Somebody grows your lunch. Spend a day where it happens.
What a terrace morning above Ubud costs. Whether the children can feed the alpacas. Which Tuscan farmhouse cooks with you instead of at you. Reviews of the farm visits you can book, in 37 countries.
A Thai kitchen garden, a Balinese terrace, a Tuscan farmhouse, a pineapple field, a reindeer camp.
The five farm days more travellers book than any others. What each costs, and what actually happens when you turn up.
01The kitchen gardenHalf-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang MaiCut the herbs in the morning, eat what you cooked by two. Chiang Mai’s most-booked farm day by a distance.
02The terrace walkMonkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water TempleUbud’s stepped paddies, a water temple and a swing over the gorge. Go at opening: the light and the coaches peak together.
03The Tuscan kitchenFlorence Pizza or Pasta Class with Gelato Making at a Tuscan FarmPasta and gelato made on a farm outside Florence, with the estate’s own oil and wine on the table.
04The pineapple fieldMaui Pineapple Farm Tour in HaliimaileRows of pineapple in the Maui uplands, cut and tasted at the end of the row.
05The reindeer campReindeer Camp and Sami Cultural Tour with LunchA herd to hand-feed, a sled circuit and lunch by the fire outside Tromsø. Winter only.
American farm days: a Louisiana river road, a Hawaiian pineapple field, a Kentucky barn.
The United States carries more farm visits than anywhere else here, and they are four unrelated days out. What each costs, and what you are walking into.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Swamp Boat Ride and Oak Alley Plantation Tour from New Orleans
The river roadAntebellum estates kept as history sites: the houses, the cane, and the people who were enslaved to work them.
Oahu ranch countryValley ranch land, pineapple rows and a farm lunch at the end.
Horse countryThoroughbred barns and stud farms, mostly a morning in Kentucky.
The LowcountryOak avenues, old rice fields and the plantation museums outside Charleston.
All 118 American farm days →
Six countries where farm visits are an industry, not a novelty.
Balinese terraces, Tuscan agriturismi, Thai kitchen gardens, Vietnamese highland farms, Lappish reindeer herds and a few hundred American estates and ranches. Six places to start, and the best day out in each.
Rice terraces are the one farm landscape people fly for.
Tegallalang above Ubud, the Sapa valleys in the far north of Vietnam, the Longji ridges in Guangxi. Walk them at opening, before the heat and the coaches, and wear shoes you do not mind soaking.
Plantation tours mean two completely different days out.
In the tropics a plantation is a working farm: bananas, rubber, clove, coffee, and a walk between the rows. In Louisiana and the Carolinas it is a preserved estate and the tour is about slavery. Both are here, and the lists keep them apart.
The farm days that exist because of one animal.
Alpaca and llama farms →
Children last four minutes in a museum and four hours in a paddock. These are the visits where somebody hands you a feed bucket and steps back.
Alpacas, llamas and a feed bucket
The herd comes to whoever is holding the bucket, which settles the question of who the day is for. Most farms add a walk through the paddocks and a fleece demonstration at the end.
Reindeer sleds and a herding family
Lappish herds are semi-wild and only gathered in for the winter, so the farms open for a season and shut. Expect lichen to hand-feed, a sled circuit at walking pace and coffee indoors.
Stud barns and working ranches
A thoroughbred farm morning is stall by stall with the people who raise the horses; a Hawaiian ranch day is a valley, a herd and a truck. Riding, where it happens at all, is an add-on.
The farm days more travellers book than any others.
Every farm review →One kitchen garden outside Chiang Mai carries nineteen thousand reviews on its own. Here is what else fills up, and what each one costs.
1
Half-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang Mai
Visit a local market and Smile Organic Farm, then cook curry paste, curry, stir-fry, soup, and spring rolls with guides such as Lily, Love, K, or Cici. You choose dishes and spice levels, work at your own station, and eat what you make.
From · $29
Read our review →
2
Monkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water Temple
from $31
3
Florence Pizza or Pasta Class with Gelato Making at a Tuscan Farm
from $145
4
2 Wine Regions, Farm-to-Table Lunch & Boat
from $94
5
Waterfalls, Water Temple & Rice Terraces Private Tour
from $29
6
Waterfall, Rice Terraces & Monkey Forest Private Tour
from $23
7
Cooking Class and Lunch at a Tuscan Farmhouse with Local Market Tour from Florence
from $145
8
Authentic Cooking Class with Market & Farm Visit
from $34
In Italy the farm feeds you before it shows you anything.
