Plan your Visit Unless your farm tour is on a charter bus, set up by a conference or community event organizer, you’ll be on your own to get from farm to farm. Avoid relying exclusively on your GPS or an Internet-based mapping system to plot your route, since these devices or apps may take you by way of Timbuktu. Consider having a back-up paper map, too. One wrong turn, and you may arrive at the end of a gravel road, in a corn field. Since you’re plying the backroads in the country, don’t count on reliable cellular reception or an Internet connection.

 Most self-guided farm tours will include a map to use to navigate your farm adventure. Leave plenty of travel time between farms, since most roads will be wiggly, curvy or possibly include some unpaved surfaces, slowing you down. You’ll also need to keep an eye out for tractors pulling farm implements going just 30 MPH or bicyclists out for a ride. It’s best to plan for double the time Google maps might suggest to navigate to your rural destinations. Google can’t predict getting stuck behind a combine. For a twenty-mile trip in the country, it’s wise to leave thirty-five minutes. Plus, why rush the trip and miss the spectacular bucolic landscape you’ll be passing through?

If there are numerous farms and a limited time window that they’ll be open, you may need to choose your top favorites, based on what produce or other products you’d like to buy, what farms have the animals you want to see or the farmers you want to meet.