Dude Homestead like a Dude Ranch?

Has anyone tried hosting a Dude Homestead vacation package on their property? The purpose would be for people who have no idea what Permaculture looks like and how"eating what you grow" works. A family could pitch their tent or camper and then see if they even like "gardening", etc. I'm imagining a sort of Bed and Breakfast arrangement where they join in with family mealtimes and help out a little here and there.

I'm with a community service organization that has projects promoting sustainable lifestyles that are environmentally sound and which restore balance to various ecosystems. Some people might start urban homesteading in their yards if they really wanted to. And
a vacation on a thriving homestead might provide the motivation.

Sounds good, how do you think it would operate?

I feel this is a great idea.  Several times, folks have posted to the forum that they would like to tour a homestead.

Tent camping would be a great start then once the business is going consider having some rough cabins for people to stay in.

Our daughter has an off-grid AirBnB that is doing great.  Every year they add a new cabin. They are phasing out the tent camping.

Best wishes for your idea.

I think the "Off-Grid AIrBnB" is probably the way someone would do this as a small-business. But I'm thinking "community minded" homesteaders might host one week in the planting season, while still eating preserved produce from the previous year. And they'd host another week or two during some harvest timeframe.  

My wife and I used to have international students live with us as a "home-stay". This wasn't renting a room to boarders, it was including them in our family life so that they could "experience America" more fully. Usually it was for 1 or 2 months at a time. It wasn't a "business" but a "community service" for us, of sorts. However, the fees the organizer charged for arranging this included enough for our expenses plus $500/month.

I imagine homesteaders doing this as an outreach exercise to promote sustainable lifestyles while making enough money to make it worthwhile.

Plus it would be FUN!

Permies have SKIP training available; but total newbies don't even know if they'd like the lifestyle until they see it.

I would like to think that Wheaton Labs would qualify for this (Paul might disagree).

We are a working homestead, as with most homesteads, we are a work in progress.

We correctly have 5 ways to visit and experience this "Dude Homestead":

1. Attend one of our many events with AMAZING instructors.
2. Be a SEPPer. Vacation at Wheaton Labs and you can participate as much or as like as you like. (Sorry, we don't have a cook to do amazing meals)
3. Become a Boot. Are you curious about homesteading? Do you want to see if you have what it take to build a homestead? Join our bootcamp and get a taste of what homesteading is like (HINT - it is a LOT of hard work).
4. Rent as an Ant. Rent a plot of land
5. Join Deep Root Rent for life.

Jeff has brought up a great example with Wheaton Labs.

Take a look at what Wheaton Labs has done and how the Lab started out.  This approach has slowly evolved into a great business model.

It takes time, planning, and really taking a great approach to how to get started.

Yes; Wheaton Labs qualifies in every sense of the word. But...  Wheaton Labs is a University of Homesteading and the intensity of the environment is, uh, different from someone who would probably just slowly convert their backyard to a mini-homestead-esque garden. I would think that for every ten Dude-Homestead vacationers, one would attend a Permies oriented training camp. BUt 9 would start reading the literature and blogs and just look at their own yards with a brand new appreciation of how ecosystems work.

I'm thinking that if members formed a Dude-Homestead Co-op with a common scheduling website--possibly just an AirBnB category--then interested families could find interesting host families in interesting states and "take a vacation" there.

I have hundreds of families "connected" loosely to our organization's environmental projects. If I could tell them--plus the tens of thousands of affiliated families nationwide--about this "thing" called Dude-Homesteading, we'd create a market, meet people, make a bit of money, have fun, and start to build critical mass with people knowing what really goes on with us and plants. (Not to mention animals; I toured a garden yesterday in a city-wide event. This garden had what looked like a playhouse but in reality was a chicken coop.)

Phil

Phil, I think the idea has merit.
Maybe draft up some notes about expectations from both sides and see if that covers everyones concerns.
Is there anything set up now you could hook into?
Wwoofers is similar bit different. Your idea is for singles or families who are interested.
Some ideas;
- have bicycles available
- teach water saving
- have fire pit
- night walks- bring own linen?

Yes, I can see that drafting a set or perameters and application forms for hosts and vacationers would grease the wheels on this scheme. I'll do some research and collect inputs from others "almost" doing this already. Once this goes beyond inviting local community members to "come out and enjoy the homestead life" it incurs a lot more detritus from Civilization. Such as insurance coverage as a bare minimum. Even if we could ship a "Homestead Starter Package" from Amazon that transferred neural network experience jolts to create simulated vacations, there would be "product liability" issues...