8 Pennsylvania Farm Markets and Orchards Worth Driving Hours For
Pennsylvania growers brought in roughly 10.5 million bushels of apples this year, enough to make it the fourth-largest apple state in the country, according to the U.S. Apple Association.
These are the Pennsylvania farm markets and orchards worth driving hours for this fall, before the trees drop all their leaves.
1. Soergel Orchards
Soergel Orchards covers 450 acres split across Allegheny and Butler counties.
A bakery, a deli, a cider press, a wine shop, and a specialty foods store all run under one name there.
The farm hires up to 225 seasonal workers to keep it moving.
This isn’t a small operation.
Soergel Orchards started in 1850, when a German immigrant named John Conrad Soergel planted apple trees on a patch of land north of Pittsburgh.
Farms like Soergel’s are a big reason Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the country for total apple production, according to the U.S. Apple Association.
A trip to Soergel’s in Wexford covers apples, pumpkins, baked goods, and a gift barn in one stop, which is exactly why Pittsburgh-area families build whole afternoons around it.
2. Kauffman Orchards
Kauffman Orchards traces back to 1904, when Amos and Sue Kauffman bought a 90-acre farm in Lancaster County and started converting fields into fruit trees.
The first apple crop sold in 1915.
Business took off.
Fifth-generation family members took over the business in 2019, and the operation now runs two market locations, the original Bird-in-Hand farm and a stand inside Lancaster’s Central Market.
A corn maze and a barn owl camera pull in visitors who never planned to buy a single apple.
They usually leave with a bag anyway.
What “Big” Means at a Pennsylvania Orchard
A typical roadside fruit stand in Pennsylvania sits on a few acres, just enough ground for a stand and a couple rows of trees.
Every stop on this list started well past that mark, from Kauffman’s original 90-acre purchase to Soergel’s current 450 acres spread across two counties.
That’s the gap between a farm you pass on the way somewhere and a farm that is the destination.
3. Historic Round Barn & Farm Market
The Historic Round Barn & Farm Market sits about eight miles west of Gettysburg, built around a barn raised in 1914 that’s still standing today.
True round barns are rare.
Many farm buildings from that era were built square.
A working round barn in Adams County draws visitors who’ve never picked an apple in their life, just to see the structure.
The market sits inside what Destination Gettysburg, the county’s tourism bureau, brands the Historic South Mountain Fruit Belt.
That fruit belt is the same stretch of Adams County orchard country that hosts the National Apple Harvest Festival every October.
Festival organizers put that event within a two-hour drive of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Harrisburg, a radius the whole fruit belt shares.
The family farming the property today sells apples and peaches grown on-site alongside produce from neighboring farms.
That same barn doubles as an event space, so a couple can get married under the roof where workers sort the harvest every fall.
4. Way Fruit Farm
Way Fruit Farm sits far from Pennsylvania’s usual apple-belt crowd, tucked into Centre County near Port Matilda, closer to Penn State than to Philadelphia.
The orchard dates back to 1872, when Robert and Lucretia Way planted 1,000 apple trees as a wedding gift to themselves.
Newlyweds usually skip this.
The family running Way Fruit Farm today has built a full café, bakery, and deli around those original trees.
Central Pennsylvania families treat a fall visit to Way Fruit Farm the way Philadelphia families treat a trip to the Jersey Shore, an annual pilgrimage nobody skips.
Psst! How much do you know about Pennsylvania farming? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
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Pennsylvania Farming Trivia
Answer these questions on Pennsylvania farming and markets. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
Which Pennsylvania county produces most of the nation’s mushrooms?
5. Brown's Orchards & Farm Market
Brown's Orchards & Farm Market runs a 29,000-square-foot market building in York County.
The building is large enough to hold a full bakery, a cafe, and cake decorators working custom orders on top of the daily produce.
Brown's also rents out a tent for weddings and books a concert series through the fall, filling a calendar many farm stands don't have room for.
Brown's describes itself as having grown from a small roadside stand into one of the region's most-loved destinations, a claim the wedding tent and concert bookings back up.
Brown's opened in York County in 1948, back when the family running it was still learning to tell a peach tree from an apple tree.
They learned fast.
A Saturday trip for cider donuts can turn into an evening out without anybody driving home first.
6. Highland Orchards
Highland Orchards pulls tens of thousands of visitors a year from a three-hour driving radius, according to the Brandywine Valley tourism bureau.
That radius covers much of Philadelphia, half of New Jersey, and a healthy chunk of Delaware and Maryland.
The farm has worked the same Chester County ground since John Webster bought it in 1941, and it now covers 200 acres outside West Chester.
Not everyone comes for apples.
Highland's cider donuts have picked up recognition from Philadelphia magazine and Main Line Today.
The farm backs them up with hayrides, a corn maze, and a beer and wine garden that keeps a visit going well past sunset.
7. Weaver's Orchard
Weaver's Orchard got its start in 1932, when Daniel Weaver bought a patch of Berks County farmland and began selling fruit off a truck on street corners in Reading.
That route is gone.
Weaver's grandson Ed Weaver took over as president and pushed the farm into year-round sales in 1985.
Today the property carries a full market, a bakery, a deli with catering, and a garden center alongside the pick-your-own orchard rows.
A fourth generation of the Weaver family runs the on-site café.
Four generations under one roof is rare enough, and it's part of why families keep the drive to Morgantown on repeat every fall.
8. Hollabaugh Bros. Fruit Farm & Market
Hollabaugh Brothers Fruit Farm & Market grows FyreFly apples, a specialty variety tied to the farm.
Shoppers have picked straight from the bulk bins on Hollabaugh's "bin porch" since 1965.
That tradition still holds.
Hollabaugh's also hosts farm-to-table dinners on the property, a few miles down the road from the round barn.
Hollabaugh's sits in Biglerville, the same small Adams County town that hosts the National Apple Harvest Festival every October.
The festival fills the town with hundreds of vendors over two full weekends.
Festival organizers say the crowd comes from as far as Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, a couple hours down the road.
Twin brothers Donald and Harold Hollabaugh bought the farm's original 50 acres of cherry and apple orchards in 1955.
The farm marked its 70th year in business in 2025, and it's stayed at one address the whole time.
Many visitors work both into the same afternoon before heading home with a trunk full of cider and warm donuts.
That kind of two-stop day is the whole point of driving out this far in the first place.
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