, be sure to use our LINK for 15% Off!
We've been wanting to try Harvest Hosts for a while now, and we had a perfect opportunity while traveling from Austin, TX to Carlsbad, NM a few weeks ago. There were two Harvest Host locations right along our route and we had a couple of days to kill. Perfect!
Eola School Brewery & Restaurant
Our first stop was at Eola School Brewery & Restaurant in Eola, Texas. An old school house in the middle of nowhere in a tiny town, this place was right up our alley! The place is currently undergoing some renovations, but is still open for business! The owner, Mark, was an absolutely awesome host! While the restaurant wasn't open the night we arrived, he was there working on the place. I get the feeling he's always there working! He saw me cleaning our RV and brought over a pint of his beer and chatted for a bit.
The next day he was open for lunch and we got a tour of the place and some burgers and fries. The food was awesome and the beer was awesome (only one, we had another Harvest Host to get to)! We bought some beer to take with us, then Mark gave us a tour of the place and what he was working on. Then it was time to hit the road!
Hangar 25 Air Museum
Only a few hours away was our next Harvest Host stay at Hangar 25 Air Museum! They were closed when we arrived, but they had told us to just park right in front of the museum, which we did. We met another nice RVing couple who had arrived before us. They are both pilots and said they boondock at small airports all the time and hadn't even heard of Harvest Hosts. Who knew that was a thing? We didn't!
We caught up on work the next morning. The inverter and batteries have been working our GREAT for boondocking by the way. When the museum opened at noon, we went in and checked it out. Wow! Really cool place! While the big air and space museums like the Smithsonian or Cape Canaveral are amazing, there's a lot to be said for these smaller local museums. They have a small town personal charm and history. And it's really great when the staff not only know that history but lived some of it!
Hangar 25 Air Museum that kind of place. The base used to train bombers for WWII and there was even an old bombing site (a device used for bomb targeting) on display. Lot's of cool airplanes, a B52 cockpit, A-10 Warthog survival trainer, and all kinds of memorabilia is on display. There's also an amazing giant stained glass window on display that was moved from the old base chapel because the demolition crew couldn't bring themselves to destroy it with the building. Our tour guide was a little girl when the chapel was still there and remembers seeing it all lit up from the inside. You're not going to get that kind of personal story at the Smithsonian!
Admission is free but donations are appreciated and, of course, we donated a little extra for letting us stay there overnight.
An Excellent Way to Travel!
We were absolutely THRILLED to have two such different and cool experiences in place of what would have likely been a boring single overnight at an RV park! Why the hell did we wait so long to try this?
Don't be like us and wait a year! We should have joined Harvest Hosts a long time ago! Join using our link and save 15% off your membership!
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