An agriturismo day is lunch with a tour attached: the press, the cheese room, the vines behind the house, then four courses under a pergola. Tuscany runs the most of them, Sorrento and Sicily are catching up.
Every Italian farm day →
A Lapland farm is reindeer, huskies and a stove in the dark.
From December to March the herding families around Rovaniemi and Tromsø open the pens: feed the herd, take the sled, sit the cold out by a fire. In July there is nothing here to visit.
- 1Husky Farm and Reindeer Experiencefrom $192
- 2Authentic Reindeer Farm Visit & Short Sleigh Ridefrom $153
- 3Santa’s Village & Snowmobiling to Reindeer Farmfrom $281
What a day on a farm actually costs.
Every farm visit here, grouped by price. An hour with the animals is usually the cheapest thing you will book all week; the kitchen and the harvest cost more because lunch is in them.
Farm entry, terrace walks, an hour with the alpacas and most spice-garden tours.
The standards: a cooking class that ends as lunch, a full-day plantation run, a reindeer afternoon.
Private farm days with a driver, harvest weekends and the long agriturismo table with wine.
Three farm days that could not happen anywhere else.
Orchards and cows are everywhere. Water shared by temple committee, an island that smells of clove, and a herd that spends nine months in the forest are not.
The subak terraces
The terraces above Ubud are farmed by subak, a system a thousand years old in which the irrigation water is shared temple by temple down the slope instead of field by field, and the schedule is argued out in committee. UNESCO lists it. What you photograph from the path at Tegallalang is the tail end of a network that begins at a crater lake in the mountains.
- 1Monkey Forest, Jungle Swing, Rice Terrace, and Water Temple★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,160 reviews
- 2Waterfalls, Water Temple & Rice Terraces Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5,484 reviews
- 3Full-Day Rice Terrace, Monkey Forest & Waterfall★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,634 reviews
The spice farms
Clove, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla all grow within a short drive of Stone Town, and the farm walk is mostly a smelling exercise: a leaf crushed into your palm, a root dug up, a lime cut open at the end. Clove built the island’s economy in the nineteenth century and the trees are still standing in the same plots.
- 1Prison Island, Stone Town, & Spice Farm Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 579 reviews
- 2Full-Day Private Stone Town +Spice Farm and Prison Island Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 216 reviews
- 3Stone Town & Spice Farm Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 97 reviews
The reindeer herds
A Lappish reindeer farm is a family’s livelihood long before it is a visitor attraction. The animals live semi-wild in the forest and are gathered in for the winter, which is the only season a visit exists. You feed lichen by hand, take a sled circuit at walking pace, and hear how herding rights work over coffee indoors.
- 1Husky Farm and Reindeer Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 538 reviews
- 2Authentic Reindeer Farm Visit & Short Sleigh Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 383 reviews
- 3Santa’s Village & Snowmobiling to Reindeer Farm★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 272 reviews
Four farm bookings that run on somebody else’s calendar.
Most farm days can be arranged from a table the night before. These four depend on a harvest, a season or a herd, and none of them takes any interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Reindeer Camp and Sami Cultural Tour with LunchThe herds are only gathered in for the winter. From spring the animals go back to the forest and the farms close.
- 02Tulip Farm Visit, Keukenhof, and Windmill CruiseThe bulb fields and Keukenhof open for about eight weeks in spring and then shut. There is no autumn version of this day.
- 03Husky Farm and Reindeer ExperienceSled teams run on snow with a fixed number of dogs, and the Christmas and New Year weeks in Lapland go first.
- 04Hokkaido Lavender farm & Furano Flower Tour from SapporoLavender is cut in July. A fortnight either side of the bloom and you are looking at green stubble.
Farms in the wet: what still works when the yard is mud.
A tropical downpour or a Tuscan November closes the terrace walk and opens everything with a roof over it. Kitchens, cheese rooms, presses and tasting sheds run whatever the sky is doing. Bring boots either way, because the yard does not drain.
Six places where the farm is the reason to go.
The newest farm visits reviewed.
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Furnas: Thermal Springs & Tea Plantation Day Tour with Lunch
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Tea Experience Tour in Haputale with Lunch at a Village house
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Small Group E-Bike Chianti Tour with farm lunch from Siena
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