I treated my mother to a trip to Philadelphia and we stumbled upon this tour based on her interest in the Amish community. We went in late October which had beautiful fall foliage for the trip. We were both impressed with the tour. This tour was hosted by Tom.
The most important thing to note is the pace of the trip. Around 4 hours is spent driving to Amish Country, driving around Amish Country, and driving back to Philadelphia. This leaves just 3- 4 hours that was spent between the Amish Village Museum and 6 stores - 5 out of 6 were locally owned businesses with the other being a Wawa for a pit stop.
^^ My mother had some concerns with this pace as she felt she could not decide on which items to buy in time. The host of the tour does note that the store owners do not expect us to make purchases. Though, the pace was a bit too much for her. The pace was perfect for me though as it allowed us to still have plenty of time in Philadelphia for the evening.
For anyone curious, these are all the businesses we visited, but note that some businesses may change from trip to trip. Note that some of these are farms. If you are visiting the US from internationally, make sure not to visit a farm in your home country for 14 days afterward
- The Amish Village: The tour includes tickets to the village. This ticket included an Amish house tour with a separate guide who was also excellent and went into plenty of details on how the Amish live. There are some memorabilia for purchase before entering the museum, and once inside the village, there’s a place that sells delicious fruit fry pies AKA hand pies.
- Lapp’s Toys: This was a wonderful exhibit of hand crafted toys and contraptions. Arachnophobes beware as one of the items titled the surprise box will have a rubber spider jump out at your finger.
- Bird in Hand bake shop: This bake shop featured a variety of general goods and lots of treats, plus fresh apple cider. I was able to get a giant raisin sticky bun on clearance sale for less than 2 dollars, and it was very good.
- Bird in Hand Bakery & Cafe: We spent an hour here for a break. There were nearby stores we could also visit. I had a pulled pork sandwich which was large and very tasty.
- Misty Creek Goat Dairy: This place had free cheese samples and lots of farm fresh dairy for purchase. This seemed to be a crowd favorite. Be wary that some milk cartons for purchase are raw milk.
- Riehl’s Quilts and Crafts + Snack Shack: Lots of neat crafts here and the snack shack had nice refrigerated Whoopie Pies.
The drives between destinations were kept entertaining as we and other passengers discussed common interests with the host driver. We had 5 people total in this tour, though the mini bus could fit up to 10-11 people total.
Please note the tour is not 100% accessible for physical disabilities as the venues include stairs, plus getting out of the minibus is a bit tricky with having to use a step stool. The host of the tour is very patient though and will lend a hand to help.
We highly recommend this tour as an informative and fast-paced way to visit lots of Amish-Country businesses and small communities, and learning the Amish way of life.