Getting new customers can be difficult for small businesses. But there's a free service that lets your business offer value to travelers — without giving away your products or services.
What Is Harvest Hosts?
Harvest Hosts is a membership service for RV travelers that lets them stay overnight at farms, wineries, breweries, distilleries, golf courses, and other small businesses across North America. For around $100 a year, members get access to over 4,000 locations where they can park their RV for free — no hookups, but no campground fees either. For the businesses, it's a way to attract a specific kind of customer: RV travelers who are curious, engaged, and predisposed to spend money on local products and experiences. The typical Harvest Hosts guest is not looking for the cheapest option. They're looking for an authentic experience, and they're willing to pay for it. We've stayed at Harvest Hosts locations across the country, and the quality of the experiences has been consistently high. The hosts are almost universally welcoming, and the locations are almost universally interesting.
"'These are people who care about where their food comes from. They're exactly the customers I want. And they find me because of Harvest Hosts.'"
The Business Case
We talked to a lot of Harvest Hosts operators over the course of our trip, and the business case they described was consistent: the program brings in customers who wouldn't otherwise find them. Gnarled Oak Farm in Hernando, Mississippi, is a small farm that raises heritage breed pigs and makes artisan charcuterie. The owner told us that Harvest Hosts guests account for about 20% of his direct sales — people who stay overnight, tour the farm in the morning, and leave with a cooler full of product. 'These are people who care about where their food comes from,' he said. 'They're exactly the customers I want. And they find me because of Harvest Hosts — I'd never reach them through normal marketing.' Whiskey Thief Distillery in Tennessee told a similar story. The distillery is off the main tourist routes, and Harvest Hosts guests are often their first introduction to the brand. Several have become regular mail-order customers.
What Hosts Get
The Harvest Hosts model is simple: you provide a parking spot (with no hookups required), and guests are expected — though not required — to make a purchase. The expectation is clearly communicated to members, and in our experience, guests honor it enthusiastically. The cost to the business is minimal: a parking spot that would otherwise be empty, and a few minutes of conversation with guests who are genuinely interested in what you do. The return is a stream of engaged, pre-qualified customers who have already demonstrated that they value authentic experiences over convenience. For small businesses in rural areas — farms, wineries, distilleries, specialty food producers — this is a marketing channel that would be difficult to replicate any other way. The guests come to you, they're already interested in what you make, and they leave as ambassadors for your brand.
How to Join
Becoming a Harvest Hosts location is straightforward. You apply through the Harvest Hosts website, describe your business and what you offer, and provide information about your parking situation. The review process is thorough — Harvest Hosts is protective of the quality of the network — but most legitimate small businesses that have something interesting to offer are accepted. The fee to hosts is minimal, and the exposure is substantial. Harvest Hosts has over 250,000 members, all of them RV travelers who are actively looking for interesting places to stay. For any small business that has a parking lot and something worth selling, it's one of the best marketing investments available. We've seen it work firsthand, at dozens of locations across the country, and the hosts who do it well are genuinely enthusiastic about the program.
