Truffle-hunting and harvest dinners: How farm stays became glamorous

CNN

2 days ago

Before the rise of homesteading influencers, picturing farm life would have likely brought to mind an arduous and messy day: wheelbarrow loads, pig troughs, late-night calving, and long hours spent seeding or harvesting.
But the visual markers of a back-to-the-land lifestyle have changed. 'Living off the land,' as depicted in viral Instagram posts and TikTok videos, comes with a farmhouse-style open kitchen with Williams-Sonoma appliances. Family meals are curated with sunlit tablescaping. Sturdy jeans and mucked-up boots have been replaced with cottagecore dresses and 'clean girl' makeup.
Now, a new set of Arcadian luxury resorts are offering a taste of farm life — or a more permanent stay — with all the bounties of organic, locally grown crops, and without the daily 14 hours of labor.
In the foothills of Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains, for instance, guests can stay at the idyllic 4,200-acre Blackberry Farm and partake in fly fishing, horseback riding and the property's 170,000-strong wine cellar. In Portugal's São Lourenço do Barrocal, visitors retreat to a pastoral setting with livestock and olive trees, as well as proximity to a nearby stargazing haven. Within Mexico's resort town of San José del Cabo, Flora Farms offers guest rooms and homes to culinary enthusiasts on an intimate family-run property. And on the eastern side of Puerto Rico, the forthcoming 1,100-acre property Moncayo will offer 400 residences, 68 guest rooms, a 100-acre farm and golf courses along its mountain ridges, valley and coastline. Many of these properties' rooms cost between $1,000 and $3,000 a night, with built residences on Moncayo starting above $12 million.
'There will be rounds of golf, there'll be games of tennis, there'll be island hopping on boats,' said Carter Redd, the president of the Moncayo development project, for the firm Juniper Capital, on a video call. 'But I would be surprised if most days don't start or finish with the trip to the farm.'
Influencers have played a role in leading the rebrand of farm life, with Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm — one of homesteading's most visible acolytes — attracting more than 10 million followers on Instagram alone. Aspirational posts from her Utah farm often show Neeleman picking fresh vegetables from her garden with her children (she has eight), and whipping up turmeric lattes with creamy milk straight from the cow's udder.
Celebrities also take part (these lifestyles are less replicable for the average person without hired hands). Supermodel sisters Gigi and Bella have been known to retreat to the family's 32-acre farm in Pennsylvania — Bella told Dazed in a recent interview that horse poop was her earliest scent memory — while a video tour of Lenny Kravitz's verdant Brazilian fazenda is one of Architectural Digest's most-watched to date.
Other celebrities known to participate — or at least be photographed — in the rituals of living off the land include Brie Larson and Shailene Woodley, who are fans of foraging, and Meghan Markle, who harvests honey in her Netflix show and recently posted a video depicted herself of beekeeping with her daughter, Lilibet, on Instagram.
Related video
This furniture takes a decade to grow and is priced as an artwork
Allyson Rees, a senior strategist for trend forecasting company WGSN, thinks that farm stays have wide appeal amid 'a desire for more authentic experiences… and feeling like your vacation has a bit more of a wellness component, and an impactful component to your mental health,' she told CNN over the phone.
The global agritourism market, which was worth $69.2 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $197.4 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights, encompasses anything that engages the public with agricultural production, from pumpkin patches and corn mazes to wine tours.
But, increasingly, longer-term immersion into the day-to-day of ranches, farms or vineyards has become more appealing. In the US, farm-stay listings increased 71% between August 2019 and August 2024, according to AirDNA, which tracks data on short-term rentals from various platforms. On Airbnb, there were over 1 million searches for farm stays in the first quarter of 2025, per company data provided to CNN, a 20% increase from the same period in 2024.
At the heart of many of these agrarian retreats are high-end meals and cooking classes using ingredients grown on site.
'The idea is to have people get more of an appreciation of where local food comes from and what goes into it,' said Kristin Soong Rapoport, a co-owner of Wildflower Farms in the bucolic Hudson Valley area of New York, in a phone call.
A former tree nursery, Wildflower's 140-acre plot now offers bountiful crops, meadows and wooded vistas, with dozens of cabins, cottages and suites dotting the land. Beyond more traditional amenities such as a spa and pool, guests can try botanical baking, pressed-flower pottery or take cooking classes with the produce they've freshly picked. This summer, the farm is launching a harvest dinner series, each hosted by a notable figure in the creative or culinary industries — including Oscar de la Renta and Monse creative director Laura Kim and renown chef Flynn McGarry — and featuring ingredients harvested by guests earlier in the day.
