Opening the Farm to Camping

This party had six campers.

For sometime now we wanted to stack a new enterprise on the farm, and we thought that agriculture tourism would add a modest profit starting out with little overhead

Through our research Beth came across the company called "Hipcamp." I guess you could call Hipcamp the "Airbnb" of camping. After becoming familiar with the Hipcamp process we started to improve a site location, and decided upon the amenities that we would provide. Hipcamp requires each campsite to have some type of toilet facility and the rest of the amenities are up to the landowner. So rather than building an actual outhouse, which would require county permits and inspections, we built a composing toilet facility.

It is a simple design that utilizes five gallon buckets and wood flakes removed and emptied periodically that are composted, and a small shelter to keep out of the weather and to add some privacy. Once it was up and ready to go, Beth registered the farm and uploaded some pictures we took to build our page on the Hipcamp website. She also developed a short narrative built around the type of camp site experience we are offering.

So when it came to amenities, ours are pretty basic for now. We offer number one, a place to camp completely free from contact with people, and best of all, no cellphone/Internet contact. We think this is the biggest plus! The camp itself sits in the middle of a 10 acre wood lot, and is adjacent to 1700 acres of private land that no one lives on. While we don’t allow trespassing on the land, it’s a feature that adds to the total seclusion. Additionally the camper has full access to the our 80 acre farm with all its trails to hike, see the livestock and wildlife, and our pond to swim and fish. We offer the option of being completely left alone; that means once the camper checks in, we have no contact with them until they pack out. However, we do offer a farm tour where we take the camper around the farm and explain how we operate our farm enterprise.

Besides what we have to offer on the farm, we highlight our proximity to Ohio’s state parks at Lake Snowden, and Hocking Hills, and the opportunities that are close by in Pomeroy and Athens, such as shops, dining, breweries, and festivals.

We charge $20.00 per night, and $5.00 per each additional camper. We allow a maximum party of six campers at the campsite. In the first week we made $90.00. That's not too bad when you consider the light work we did for the preparation of the site and the stay itself. We are hoping in the course of a season that we'll make enough money to buy some extra fence posts or wire, or maybe some metal to build a new run-in shed. In the end it's all part of farm aggregate.

In the long run we really would like to expand the Ag-Tourism opportunities on the farm by building a couple of nice cabins. We see this as part of the evolution of our farm. But while that is something we are entertaining, the bigger part of this approach is to find out if having people on our farm fits our temperament and lifestyle. So going with the campsites for a few years will help us determine if this is for us.

So as we proceed we’ll post updates about the Hipcamp and Ag-Tourism experience here incase there is interest by other farmers.  

What a camper can expect to see.

Our tent in the early spring.