Agriturisms in Belgium and Luxembourg

Belgian farm stays from $50

You can see how the farming half lives in Belgium of Luxembourg—and get a great, rural experience at a fraction the cost of a hotel—by staying on a working farm—often called hoevetoerisme in Dutch or chambres d'hôtes rurale (rural B&B) or gîte (rental cottage) in French.

How to find farm stays in Belgium (& Luxembourg)

Many local tourist offices have lists of local farm stays.

Sadly, few are listed in English-language guidebooks—but there are often agriturismo guides available in local bookshops—often in French or Dutch or Flemish or whatever the local lingo is, of course, but the important bits are easy enough: addresses, prices, and phone numbers, photographs, and icons for private baths, swimming pools, etc.

You can always just look for signs on country roads, pointing down rutted dirt tracks toward a farmhouse set among the fields.

If you want to find and book a few before you leave, here are the best online resources for finding farm stays all across Belgium. Not all sites are available in English, but the pertinent details are usually pretty easy to figure out:

Resources just in Belgium

Flemish Federation for Country Tourism in Flanders (www.hoevetoerisme.be) - Plattelandstoerisme in Vlaanderen covers rural tourism in the northern, Flemish half of Belgium, with more than 300 guest rooms in farms and villages across Flanders. Helpfully, it uses a system of color-codes and symbols so you can, at a glance, see which results on a page are actual hoevetoerisme farms (insetad of merely countryside, or village), and which are B&B or guest rooms versus "dwellings" (gîtes or cottage rentals).

Accueil Champietre en Wallonie (www.accueilchampetre.be) - Site devoted exclusively to farm stays in the Wallonia half of Belgium (the southern, French-speaking part), with 159 chambres d'hôtes (B&Bs) on farms and 453 gîtes (countryside rentals). Unfortunately, the site is only in French and Dutch (Google Chrome will translate it for you).

Gites de Wallonie (www.gitesdewallonie.net) - The site ain't pretty, but it works—well, works with Wallonie (the Walloon is the southern, French-speaking half of Belgium). It covers all kinds of rural and small town vataions, from farms to B&Bs to cottage rentals.

Resources for Luxembourg

Association pour la Promotion du Tourisme Rural au Grand-Duché du Luxembourg (www.gites.lu) - The "Association for the Promotion of Rural Tourism in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg" is the longest association name for one of the the smallest countries in Europe. Spiffy site, but not too many places on offer (though, in its defense, Luxembourg is super-tiny). There are about a dozen options each under various sub-categories of rural lodgings: "Farm-style lodgings," "County lodgings" and "Holiday accommodations."

General/global resources

ECEAT (www.eceat.nl) - The European Center for Eco Agro Tourism is a Dutch concern selling guidebooks to agritourism establishments across Europe. Its sister site www.groenevakantiegids.nl (all in Dutch, but the details are easy enough to savvy) lists about 80 in Belgium.

Organic Places to Stay (www.organicholidays.co.uk) - OK, nearly two-thirds of the listings here are lodgings that happen to offer organic food. The other third, however, are B&Bs, rental cottages, or homestays on working organic farms—including a handful in Belgium.

Become a farmhand; sleep for free - If you really want to get your hands dirty, sign up to become a temporary farmhand through one of two volunteer organizations: WWOOF (www.wwoof.org) and Helpx (www.helpx.net)...

What is a farm stay?

The concept behind agritourism (or farm stays, or gîtes, or guest ranches, or farmhouse B&Bs, or rural tourism, or whatever you want to call it) is simple: you spend the night as a guest on a working farm. From there, though, the concept flies off in many directions.

Sometimes you just hole up for the night in a B&B converted from a farmhouse.

Sometimes you actually stick around to do volunteer work for a few days (a week, two months, a year), as with the worldwide WWOOF or Helpx networks.

Sometimes, just renting a cottage in a rural area where sheep wander past your window is enough to count.

Ideally, the property's owners live on-site and are farmers who derive the bulk of their income from agriculture, using this newfangled form of tourism merely to help make ends meet.

In some countries, the practice of agritourism is highly regulated; in others, it’s a wild west of opportunities, and you have to pick carefully to avoid spending the night in a barn atop a pile of hay (unless that's what you want—I've done it in Switzerland, and it's great).

How much does a farm stay cost?

Double rooms on a Belgian farm run anywhere from $50 to $200, but usually around $70 to $100.

Renting a gîte or cottage on a farm will run anywhere from $210–$700 per week.

What is a farm stay like?

I've stayed at loads of agriturisms: vineyards and dairy farms, barns amid olive groves and frescoed villas next to horse stables.

Each stay has offered me a different experience of farm life for a fraction the cost of a hotel.

Many agriturisms require a two- or three-night minimum stay (for some, a week).

Roughly half accept credit cards.

Sometimes you get four-star luxury and satellite TV. Sometimes you’re a straw's-width from sleeping in a stall.

Most, though, are just what you'd expect from a farmhouse B&B: simple comforts, solid country furnishings, and rural tranquility—barnyard noises excepted.

The hosts tend to be a sight friendlier than your average hotel desk clerk. Some invite guests to dine with them, family-style, in the farmhouse. One shepherd let me stir a bubbling pot of sheep's milk to help it on its way to becoming pecorino cheese. Vineyard owners love to crack open bottles of their best to guide you through the finer points of wine tasting.