Experience daily life the Amish way

Step back in time and discover the quiet beauty and craftsmanship of Amish Country

Overall Trip Highlights

• Dinner in an Amish home. Out through the farmland at dusk, then in through the kitchen door and down at the table. Nobody can sell you this on a coach tour.
• The Visit In Person tour. Three Amish properties in one evening: a dairy farm at milking, a craftsman at his bench, and a family’s front room. Lancaster County has designated it an official Heritage Tour, and it is capped at fourteen people, which is exactly the size of our group.
• America’s oldest continuously operating railroad. The Strasburg Rail Road was chartered on June 9, 1832, when Andrew Jackson was president. You ride it in a First Class car.
• A real Amish buggy on a real farm lane. Driven by Plain people, on the Farm Tour route, out to a working farm rather than around the block.
• An 1840 farmhouse with an Amish guide. Twelve flat acres with a one room schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop, a windmill, a water wheel, and a barnyard of animals happy to be fed.
• Plain and Fancy Meal 1929. Three meat carving station, eight scratch made soups, and the seven sweets and seven sours that have been on the table since 1957.
• A family style Amish feast. Three meats, the sides, the desserts, and the platters passed hand to hand down one long table.
• Pretzels at the 1861 bench. Julius Sturgis opened America’s first commercial pretzel bakery inside a 1784 stone house on Main Street in Lititz. You twist your own.
• Wilbur Chocolate in Lititz. A free Wilbur Bud, a working candy kitchen, and the Candy Americana displays, two doors down from lunch.
• Kitchen Kettle Village. Forty plus real shops in a flat, walkable village, with the Jam and Relish Kitchen at the middle of it.
• Jacob’s Choice. A five screen film about one real Amish family across five generations, and a son deciding whether to stay. It is the question underneath the whole week.
• The Inn at Leola Village, all four nights. An 1867 Amish tobacco farm turned boutique inn: restored farmhouses, a converted tobacco barn, acres of gardens, a Forbes Four Star spa, and an Italian kitchen on the property. You unpack once.

Buggy Rides, Markets, Goats and Whoopie Pies

Every Beatrice Bradley trip is crafted to maximize the experiences had during the trip.
The itineraries are specially made to allow time for engaging in conversation and having belly laughs with a new friend. We hope that the activities and experiences may allow you to come out of your comfort zone and to try new or unique things.
These trips are made to replicate a ‘friends get-away trip’. 

Day One: Everyone Lands Welcome to Amish Country

You did it. You got yourself on a plane and you are here, and the first face you see is one of your hostesses at baggage claim in Harrisburg with a Beatrice Bradley sign and a smile.

By mid afternoon you are checking in at The Inn at Leola Village. This was an Amish tobacco farm in 1867, worked by Plain families growing leaf for the cigar factories in Lancaster City. Saved from demolition and restored over three decades, it is now a village you can wander: restored farmhouses, a converted tobacco barn, brick courtyards, and acres of herb and perennial gardens, some of them still tended by Amish neighbors. You can walk the whole property without getting back in the van, which is exactly what you want after a travel day.

Late afternoon, anyone who would like a stroll can take one, out through the gardens and down to Zooks Mill Covered Bridge. Anyone who would rather sit in a courtyard with a cup of something is doing the day correctly too.

Then the welcome dinner, together, right here on the property. 

Overnight: The Inn at Leola Village, Leola, Pennsylvania Transfer: Harrisburg International Airport to Middletown, then 45 minutes to Leola

Highlights

• Met at baggage claim. A sign, a smile, and a hostess who is there before you are. You are never alone in an airport.
• An inn that is a village. Original wood beams, corncob joints, and a tie up on the property where Amish guests still secure their horses.
• Welcome dinner together. A time to say hello to your fellow travelers and your hostesses, at one long table, with no introductions performed standing up.

Fun Fact: For a county best known for horses and buggies, Lancaster did a great deal to put America on wheels. The Conestoga wagon that carried settlers west was built right here and named for the Conestoga River. And Robert Fulton, the man who gave the world the steamboat, was born in Lancaster County in 1765.

Day Two: A Farmhouse, a Steam Train, and Amish In Person

Breakfast is downstairs and unhurried, and then we go out once and stay out.

The morning starts at an 1840 farmhouse, and our guide is Amish or was raised Amish. That is the difference between this and everything we have read about these people. Twenty five minutes through the kitchen, the bedrooms and the summer kitchen, in the company of someone who knows it from the inside.

Then the grounds are ours for an hour and a half, which is enough time to enjoy them rather than trot through. Twelve flat acres: a one room schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop hung with tools, a windmill, a water wheel, and a barnyard of animals.

