Rural Road Trip

Pack your rubber boots and embark on a summer weekend journey to explore Alberta’s farms up close. Celebrating its 14th year, Alberta Open Farm Days returns Aug. 15 and 16, inviting visitors onto more than 150 farms across Alberta. The free, two-day event offers a rare opportunity to step behind the farm gate, meet the people who grow the province’s food and experience agriculture first-hand. So hit the gravel roads beneath wide-open skies, spend an afternoon with alpacas, fill baskets at a U-Pick farm, share a meal at a long-table dinner, tour a local brewery and chat with the farmers, face to face.

Know your locally grown products

“It’s that opportunity to connect further with local food sources, to understand where you can buy and how you can access locally produced and grown products,” says Tannis Baker, who has served on the Alberta Open Farm Days executive committee for the past 12 years. The most meaningful part of the event for Baker is the chance for people to engage directly with farmers and strengthen the connection between urban and rural communities.

Each participating farm offers its own experience. Curious travellers can build an itinerary around their interests, whether that means strolling through flower farms, visiting beekeeping operations, meeting livestock or touring breweries and wineries. Many farms also offer hands-on activities, demonstrations and opportunities to purchase locally grown food and farm-made products directly from the people who produce them.

Rather than choosing the closest farm, Baker encourages visitors to browse the Alberta Open Farm Days website and discover experiences that spark their curiosity.

“Dig around and take a look at what you are interested in learning about,” she says.

Make some fluffy friends

For Debbie Oyarzun, owner of Aurora Alpacas in Sturgeon County, Alberta Open Farm Days has come full circle.

Years before becoming a host farm herself, Oyarzun attended the event with her family. During one visit, her then-12-year-old son, Diego, became fascinated by a herd of alpacas. That single afternoon eventually inspired the family to begin raising the animals themselves. Fast forward four years and they’re welcoming visitors to the same event that first introduced them to alpacas.

Visitors can meet their fluffy, four-legged friends (and seemingly too-long necks) and spend an afternoon at Aurora Alpacas. Additionally, there will be demonstrations showing how alpaca fibre is transformed into socks, mittens and hats and shop those locally made goods while enjoying food from a local food truck.

The best part, according to Oyarzun, is watching people slow down.

For many Albertans, it’s their first opportunity to see alpacas up close. They make for wonderful companions and many people simply want to have them around them. “We’ve had people come and throw down a picnic blanket, sit here all day and just watch them,” she says.

Find your interest

Baker hopes visitors take away moments like these from Alberta Open Farm Days.

“It’s the opportunity to see people in their own environments,” she says. “When they’re standing in their fields, standing with their livestock, you feel it — you feel their love for the land.”

To make the most of the weekend, Baker recommends treating Open Farm Days like a road trip. Plan your route in advance, pack a cooler for fresh purchases, wear clothes that can handle muddy fields and check if farms require reservations for specific experiences.

Alberta Open Farm Days
Various locations across Alberta | Aug 15 & 16, 2026 | albertaopenfarmdays.ca