'In general, luxury hotels were just touching on… gardening, and it was important for us to really have a farm,' Soong Rapoport said of the early research and planning into the resort. 'I think the size and the ambitiousness of the program was what we thought would make it stand out.'
In Puerto Rico, the team behind the Moncayo farm plans to use regenerative agriculture practices and distribute half of its produce to local communities in Fajardo, where it is located, according to its press materials. With 85% of the island's food imported, Moncayo is also positioning itself as 'a learning lab' for agriculture by partnering with local universities, farmers and organizations.
'Our ability to provide fresh produce and fruits locally is really meaningful,' Redd said.
The association of locally grown, quality ingredients with luxury is nothing new — and has continued its trajectory ever since organic produce hit the shelves at higher price points, farmer's markets were popularized in major cities, and farm-to-table restaurants proliferated in search of Michelin stars.
But now other elements of farm life and homesteading have become aspirational, too, as the lifestyle itself has become less attainable. According to the sustainable food systems thinktank IPES-Food, global land prices doubled from 2008-2022, with 1% of the world's largest farms controlling 70% of global farmland. At the same time, the number of farms worldwide has declined and is projected to continue shrinking.
Aside from new luxury properties, agritourism has offered another revenue stream for existing, independent farms. In 2024, hosts of Airbnb farm stays in the US collectively earned over $500 million, the company said. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has credited the industry with revitalizing the Mediterranean's rural areas and boosting its local economies, while Japan's Farm Stay Promotion Plan has encouraged the same, offering traditional stays where guests learn to cook or ferment vegetables with local farmers among picturesque rice fields and mountain ranges. And in China, a 'rural revival' was accelerated during the pandemic, Rees said. With travel and quarantine restrictions, many Chinese urbanites headed outside of cities, fuelling a rural tourism boom, while influencers like Li Ziqi drew large followings to their posts about the idyllic countryside.
Not all farm stays and eco villages are inherently expensive, and part of the luxury is finding an experience that's 'off the beaten track — almost like an if-you-know-you-know type of thing,' Rees added.
Similar to China's rural tourism trend, the growing interest in farm tourism is partly due to pandemic travel restrictions, Rees explained, when more people sought out local retreats and open air away from major cities but closer to home.
That shift in vacation patterns was important to the success of Wildflower Farms, Soong Rapoport noted, which opened in 2022. New York City residents left in droves and many looked north to the Hudson Valley area, with the small town of Hudson seeing the biggest change in net incoming residents out of all US metro areas, according to The New York Times.
'It was a harder story for us to explain to the general public before the pandemic. And so when we opened, I think a lot of people already got the benefit of it, and so it just made it catch on a lot more quickly,' she said.
Rees believes that interest in other aspects of farming and off-grid living, such as growing a personal and sustainable food supply, has only grown since the pandemic.
'People were staying home more, but I also think it's very much tied to the preparedness movement and (the desire) to be much more self-sufficient,' she said. 'It's not really this niche thing. It's not like 'Doomsday Preppers' anymore.'
Agritourism marks a departure in luxury tourism that is less about visible wealth and excess, according to Vittoria Careri, a marketing manager for The Hospitality Experience, which owns the Italian countryside escape Borgo dei Conti Resort. It aligns with the movement toward 'quiet luxury' in fashion. Like desiring fewer logos on clothing, resort stays don't necessarily need the ultra-expensive poolside bottle of champagne for a photo op.
'That concept of luxury now is old-fashioned,' she said in a video call. 'These types of customers are searching for something more genuine.'
In Umbria, the 'green heart' of Italy, guests at Borgo dei Conti stay at a villa that was formerly the home of the late-Romantic Italian painter Lemmo Rossi-Scotti, and can spend their days suiting up to harvest honey with the property's beekeepers, following truffle-hunting dogs to discover a summer version of the delicacy, or picnicking among the verdant olive trees.
At any price point, from multi-thousand-dollar stays to more modest accommodations, Rees credits the popularity of agritourism with the wider slow-living movement online (somewhat ironically promoted by influencers across TikTok) — a reaction to the stressors and pace of modern life and increasingly dense metropolises. And Rees says that while Millennials might be more associated with the trend, 'it's quite Gen-Z focused as well.'
Careri believes that younger Italians have lost touch with something generational within their families, and now they are seeking it out once more. 'This kind of farming, (raising) the animals, is something our grandparents experienced. But now the new generations, they don't know it,' Careri said, adding that it gives them 'a sense of wonder.'