Amish Pennsylvania

My mother loves the "locals" whenever we travel anywhere. In New Mexico, we visited the Acoma people in the Sky City. In Pennsylvania, she wanted to visit the Amish, so we drove to Lancaster, PA to see how they lived according to their values in a very different world around them.

We found a site called Amish Village on Google Maps. It's a pretty clever way to market yourself to tourists since it's not an actual village or town area where Amish gather to conduct business, but rather a tourist destination. In case you get lost, they have a massive barn painted with "This is The Amish Village" so you don't miss it.

But during the drive over, we definitely saw our fair share of locals. As it turns out, they don't like having their pictures taken (it's a literal interpretation of Biblical warnings against graven images), but my mother snuck a few photos when they were too far away to notice.

At The Amish Village, we did a $9/person tour through a replica traditional Amish home. The home itself wasn't that impressive, but it did give you a sense of how their communities functioned.

But after you go through the house tour, you can walk around the outside grounds where they have buggies that you can go into and stores that you can shop for souvenirs and food goods.