Ten minutes down the road we arrive at the railroad early on purpose, to watch the locomotive being turned and coaled. It is not a wait, it is the show before the show. Lunch is trackside while it happens, with the smell of coal smoke in the air and the engine getting ready in front of us.

Then we climb into a First Class car and a coal fired steam locomotive pulls us out through two thousand five hundred acres of Amish farmland. Forty five minutes, nine miles, past twenty working farms. This railroad was chartered in 1832 and it never stopped running. We see the farms at work from our seats, and we are sitting down for all of it.

An early barbecue dinner follows, a la carte, and here is why it is early. At five o’clock we board a minibus with an Amish guide for the three hours this entire trip is built around.

First a working dairy barn, at milking, where we learn how a farm this size runs, and keeps milk cold enough to sell, without a single wire coming in from the road. They call it Amish electricity, and the answer is not what most people expect. Then an Amish family business, which might be a carriage maker, a canning kitchen, a soap maker or a goat cheese artisan, with a demonstration usually part of the visit. And then the front room of an Amish family’s home, no television and no telephones, where we sit and the conversation runs both directions rather than one.

Highlights

• The Amish Village in Ronks, with a guide who is Amish or formerly Amish. An authentic 1840 farmhouse walked room by room beside someone raised in this life. Almost nobody who visits Lancaster County gets closer than a roadside farm stand.
• Twelve flat acres of Amish farmstead to wander. A one room schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop, a windmill, a water wheel and a barnyard of animals, with an hour and a half so nobody is hurried back to the van.
• A steam locomotive turned and coaled in front of us before we board. Lunch is trackside at the Strasburg Rail Road while it happens, with coal smoke in the air and the engine getting ready fifty feet away.
• We board a First Class train through the countryside. Forty five minutes behind a coal fired steam locomotive on America’s oldest continuously operating railroad, chartered in 1832, out through farmland nobody sees from a road.
• An Amish dairy barn at milking, and the answer to how a farm runs with no wire from the road. They do not milk by hand, and the milk stays cold on what they call Amish electricity.
• Amish In Person: three Amish properties in one evening. A dairy farm at milking, an Amish family business with the work going on around us, and a family’s front room with no television and no telephones. Lancaster County’s only officially designated Heritage Tour, capped at fourteen people, which our group fills exactly.

Fun Fact: The railroad we ride was chartered in 1832, five years before Michigan became a state, and it still runs on the same nine miles of track it was granted then.

Day Three: Kitchen Kettle, the Buggy, and the Amish Feast

A buggy off the pavement, a film that has been asking one question for five generations, and a feast served the same way since 1959.

The morning is about what is still made by hand here. Kitchen Kettle Village gathers more than forty local makers into one flat, walkable block in the middle of Amish farm country: quilters, leatherworkers, potters, a fudge kitchen, a butcher and cheesemonger. Whatever we carry home was made on this spot by the person who sold it to us, and that is a rarer thing every year.

At the center is the Jam and Relish Kitchen, where local farm women put up over ninety original recipes in big open kettles while we watch. It began in 1954 as a jam business in a family’s two-car garage, and the same family runs it three generations on.

The whole morning is ours here.

Lunch is in the village and it is our own pick. Some of us will want a proper sit down. Some of us will want a soft pretzel on a bench in the sun. Both are the right answer, it is covered either way, and our hostesses will point out the good ones. Everyone meets back at the main gate at a quarter to one.

Then the buggy. A real Amish buggy, driven by Plain people, and then the driver turns off the pavement onto a private farm lane with no electric poles overhead. The road noise stops. It goes quiet except for the horse. The route runs out to a working Amish farm rather than a loop around the block, and it takes an hour.

Next door is Jacob’s Choice. Thirty minutes on five screens, following one real Amish family across five generations and one son deciding whether to stay. It is the question sitting underneath everything we have seen this week.

And then the Amish farm feast, served family style on this spot since 1959. Three meats, the sides, the desserts, and the platters keep coming around.

We are back at the Inn by quarter past five, with tea, coffee and something to pick at set out in a lounge for later, and the women we met on Sunday to sit with. An early night on purpose, because tomorrow ends late and it ends well.

