Longmont’s Wonder Tours is known for introducing locals and visitors to the watering holes and eateries around town. But in its latest summer series Farm Hop Tour, guests trade brews for beets and learn about local farms.
The Farm Hop Tour kicked off last Saturday morning, driving a chartered bus-worth of guests to Longmont-area regenerative farms Elk Run Farm, MetaCarbon Organic Farm and the Yellow Barn Farm. Though future ticket registration dates aren’t posted at the time of publication, Wonder Tours guide and owner Jennifer Ferguson said that it will run every other Saturday throughout the summer. Tickets will be available through Yellow Barn Farm’s website.
Ever since Ferguson launched Wonder Tours in 2017 — at the time it was known as Discover Longmont Tours and contracted with BrewHop Trolley as a food guide— she wanted to add a local farm tour. Ferguson added that while Longmont-area residents may support farms by buying products, she wanted to connect them more by showing them the farm and the farmers who made their food.
“I have this bus resource that I would love people to be on all the time. I love talking to people. I love connecting them,” Ferguson said. “It's all about introducing them to things. I absolutely love when people get off of a tour, and they say, ‘Wow, I had no idea I didn't know that existed. I learned so much.’”
The Farm Hop takes off from Yellow Barn Farm in the morning, and circles back to the starting point in the afternoon. Ferguson said most of Wonder Tours offerings are late afternoon and evening events, so the farm tour is a good alternative for those wanting a day experience. The series was created in part for customers asking for family-friendly tours and food options that accommodate vegetable-based diets.
Azuraye Wycoff of Yellow Barn Farm, who operates the family-owned land with her mother Merrie Wycoff, collaborated with Ferguson on organizing the tour. Wycoff and leaders from the other two farms on the tour are a part of a farmers collective. The Farm Hop Tour is an easy way to learn about sustainable food practices and the way farms impact their community, she said. Wycoff added that bringing attention to local farmers helps them better serve their communities.
“I think that this is really the best and easiest way to get involved in something that is much bigger than just all of us as individuals,” Wycoff said. “The food is really where the life source of an entire community is and with that knowledge, you can really start to build a much bigger root system. As we spread this awareness out, it means that more people are interested and we can find ways to provide food to people.”
One of the Farm Hop guests Veronica Pēna said she works in front of a screen a lot as a UX designer and was excited to spend her Saturday out on the farms. One of her favorite parts of the tour was meeting the different livestock.
“It's a nice chance to understand the way the world works, aside from the bubble that we live in now, like the city life,” Pēna said. “It's nice to get away from this world we create digitally and a fast paced life, to slow down.”
Wycoff said tickets for the Farm Hop Tours will be on a sliding scale and proceeds will compensate the farmers for their time as guides and go towards Dry Lands Agroecology Research — a land stewardship non-profit that is responsible for Elk Run Farm and has partnered with Yellow Barn and MetaCarbon for land research.
