Here are some of my favorite Amish communities to visit. There are over 600 Amish communities and I certainly haven’t visited them all. But here are some of my favorites.
Holmes County, Ohio.
What do I like about this community? Well, it’s a beautiful area. It’s a very friendly community. Overall. This is actually the second-largest Amish community. In Holmes County, Amish make up, nearly half of the population. It’s very heavily Amish.
If you want to see the full range of Amish in terms of the most conservative to the most progressive Amish, then this would be the place to go. You have everything from the very plain Amish, all the way up to the most progressive Amish that use tractors in the fields. There are lots of shops, lots of restaurants, and lots of places to see.
It’s just a real pleasant experience to drive through this community, and stop in at Amish stores.
Etheridge, Tennessee.
So what do I like about this community? These are the pretty much, the most plain of all Amish. What’s really attractive about this place is if you like to go to Amish businesses and stop in and buy things from Amish shops, or even from the front porch of an Amish home, this is the community for you because there are a ton of little stores selling, all sorts of Amish made goods, everything from candles to rugs, to furniture, to produce, to canned goods, and more.
Be sure to visit the Amish Heritage Welcome Center when in Etheridge, TN.
How To Meet & Talk To Amish People
If you want to meet Amish people, the best way to do that is to visit them out in their businesses.
Etheridge offers a lot of opportunities to do that. And it’s a plainer Amish group. You can learn how some of the plain Amish live quite simply in tech restricted conditions. This is such a great community.
Big Valley, Pennsylvania.
One of the largest Amish communities would be Big Valley, Pennsylvania. Big Valley is a nickname for the Kisha Coquis Valley.This is in Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, right in the center of the state.
What’s nice about this community is that it is a beautiful area. As the name says, it’s literally a 30-mile long by about five-mile wide valley, and the Amish live all throughout the valley. The first time I drove through the valley, I was awed by the beauty. Two ridges of mountains line the 2 sides of the highway, and the valley is filled with farms and homes.
The other thing that’s very interesting is you find really three specific groups of Amish here, each distinct from one another. And that’s probably best seen in the colors of the buggies because within this one valley, you will find black buggies, yellow buggies, and white top buggies.
Why are there different colors of Amish Buggies?
When the Amish moved into the area, their buggies were made of the materials available to them at the time. The buggy styles then became a standard for the communities, even when they settled in new areas.
The Nebraska Amish are considered the most conservative of the three, and you can see that reflected in the style of their buggies. They have open fronts. They only have lanterns on the side, not battery-powered lights, as most other Amish buggies will have.
There’s a weekly auction there in the town of Bellville, which is right in the middle of the valley. And you’ll see a lot of Amish people buying and selling things there a little bit off the beaten path as well
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
This community is the oldest of all Amish communities. It’s technically the largest, although it’s just, just a little bit larger than the Holmes county community. This is a really beautiful picturesque area. These are some of the neatest and most well-cared-for farms, which you’ll find among the Amish.
This area has a lot of history and it’s of course, it’s very well geared to visitors. Lancaster County has lot of restaurants and a lot of Amish businesses that you can visit places to stay. You do get a lot of people that visit Lancaster county. So it is the most popular community to visit of them all.
Brooks Garden, Virginia
Burke’s Garden is a bowl-shaped valley scooped out of the rugged Appalachian Mountains in Southwest VA. This is a very small Amish community. The main reason I put Burke’s Garden here is it is such a unique location and also very difficult to get to, which I think in my mind adds to its appeal.
Brooks Garden is a community that’s within a valley, that’s enclosed on all sides. And there’s really only one paved road going into the valley, very winding, a lot of switchbacks cutbacks to get into this community. So when you get there, you really feel like you’ve gone there on purpose. You meant to get there. You don’t accidentally drive through Brooks Garden.
Now it’s quite a small community. There are only maybe between the one and two dozen Amish households there. That said there are several Amish businesses there, including two general stores, well food stores where you can get food, canned goods, and those sorts of things.
These Amish are originally from Delaware. How did this unique valley get created? Well kind of looks like a dormant volcano from above, but that’s not what it is. It said that there was once a limestone mountain here that collapsed upon itself a long time ago, just a beautiful setting, very isolated, very off the beaten path. Very kind of interesting backstory to this community.
Pinecraft, Florida
Pinecraft, Florida is a pretty unique community in that you won’t find any Amish buggies here. This is kind of the Amish vacation spot different from all other Amish communities. In that sense, one of the last places you’d expect a find Amish. It is a Sarasota area neighborhood, a neat and unique location.
I have a very close friend that has a house and winters in Pinecraft. I have visited him there and really enjoyed it.
Pinecraft has a large shuffleboard court that is a center for the community. In the evenings it is alive with folks visiting with one another. The streets are also busy with bicycles and people walking. They will stop along their way to visit with neighbors who are sitting on their porches. This is probably the friendliest community I have ever visited.
What’s your favorite community or communities that you’ve been to?
