Omni Homestead Resort Getaway

It had been 12 years since I last visited the Omni Homestead Resort so I was more than excited when my wife surprised our family with a weekend getaway to the resort.

Located on 2,300 acres in the Alleghany Highlands (Hot Springs, VA) the iconic resort has a rich history dating back 250 years. In fact, 2016 marked the 250th birthday of the Homestead Resort and they celebrated by providing a different cake each day for guests to enjoy. It’s these little touches that make any trip to the Homestead a truly memorable one.

Whether you just want to relax in the healing hot springs or stretch your legs with a hike along the Cascades Gorge, there are more than 30 recreational activities to keep you busy.

Here’s what our weekend looked like:

  • After a scenic drive through the mountain of the Alleghany Highlands, we arrived Friday evening, checked into our room, and promptly headed to the Allegheny Springs water park. The entire two-acre water park is fed by the waters of the natural springs. We were there in December so the lazy river and water slides were closed, but they looked spectacular.
  • Our Saturday started off with the Homestead Resort’s famous breakfast buffet. It’s well worth it, and make sure you don’t miss the homemade donuts.
  • After breakfast, we headed out for our first adventure, which happens to be a first for the resort – a brand new zip line tour. The Omni Homestead Zip Line Tour and Red Tail Racer experience starts off with everyone getting fitted with full-body harnesses then hopping on the ski lift for a scenic ride to the top of the mountain. From there you’ll zip your way to the bottom through a series of 10 different zip line rides of varying length. This one-of-a-kind experience takes about three hours and is so worth it.

  • We thought it would be fun to do something none of us had ever done before, so after lunch we hopped a short shuttle over to the beautiful Omni Homestead Shooting Club for some skeet shooting lessons. Again, we’re not a “gun family” so this was all new to us and the Homestead Resort guide couldn’t have been more accommodating. In a matter of minutes we were blasting away, having the time of our life…and if I do so say, we did pretty good, hitting more skeets than we missed.
  • We finished our day off by ice skating under the full moon on the resort’s ice skating rink.

After a quick morning soak in the springs we were back in our car heading back to reality. Our Homestead Resort getaway was just what we all needed to recharge our batteries. We barely scratched the surface on all the Homestead has to offer and can’t wait to get back.

Make it a great weekend … outside!

— Pete