September 23rd, 2022
I got the urge to go apple picking while we were in Illinois and Katie kindle joined me on my little adventure.
We chose Kuiper’s Family Farms and had a gorgeous day to spend some time outdoors.
Kuiper’s is a well run organization. Although it was not busy when we were there, you can see that they do have large crowds and they have the structure set up to keep people moving through all the attractions.
They are known for their apple cider donuts. Katie and I bought two to enjoy while we were walking around and I ended up buying more later to take home!
If you are hoping for a real, old-time apple picking EXPERIENCE, this might not be the place for you. They are VERY organized. Although the trees were jam packed with apples, they only had two or three varieties open for picking and each person was only allowed to pick a small bag of apples. You can BUY bags of apples in their farm store, so we got plenty, but I was bummed that we didn’t actually get to pick very many of them. I will be looking for more casual apple (maybe other fruit) farms as we head south.
The farm is huge and they have attractions on both sides of the road. Apples and the farm store are on one side and the other side (which was not open yet when we were there) is pumpkins and halloween themed activities.
Fun place for a family gathering or just to spend a beautiful fall day outside in nature.