Highlights

• Kitchen Kettle Village, more than forty local makers in one walkable block. Quilters, leatherworkers, potters, a fudge kitchen, a butcher and cheesemonger, and a Jam and Relish Kitchen where farm women put up ninety original recipes in open kettles while we watch. The whole morning here, where most tours allow forty minutes.
• Lunch at Kitchen Kettle, our own pick, and it is covered. A proper sit down or a soft pretzel on a bench in the sun, whichever anybody actually feels like, with nobody made to take the group’s option.
• A real Amish buggy, out to a working farm. An Amish driver turns us off the pavement and onto a private farm lane, where the road noise stops and there is nothing to hear but the horse. A full hour of it.
• Jacob’s Choice, a thirty minute film on five screens. One real Amish family across five generations, and a son deciding whether to stay. Seated and indoors.
• An Amish farm feast, served family style since 1959. Three meats, the sides and the desserts, with the platters passed around the table and nobody portioning anything for us.
• An early feast, and then the evening is ours at the Inn. Back by quarter past five, with tea, coffee and something to pick at set out in a lounge, and the women we met on Sunday to sit with.

Day Four: Pretzels in Lititz, Then Supper With an Amish Family

Lititz is a planned town, laid out in 1756 by Moravians who came to Pennsylvania looking for religious freedom and then built a community so closed that for nearly a century only church members were permitted to own a house in it. Those 1756 streets are still the streets. Two blocks of brick sidewalk now hold America’s first commercial pretzel bakery, a chocolate maker who has been at it since the 1890s, and the largest limestone spring in the state running through a seven acre park. It has been called America’s coolest small town, and it is the sort of place we would want a whole day in if the evening were not what it is.

We start at Wilbur Chocolate on North Broad Street. A free Wilbur Bud is pressed on us at the door, the candy kitchen is working behind glass, and the Candy Americana displays hold antique molds, tins and hand painted porcelain chocolate pots from the days when a chocolate pot was something a household owned.

Then the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, three blocks along Main Street inside a stone house built in 1784. In 1861 Julius Sturgis, then twenty six, opened the first commercial pretzel bakery in America right here, and his family has been baking ever since. We get the history, the original brick ovens, and then a bench and a piece of dough, because everybody twists her own and takes home the certificate to prove she did it. Bakers hand twist soft pretzels on site while we watch.

Back at the Inn after lunch, and then a long, unhurried afternoon. This is the most deliberate thing on the schedule. Sleep, wander the gardens, book something at the spa, sit in a courtyard with the women we did not know on Sunday. Our hostesses are around and will say what is worth doing and what is worth skipping.

In the late afternoon we join an Amish family for dinner. Then we sit down at an Amish family’s table and eat a supper the mother of the house cooked that afternoon. We talk about faith, about farming, about raising children, about what she does with her Tuesday. The conversation runs both directions, and the meal ends with pie.

Highlights

• Wilbur Chocolate in Lititz A candy kitchen working behind glass, and the Candy Americana displays of antique molds, tins and hand painted porcelain chocolate pots.
• Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, twisting our own at the 1861 bench. Inside a 1784 stone house where America’s first commercial pretzel bakery opened, with the original brick ovens and a certificate to take home.
• Lititz, called America’s coolest small town. A Moravian settlement laid out in 1756, on its original streets, with the largest limestone spring in Pennsylvania running through a seven acre park.
• A long, unhurried afternoon back at The Inn at Leola Village. Time to sleep, walk the gardens, book something at the Forbes Four Star spa, or sit in a brick courtyard with the group, with hostesses on hand.
• Supper at an Amish family’s table, in their own home. A meal the mother of the house cooked that afternoon, a private van both ways, and a conversation about faith, farming and raising children that runs both directions.
• Coffee and tea in a private room afterwards. Two hostesses, so whoever is ready to turn in can go and whoever wants to stay for the last of it can stay.

Fun Fact: For nearly a hundred years, only members of the Moravian Church were allowed to own a house in Lititz. It was a closed religious community with its own written town rules, right down to a ban on dancing in the streets. We spend the morning in one community that chose to live apart, and the evening in another that still does.

Day Five: Until Next Time

Breakfast together, one more time, with the luggage already down in the lobby and the checkout handled for us. Then out through the farmland to Harrisburg, mid morning.

Watch what happens in the van. Four days ago most of us had never met. There will be phone numbers going around, photographs being compared, and somebody working out whether the group can get to Norway together next year. On nearly every Beatrice Bradley departure, at least one woman has picked her next trip before she has landed.

Transfer: Forty five minutes to Harrisburg International Airport (MDT).

Highlights

• A last breakfast together at The Inn at Leola Village. Unhurried, with the bags already down in the lobby and the checkout handled for us.

Fun Fact: One woman on our October 2025 Pennsylvania departure was traveling with Beatrice Bradley for the fourth time, and was still in touch with the women from her first three trips.

Note: This itinerary serves as a general guide to what we will be doing, seeing, and eating, with the final version provided approximately two weeks prior. The published itinerary is an example and may be adjusted to include accommodations, tours, or restaurants of comparable quality to ensure the best experience.