For Joel Holland, what started as an impulsive decision with his wife to travel the United States in an RV has grown into a business and network that supports over 5,500 small businesses across the country, including a few in Colorado.

Holland is a Vail resident and the owner of Harvest Hosts, a business he purchased in 2018 hoping to connect RVers and campers with small businesses and new experiences nationwide.

A great American road trip

Holland and his wife, Mary Ashley, moved to Vail eight years ago from the Washington, D.C., area. At first, Vail was just one of many stops on a two-year road trip through the lower 48 states.

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“I was kind of just burned out on city life, the concrete jungle and traffic and wanted to try something different, and so my wife and I pretty impulsively bought an RV and started traveling just to kind of get it out of our systems and ended up loving it,” Holland said.

While they were traveling with no specific destination in mind, they were keeping an open mind to try and find their next hometown.

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“We pulled into Vail in June 2016 and everything was perfect, it was beautiful,” Holland said. “I’m a huge skier — I grew up racing on the East Coast — and so I’ve always romanticized the idea of living in a ski town. And so we once again impulsively basically put down roots in Vail.”

Like many others, the couple committed to trying it for a year and ended up sticking around.  

“Here we are eight years later, and we just absolutely fell in love with the valley,” Holland said, adding that they’ve “put down roots,” and are committed to raising their two children, Waverly and Trek, in Vail.

From a passion to a business

The road trip had been enabled through the sale of Holland’s first startup, StoryBlocks, prompting a “mini-retirement” in his early 30s, he said.

He spent that first year in Vail dedicated to living a “ski bum” lifestyle — skiing for around 100 days, backpacking, camping, off-roading, biking and taking advantage of all the town and valley has to offer. However, quickly, Holland began to think about what might come next. 

“After a year, I started burning out on playing … it lost its luster for me because I had no purpose. I started feeling kind of gluttonous. I was playing all day, but I had no real drive. And that left me feeling a little empty,” Holland said.

For Holland, his work had always been driven by his passions, so he started to look for business opportunities in the RV industry. It was then that he encountered Harvest Hosts.

Don and Kim Greene started Harvest Hosts in 2010 to create an RV network in the United States. The idea was that for an annual fee, members could camp for free at various farms and wineries in the network.

When Holland heard about the company, he joined immediately and booked his first trip to Heartland Farm, a farm in Kansas run by three nuns in their 80s. In addition to the winery, the nuns were making their alpaca scarves, soap and other goods.

“I left there and I couldn’t wait to tell everybody how cool this experience was. And I think that was it; I was so in love with the concept,” Holland said.

So Holland reached out to Don and Kim Greene, and after some back and forth, he purchased Harvest Hosts in May 2018.

“This is one of those feel-good businesses where everybody involved wins. The business makes more money and they get to meet great travelers. The RVers have these really special experiences. And then as the business, hopefully, we can make some money and pay our employees and live well,” he added.

Since 2018, Harvest Hosts has grown from 600 host locations to 5,500 and from 6,000 members to around 260,000. Members pay an annual fee of around $100 to stay at any of the locations for free. Within Harvest Hosts’ code of conduct for its members are expectations that the campers help support the businesses where they stay in some way.

“Those members will spend over $50 million this year with those hosts, so it’s really generating some awesome revenue for these small businesses,” Holland said.

Uncovering hidden gems

For Holland, Harvest Hosts encompasses everything he loves about traveling via RV.

“There’s something very romantic about the ‘Great American Road Trip,'” Holland said, adding that his own experience was “even better than I ever expected.”

“I love the freedom and flexibility; you’re truly in control of your life in an RV. You can wake up and decide every day where you want to go, if you want to go or if you want to stay,” he added.

Plus, critically, it exposes you to parts of the country — and people — that you might not otherwise see or meet.

While the company started with primarily wineries and farms, it has expanded to include breweries, golf courses, distilleries, museums and more. Some of the more unique hosts include an underground salt museum and active salt mine in Kansas, the oldest operating cog railway in the country in New England and a vacuum cleaner museum in Pocatello, Idaho.

This year, during their annual summer road trip, the Holland family stayed at a decommissioned nuclear missile silo in Kansas and a drive-in theater in Virginia.

“Harvest Host exposes you to a very different part of the country and a very passionate part of the country. It’s really cool to go meet people who, whether they’re running a museum or making wine, they really care. I always leave these small businesses kind of inspired because their passion is just so infectious,” Holland said.

Colorado is home to around 200 Harvest Host locations, including two of Holland’s favorite places in Eagle County: 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirits in Gypsum and Stoneyard Distillery in Dotsero.

‘Putting Vail on the map’

When asked about the future, Holland likes to joke that he’s trying to put Vail on the map. However, it goes beyond that.  

“One of the things I’m trying to show is that you can run an awesome business from anywhere,” Holland said. “I have friends who are living places running businesses or working for businesses where they’re just not super happy. And it’s been fun to prove to them, eight years in, that I can live in a mountain town that I love and run a great business. So that’s something I would love to prove, that ultimately you can build great businesses from anywhere, including from Vail, Colorado.”

As for Harvest Hosts, he just hopes to continue expanding the network of small businesses and members.

“The more we can grow, the better it is for our hosts and the better it is for our members,” Holland said.