My 5 Favorite Amish Communities To Visit

I often get asked which Amish communities I recommend visiting. In total I’ve been to around 70 Amish communities, many of them multiple times. These are my favorites to return to.

Check out the video above for more images, and more on why I enjoy each. Or if you prefer to read, here are my favorite five:

1. Holmes County, Ohio

So first of all, Holmes County, Ohio. The second-largest Amish settlement is home to the widest variety of Amish groups, from very plain to progressive. Friendly community, beautiful scenery, and a nice pace of life.

~

What do I like about this community? First, it’s a beautiful area. And it’s a very friendly community overall. This is actually the second-largest of all Amish communities, around 40,000 Amish living here.

In Holmes County itself, Amish make make up nearly half of the population, so 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 plainest Amish, without indoor plumbing, all the way up to the most progressive Amish that use tractors in the fields.

There are lots of shops, lots of restaurants, lots of places to see. It’s just a really pleasant experience to drive through this community, stop in at Amish stores. I always love visiting Holmes County.

2. Ethridge, Tennessee

A Southern Amish settlement of the plainest Amish group (Swartzentruber). Many, many small shops and porch-front sellers of produce, candles, furniture, rugs, baked goods, and lots of other fun things. Good one if you like stopping at Amish places and seeing what they have for sale.

~

Number two is Ethridge, Tennessee. So what do I like about this community? Well, this is a Swartzentruber Amish community, and these are the pretty much the plainest – most conservative – of all Amish. You experience the Amish in their most traditional form, so to speak.

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, then this is the community for you.

There are a ton of little stores selling, you know, all sorts of Amish-made goods, everything from candles to rugs to furniture to produce to canned goods to all sorts of things.

I even bought this homemade basketball game that an Amishman made using a plastic spoon. I think this was, like, $4. I had a nice conversation with the the older man who who makes and sells these.

That’s also part of the fun of these kinds of communities. They give you lots of opportunities to stop in at Amish places and meet people, talk to people. Not everyone is the most talkative, but some enjoy visiting with you.

I always recommend people, if you wanna meet Amish people, the best way to do that is to visit them at their businesses. This place offers a lot of opportunity to do that.

And it’s a plainer Amish group, so you see how some of the plainest Amish live – under quite simple and tech-restricted conditions, let’s say. So it’s a great community, and one of the largest Amish communities in the South.

3. Big Valley, Pennsylvania

White buggies, black buggies, and yellow buggies in a beautiful 30-mile-long valley.

~

Number three would be the Big Valley community in Pennsylvania. “Big Valley” is a nickname for the Kishocoquillas Valley. So with that many syllables, you see why it has a nickname!

This is in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, right in the center of the state. So what’s nice about this community? First, this is an absolutely beautiful area. As the name says, it’s literally in a 30-mile-long by about five-mile-wide valley. And the Amish live all throughout the valley.

The other thing that’s very interesting is that you find three distinct groups of Amish here. And it’s obvious they are distinct even to first-time visitors, because each group drives a different-colored buggy.

Within this one valley, you will find black buggies, yellow buggies, and white-topped buggies. The Nebraska Amish (aka “white-toppers”) are considered the most conservative of these three groups.

And you can see that reflected in the style of their buggies. They have open fronts. And they only have lanterns on the side, not battery-powered lights like most other Amish buggies will have.

There’s a weekly auction here in the town of Belleville, which is right in the middle of the valley. If you attend that, you’ll see a lot of Amish people buying and selling things there, eating and visiting with one another. This community is a little bit off-the-beaten-path as well – especially compared to number four on my list

4. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

The oldest and largest Amish settlement. I often stay with Amish friends here.

~

The Amish community in Lancaster County is the oldest of all Amish settlements. It’s also technically the largest, although it’s just just a little bit larger than the Holmes County community.

This is a really beautiful,  picturesque area. People often say these are some of the neatest and most well-cared-for farms that you’ll find among the Amish, and I’d have to agree with that. This is the home of shoofly pie, and the distinct gray-topped Lancaster-style Amish buggy.

Personally, I have some of my closest Amish friends living here in Lancaster County. This area overall also has a lot of history, not just related to the Amish, and it really is right in the heartland of greater Pennsylvania Dutch culture.

And of course, it’s very well geared towards visitors, with a lot of restaurants, a lot of Amish businesses that you can visit, and places to stay.

A lot of people do visit Lancaster County- millions yearly – making it the most popular community to visit of them all. But if you come for a visit, you’ll soon see why.

5. Burke’s Garden, Virginia

A small Amish community tucked away in a very isolated and unusual valley in a corner of Virginia. Getting there is half the fun.

~

There were a number of communities I thought could go into this spot. But for the last spot here, I put a quite obscure community – the one at Burke’s Garden, Virginia.

And why why do I have this very small Amish community that’s tucked away in the corner of the Appalachian Mountains in Western Virginia? Why is this on my list?

The main reason I put it here is just that it’s such a unique location and also very difficult to get to, which I think in my mind adds to its appeal.

Burke’s Garden is a community that’s within a valley that’s essentially 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 Burke’s Garden.

Now it’s quite a small community. There’s only maybe between one and two dozen Amish households there. That said, there are several Amish businesses there, including two general stores where you can get food, canned goods, and those sorts of things. The Amish living here today are originally from Delaware.

How did this unique valley get created? Well, it kind of looks like a dormant volcano from above – but that’s not what it is. Apparently there was once a limestone mountain here that collapsed upon itself a long time ago, creating this unique feature on the landscape.

Just a beautiful setting, very isolated, very off-the-beaten-path, very interesting backstory to this community. And that gets it a spot on my list.

Honorable Mention

So there’s some honorable mention communities that I could have put on this list. Those would include:

Daviess County, Indiana. A really friendly community in southern Indiana, one of the first Amish communities I ever visited.

Westcliffe, Colorado. Just an amazingly beautiful area with the stunning Sangre de Cristo mountain range as a backdrop to this small community.

New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. The Amish here have brown-topped buggies. The doors of the homes here are typically painted in a sky blue color. It’s very picturesque. A more conservative brand of Amish live here.

Pinecraft, Florida. A unique community in that you won’t find any Amish buggies here. This is kind of an Amish vacation spot, different from all other Amish communities in that sense. One of the last places you’d expect to find Amish, basically a Sarasota-area neighborhood, a neat and unique location.

So, which are your favorite communities to visit? Let us know in the comments! And: here’s a look back at an earlier version of this list from 2007.

For more, see:

• The 5 Friendliest Amish Communities
• The 10 Biggest Amish Communities
• Amish Communities: 32-State Guide

Get the Amish in your inbox

Join 15,000 email subscribers. No spam. 100% free

 

 

 

Subscribe