Harvest Hosts, the popular membership organization that offers RVers a place to stay overnight for free at more than 4,800 wineries, farms, tourist attractions and even golf courses, is getting some competition.
RVOvernights.com has debuted, offering similar benefits to Harvest Hosts, but at $29.99 a year compared to the basic Harvest Hosts plan at $99.
In a news release, RVOvernights.com says it will partner with ”small businesses, including wineries, breweries, farms, and more, to give RVers the opportunity to find unique places to park for the night. Rather than boondocking in busy parking lots of big corporate retail locations, RVOvernights.com members can stay with a local small business that has signed up as a host on the RVOvernights.com platform.”
RVers who become members of RVOvernights.com submit a request to stay overnight with a specific host, and each host has the opportunity to approve or deny the request based on availability. Hosts can set their rules and stay limits.
RVOvernights.com claims it “offers a novel opportunity for small businesses to welcome new customers. All the host needs to offer is a place to park and the hospitality to ensure a positive customer experience.”
Businesses that host overnight stays pay no fee to participate.
Great! I will sign up as a member when it’s available and try it out.
We have been using HH successfully but often find certain areas are sparse as to number of hosts that can accommodate our 40ft rig, and lately, show no calendar availability. Id estimate the actual number of Hosts available on a given day in spring/summer/fall that can accommodate 40ft is way less than the currently advertised 4368+ HH sites.
We welcome even more opportunities for overnight campsites, and hopefully paid options for some hookups (at least 30A electric), and a bit longer stays. In our opinion, paying a mandatory $5 or $10 fee to the host for a no-hookup overnight is not a killer. Sometimes we have donated more than that when we didnt find anything we wanted to buy at a host.
Very interesting; thank you! As a Boondockers Welcome (BW) host routinely annoyed by Harvest Hosts’ (HH) bureaucracy since they acquired BW, I am eminently interested in any and all competitors to HH. I will jump ship at the first opportunity. I have given long consideration to just shutting down our site (Davis Farm) in response to HH, but the pleasure we receive from meeting fellow RVers is too great, so far.
I will sign up for both.
Of course, when it does get up and running, there will be people complaining about their service. There is always someone to complain about every business. I for one have enjoyed HH and Boondockers Welcome. And I look forward to using this service as well to compliment my planning and bookings.
Since Harvest Hosts bought out Boondockers Welcome, the rules have changed and the prices have gone up on BW. I asked for a refund and they said I would have to let it expire to opt out. Boondockers Welcome was better before the merger.
Jim G.–You are exactly right. When HH took over BW, BW promised nothing would change. Well, it commenced changing almost immediately. They changed the rules, the website became confusing, etc. I was/am a host. I could not stay anywhere myself because I was not self-contained. Now, I guess I could stay some places because they have a place to say if you can stay if you have a portable toilet. I’m not sure, would have to look. I didn’t get many guests because for safety reasons, I did not allow kids, and I’m off the beaten path. I didn’t want little kids drowning in my creek. Two separate guest women were horrible and pushy. And I could not allow fires due to summer fire restrictions in the whole area. The worst part was that people did not read the rules and were surprised at everything in the rules. That probably has nothing to do with BW changes, but it became a nuisance to be a host. The last guy could not speak English, much less read rules or even find me. So, I kind of gave up.
As a BW host (Davis Farm), we have found that HH is an unpleasant overseer. Despite this we greatly enjoy meeting the RVers we host or we would have shut down our site months ago.
The guests I had were mostly ready to crash and didn’t want to talk, just sleep and get on their way. I can understand that, however. I really never found any place I’d want to stay where I go.
I see a merger or purchase of this new startup in the near future. HH will probably buy them out.
I went to their website and signed up to receive notice when they are up and running. We never joined HH because we never found any locations in our travel area(s). We’ll see how this differs.
We joined but have since allowed our membership to lapse. In three years of HH membership our travel resulted in only three nights at a HH site. It seems a much better deal for travel in the west than in the east.
That’s funny Neal. I thought the exact opposite. We don’t travel to CA so that eliminates a lot of wineries.
They may have a good thing going. I joined HH about 3 years ago at a cost I was told would never go up. My renewal came in (auto pay) and it went up about $12.00. Now I did email them and they did credit my card, but indicated it was only for this year. We’ll see for next year.
Great free market competition. HH had a great run having sole access to the market and has the potential for incredible margins at their current rate. You could essentially have chatGPT create you an easy app to solve the core needs of 1) find places to stay and 2) maintain a reservation database. Way to go rvovernights – helping RVers save!
We used HH this spring on a trip to Florida from Ontario Canada. One of the hosts states you must arrive between 3 and 5 pm. We ran into some bad weather and were running late. I called the host to let them know and she said don’t bother coming if you were going to be after 5. Seriously!!!!. We ended up staying at a Cracker Barrel instead. I know not all hosts are like that but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, so to speak!