Tom’s Farms: Not Just Your Average Farm
My little family of three and I decided to take a small trip to Tom’s Farms in Temescal Valley, California near Good Sam Park Lake Park RV Resort & Motel in Lake Elsinore, CA.
My wife has always loved collecting barnyard, shabby chic, or DIY-type projects for our home and places like Tom’s Farms are her creative playground. For adults, Tom’s Farms is an awesome Farmers Market, a place to enjoy tons of great craft beer, wine, food, and an enormous decor/home goods store that has rows and rows of unique and original decor. It’s especially cool right now to visit because it is set up with almost all Christmas decor (and let’s be real, who doesn’t love that).
Tom’s Farms truly goes all-out at Christmas time / Photo: Jeremy P Elder
Our little one getting some horseback riding in at the farm / Photo: Jeremy P Elder
For our little one, they had a surprising amount of attractions, such as a rideable train, carousel, shooting gallery game, live outdoor music, jewel mining, magic show, and a gigantic candy store complete with every variety of chocolate and chewy treats you can imagine. It was actually refreshingly affordable too as each ride cost $1-$5, face painting was $5, the magic show was free and most of the treats and snacks were priced great for budget-conscious families out there.
Our daughter was all about the pony rides as she had never been on a “real horse.” You can tell by the picture just how much she loved this experience. For us, we look for these kinds of days. Days where we can drive, and get lost as a family in something that is awesome because we are all about trying new things. Hitting a gold mine like Tom’s Farms is great for all three of us because dad gets to be an outdoor hero and navigate the troop through a cool new adventure. Mom gets her crafts, furniture and home decor shopping and our daughter got to enjoy all of the cool kid’s attractions to split up the more boring adult experiences.
Bridge for the ride-on train / Photo: Jeremy P Elder
We have done several of the “farm” family locations in the Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, and Ventura counties of Southern California and truth be told, this is one of our favorites so far. It just really did have something for each of us and I got a lot of love from my girls over our day out as a family. It wasn’t too loud or crowded, but not boring either. We picked up some really unique food (peppered jalapeño bacon anyone?), some candy for the kiddo (chocolate covered honeycomb is a family favorite), and had a really great afternoon that occupied over 4 hours of a Sunday.
All-in-all, with the farm only being 15 minutes from the Lake Park RV Resort & Motel, we definitely would recommend either a nice date day with your spouse/partner: enjoying food, music, wine, and shopping, or a great little lazy family day watching your kiddos enjoy all the great attractions. So when visiting SoCal, get outdoors on the farm with your travel buddies and have some fun.
Ride on the train / Photo: Jeremy P Elder
About the Author:Jeremy P Elder is a U.S. Army veteran and podcast producer. He has over 15 years of Business Development and Marketing history. He is a proud father and writes the A Dad Outside blog series about adventures with his young daughter.
