TL;DR
Apple picking is amazing. Maybe it’s because it was my first time, but I’d for sure do this again! If you have fall travel plans, make sure you schedule in some time to visit a farm 🙂
More Philly! Well, sort of.
I thought about doing an all-in-one post about some of the things we did on our Philly trip, but decided it’d be way too long. So breaking it up and focusing on some of the big things we checked out. This post actually takes us out of Philly to Media, PA. Since I have zero sense of direction, here’s a google map for you.
It’s about 30 minutes out, but definitely worth the drive! There’s more than just apple picking out here, and I’m sure if we didn’t have other adventures to conquer that day, we would’ve ended up staying there for most of the day.
Apple Picking
This was our main goal, and something I had never experienced despite living in NYC where there were apple farms upstate. A few things to note about picking your own apples:
- The season starts in September and ends in November.
- You pay per person (and the number of people corresponds to the amount you can pick)
- Means no paying per pound (which takes out some guesswork) but also means you can’t just go in and pick say, one each.
Since there were four of us, we paired up and paid for 2x 2 pickers. This is where the fun begins. When you walk in, you’re greeted by a worker that shows you a map of the orchard. #ProTip: Take a photo of the orchard map because you will 100% forget where everything is. From there, you pick apples!
It seems pretty chill, but we had fun walking around and trying to find the largest / different types (some I’d never even heard of). Walking around the orchards we could also see some of the other fruits and veggies (not ready for picking, though). As a note – they offer hay rides, but even though it was mid-October, the sun was blazing and we opted out. Instead, we checked out apple slinging.
Apple Sling Shot
There are no words to describe how fun this is.
The simple pleasures of life. It should be noted that I didn’t do so well and Karen and Alani were the only ones that hit targets, but it was still pretty fun. We asked them if they pick up all the apples later, but nope. They just leave them. Once an apple hits the ground they’re not legally allowed to sell it for consumption, and there are a ton of apples that just fall from trees. This is how they make up for it, even if it’s just $5 for a bucket.
Other things to do
Here’s a full list of the things you can do while you’re at the orchards. Depending on the time of year, there are different festivals (They have strawberry and blueberry festivals!?) as well as animals, pony rides (we were too big for this LOL) and mazes. There’s also a market where you can buy not only their products and produce, but items from the surrounding area.
