How to Travel with a Homestead
Before we owned a small farm, I thought that farmers never left their homes. I couldn’t decide whether that was dreamy or miserable - but either way, it was a thought that bugged me.
Now, three years into running our own farm - I’ve discovered that my previous thoughts couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve heard many say “create a life you don’t need a vacation from” - and I get the principle behind that. COULD I stay on the farm 24/7? Yes, absolutely. But do I want to? Not if I don’t have to.
Here on the farm we work HARD and play harder! We enjoy traveling with our children and exploring fun places.
Growing up, I always dreamed of going on family vacations at least once per year and due to a busy schedule it never happened. When Jason and I got together we decided that our family would commit to at least once a year vacations together - and we haven’t missed a year yet!
Now, don’t get me wrong, leaving a homestead isn’t as easy as leaving a house in the city - BUT it’s also not impossible.
Here are some things to consider to set yourself up to be able to have a homestead that can function when you’re traveling:
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Our farm isn’t left unattended. My parents have a house on the farm making this a generational homestead. Friends, if you have the opportunity to homestead with other family members, I highly encourage you to take advantage of it! When we go out of town, we always have someone staying at the farm who knows how to care for our animals. In the rare case that both of us are gone - we lean into number 2!
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Building community is likely one of the most important things you can do when homesteading (regardless of where you are). We aren’t made to go through this life without a village of friends - it’s impossible to do it all. So if you’re wanting to travel and don’t know anyone where you are - step one is going to be build that community, my friend! If we are ever not on the farm, we have families come out and stay here - it makes for a really fun getaway and they get to have the farm experience. When they’re farm sitting, they can have eggs, milk, cheese etc to enjoy during their stay! If we hire a farm hand, we pay them. If we have a family come and stay, they are our people and they do it out of the kindness of their heart and get to enjoy the gorgeous farm and experience. Homeschool mamas especially love the opportunity to serve with their kiddos! There are lots of options here, friends but they all revolve around building community!
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The more things you can get to run on autopilot for your animals and your garden/orchards - with little to no intervention - the better. This will allow your animals to have unlimited access to water and decrease the chores load of whoever is helping you care for them. We have a float valve hooked up to the cow’s troughs, gravity fed watering systems for the chickens, a float valve system for the dogs & cats, a gravity fed system for the rabbits. Every animal on our farm has 24/7 access to water - so when our friends and family come to help - they just have to make sure the water is working. Super simple task!
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Large feeders or time release feeders are a great investment when you have multiple animals. With the same mindset as the automatic water, larger feeders allow for more time in between filling them - decreasing the workload of your help! For our chickens, we purchased a 50 lb feeder so that we wouldn’t have to worry about them having access to food while we are gone. You can also look into a feeder that has a delayed release or timer option on it so that your animals can be fed at their set times if 24 hour access to feed isn’t something you want to do. For animals that need to be fed twice per day, make sure you fill up their feed buckets prior to leaving. We use a galvanized trash can to store larger amounts of feed and fill it before we leave for any trip. This ensures that our helpers will only have to scoop and feed - not reload the feeder - while we are gone! It makes others more willing to help when it’s not overwhelming!
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The timing of your trip will also help you navigate not leaving during busy seasons. If you have dairy animals, plan your trips around calving seasons. The first couple of weeks after calving, it is very intense with getting into a milking rhythm. I wouldn’t travel during that time. Once the baby gets to be a little bit older, you’ll be able to calf share and allow the baby to drink all of mama's milk while you’re gone. You can also travel the two months leading up to calving when mama is no longer in milk. This will make it easier on any farm hands you have helping out while you leave your farm! In the event that you have to leave while having a mama in milk - train your help to learn how to milk prior to them coming over to help. I have multiple skilled hands trained up around our farm so that if we do go out of town during that time, I can ask multiple friends to come on different days to help with milking - that makes it an easier yes for them knowing that it doesn’t all fall on them. But again - none of that would be possible without community…
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Help your friends and family out by creating an “in case of emergency” binder to keep near your animals. Include your vet’s contact info, any medicines or protocols you follow for different things that may go wrong, and make sure you teach whoever is watching your farm where to access supplements and medicines.
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Get a Livestock Guardian Dog - they protect your homestead as well as protect the animals on your homestead! Our LGD’s work around the clock protecting our farm whether we are there or not. They’re worth their weight in gold - but make sure yours is trained up prior to leaving!
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Make sure you have areas set up for animals to take shelter in or under to get out of extreme weather - have a plan in case something comes up while you’re gone and train your farm help on what you’d do in case of emergency.
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Offer immune boosting foods/supplements prior to you leaving. Change in schedule can cause stress for animals - stress + low immune system = not a great combo. Add apple cider vinegar to their water, offer free choice of oregano, give probiotics, vitamin C rich food scraps etc.
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Set up trail cams in your barn/coop - wherever - and be able to check in on your animals whenever you need to! This will help offer peace of mind if you’re finding it hard to leave the farm.
See, traveling isn’t impossible with a homestead - it just requires some form of community and organization on the back end. Being able to trade farm services with others in your community will open up a world of opportunities for you! Happy travels!