Staying at farms

[Roll With The Changes]

This is our first longer trip trying to learn how to "more full time." We joined a couple of stay for free type services where you stay at someone's farm or business in exchange for a purchase or something... You know which ones I'm talking about. We stayed at some very nice farms and overall have had a good experience with said service until last night.

The description was of of a "working farm." That's great! We like that kind of place and that kind of working people. The hosts where nice enough, but we were actually parked in the pig pen. There was not a single blade of grass anywhere. As I was sitting last evening trying to be positive, a pig walked up and c#@pped on my doormat. So I looked at the listing again to see if I could find some clues that maybe this place wasn't for us. It turns out that we are all being intentionally misled by this farm. In fact, many of the pictures posted we're not even of this farm.

I don't expect that every boondocking experience will be exceptional but this one was pretty bad. So I'm wondering what others think. Does this happen often? Is there a way to read between the lines better and weed these places out?

I hate to give up on this way of traveling, but...

Thanks for your input.

[WhittleBurner]

Are there reviews to read from prior guests? If you can make a review o of your experience it may help the next person avoid the pig pen.

[D2Reid]

We have yet to use that service. But you get the same thing with commercial RV parks also. Most are professionally run and decent enough places to stay, but there a few that you look at and think maybe just one night and I'm out of here. Then there is that rare one that you pull in to the check in spot, take one look, then make a u-turn and beat feet out of there.

[Roll With The Changes]

It's been a few hours and few miles so we're starting to laugh about it now. I guess we just need to be more willing to make the u-turn and head to Walmart.

And absolutely we will be leaving a review. We usually do with all of them because that's the only way these things work for everybody but this one might be a little longer.

[ksbowman]

Sometimes you get what you pay for! LOL If you were boondocking with no hookups anyway couldn't you have ask if there was any place else you could park besides the pig pen?

[Roll With The Changes]

That's a good point. I paid for the membership so I should able to believe what is presented. And about parking somewhere else, this 40 acre farm had about 1/2 acre of woods cleared. This was it...

Now the rest of the story: We tried to leave a review, but it was not approved and therefore not posted. I later looked at other locations randomly from this service. Every review that I read was about how wonderful this or that place was.

It seems that Harvest Host is advertising/sharing nothing more than ponies and rainbows. They don't want to talk about reality.

It seems I didn't get what I paid for.

[ksbowman]

I thought this was a free service and you could stay overnight at no charge in trade for a little work with chores. I had seen something similar where you could stay at farms, ranches, vineyards etc. in exchange for a small amount of help.

[orbiker]

This is our first longer trip trying to learn how to "more full time." We joined a couple of stay for free type services where you stay at someone's farm or business in exchange for a purchase or something... You know which ones I'm talking about. We stayed at some very nice farms and overall have had a good experience with said service until last night.

The description was of of a "working farm." That's great! We like that kind of place and that kind of working people. The hosts where nice enough, but we were actually parked in the pig pen. There was not a single blade of grass anywhere. As I was sitting last evening trying to be positive, a pig walked up and c#@pped on my doormat. So I looked at the listing again to see if I could find some clues that maybe this place wasn't for us. It turns out that we are all being intentionally misled by this farm. In fact, many of the pictures posted we're not even of this farm.

I don't expect that every boondocking experience will be exceptional but this one was pretty bad. So I'm wondering what others think. Does this happen often? Is there a way to read between the lines better and weed these places out?

I hate to give up on this way of traveling, but...

Thanks for your input.

It sounds like some kind of a test and joke. I'll bet they have pictures of all these rigs camping in their pig pen.

Safe and "clean" travels, KEN