Fall Farm Days at Strawberry Hill USA in Chesnee, SC

Strawberry Hill USA, also known as Cooley Farms, is celebrating 80 years of family farming in Upstate South Carolina. In addition to U-Pick strawberries in spring and U-Pick peaches in summer, their fall farm season is an annual highlight! Expect corn mazes, family-friendly hayrides, and a huge farm-themed playground and animal encounters open to the public for a limited time each year.

Our family has visited Strawberry Hill USA more times than we can count.

The Café is one of our family’s favorite spots for breakfast, lunch, and ice cream in all of Spartanburg County, and we love snagging seasonal produce from The Shed anytime we’re in the area. Their U-Pick strawberry experience is excellent, and their U-Pick peach experience is on our bucket list. But with all the reasons we have to love it? Nothing has ever beaten fall on the farm.

Our family visited on opening weekend for the Fall 2026 season, and there was so much for our kids to enjoy that we could hardly manage to do it all! From the free playground at The Shed to the epic farm-themed playscape on the other side of the hayride, Strawberry Hill is a memory-making dream for families.

Thank you to Strawberry Hill USA for hosting our family at the 2026 Fall Opening Weekend to update our coverage for the new season.

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The Shed

Hayride

Corn Maze

The Café

FAQs

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The Shed is the best place to start your fall adventure at Strawberry Hill. From this central location, you can purchase your tickets, access both the hayride and corn maze, pick up snacks and souvenirs, and spot the Café directly across the street.

During the fall season, you can find a huge array of fresh produce ready for pickup at The Shed. We found boxes and barrels packed full of pumpkins, apples, peaches, and more. You’ll also find preserves, boiled peanuts, and other classic Southern specialties to enjoy.

Some of our favorite seasonal treats include the slushies—available in apple, peach, or blackberry flavors—and I highly recommend taking one of these along as a cold refreshment for the hayride experience. We usually cannot resist grabbing a box of their glazed cider donuts, either. These make a great, gooey treat for the car ride, or if you can stand to wait, they are extra yummy heated up at home!

A little-known feature at The Shed is its completely free farm-themed playground. This play area is small in comparison to the expansive playscape you reach on the hayride, but it is a lot of fun while you wait. Kids can enjoy the sandbox complete with sand toys, rubber-tire horse swings, and a tractor-themed playset while you wait for your hayride to begin!

Parent Perk: Be sure to take advantage of the fully accessible family restroom at The Shed before you depart for either the hayride or the corn maze!

Fall Hayrides at Strawberry Hill

Every person receives pellets to feed the cows as part of the hayride, and kids and adults alike will laugh and scream when those cow tongues start licking up your arms to grab them! If you’d rather skip the licks, you can also set your pellets on the wooden rail, and the cows will still come right up to you to lick them up without licking you. Just please don’t throw the pellets at the animals: They do not like it, and it is against the rules.

Parent Perk: Hand sanitizer is provided on the hayride after feeding the cows and right outside animal-feeding stations in the play area.

On the other side of the hayride, a huge farm-themed playspace awaits. You’ll find farm animals to pet and feed, ball toss and lasso games, a shaded corn pit for sensory play, climbing structures, jump pillows, a zip line, and a massive spider-themed set of slides. That’s not even to mention the wildflower garden and, of course, the pumpkin patch!

The animals can vary each year, but there is usually at least one especially adorable baby in the mix. In 2026, kids can walk right up to and pet two baby calves, Darla and Alfalfa, under the careful supervision of one of the farmers. There is also a pig pen this year with the cutest baby piggies, all busy rooting around in freshly tilled dirt, devouring pumpkins, and wagging their little tails! Other animals include goats, rabbits, and chickens, too.

A major highlight for little ones is the Cooley Corn Pit, which is a large, ground-level sensory box filled with hard corn and toys. We saw one girl lying down with a snorkel mask while her siblings buried her entire body in corn, a grandmother letting her little one rain corn down on her hair, and a boy making corn-angels just like he would in the snow. It’s fully shaded, has picnic tables for parents, and could have entertained our children for ages.

For bigger thrills, the giant Spider Slide sits atop a hill with long black chutes going down either side. This is one that every age from preschoolers to teens to adults will love, as you slide down through the dark and then out into the sun. Jump pillows allow kids of all ages to bounce and race across them, and a zip line is also available for bigger kids.

Last but not least, parents and kids can stroll through the pumpkin patch and pick out one pumpkin per person! A large educational display sits on-site to show kids the life cycle of the pumpkin, and if you visit for field trips, one of the farmers will even give a presentation on this. We loved getting to see the different pumpkins each of our kids chose, and hearing why they each thought theirs was the very best one in the bunch.

Admission: Tickets for the hayride are $21 per person, and babies under 2 years old get in free. Ticket bundles are also available with the corn maze. While the corn maze is open daily, please note that hayrides are limited to 1 – 5 pm on Fridays, 9 am – 5 pm on Saturdays, and 11 am – 5 pm on Sundays.

This year’s Corn Maze at Strawberry Hill USA is themed to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Cooley Farms, designed across 10 acres with a strawberry, peach, stars, and a big tractor in addition to the Cooley family name. The design is cut into the maze early in the season using a GPS-guided tractor, and then the paths are marked with color-coded tape once the corn fields are fully grown.

Visitors can purchase wristbands for admission at The Shed, and then pick up a map at the Corn Maze entrance. There are two large mazes and one kiddie maze to explore. You’ll want to plan about 15-30 minutes for the kiddie maze and 30 minutes or more for each of the larger mazes.

Each maze is marked with color-coded tape to help you stay on track. For added fun and ease of navigation, I recommend starting a custom route on a hiking app like AllTrails, which will mark the pattern you make by your path through the maze and help you find your way if you get stuck. If you ever feel truly lost, don’t worry: A spotter is watching the maze at all times, and you can flag them down for help if you need someone to come guide you out.

This year, be sure to mark your calendars for the Night Maze on Saturday, October 10th, 2026. For one night only, the maze will be open after dark, with admission times from 6 to 8 pm and the maze closing for the night at 9:30 pm. This is sure to be an especially fun event for teens and adults, but please be advised: This is still a kid-friendly event just like every other day in the maze, and absolutely no masks or scary costumes are permitted.

Admission: Tickets for the corn maze are only $11 per person or $15 per person for Night Maze, and children under 3 years old get in free with their family. Ticket bundles are also available with the hayrides, when available. While hayrides are only available for limited hours on weekends, the corn maze is open daily, 10 am – 6 pm.

The Café at Cooley Farms is one of the best eateries in all of Spartanburg County. We drive across the county for their breakfasts, and we love going there for lunch after a morning spent at a nearby park or splash pad. It’s also home to some of the best ice cream around with 32 flavors, including peach and strawberry made with the farm’s own produce.

Hours and menu items vary seasonally, so visit The Café website for details before your visit. Our year-round favorites include their pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon for breakfast, the stuffed chicken quesadilla with tater tots for lunch, and the chocolate brownie ice cream for dessert!

In our experience, The Café is usually at its busiest during the fall farm season, so expect longer lines at lunchtime and consider eating there for breakfast if you want to avoid the wait. During the rest of the year, we rarely have to wait for a table on weekdays, but it can get packed at lunchtime on Saturdays.

For our family, Strawberry Hill checks all the boxes for a fall farm day: animals, active play, pumpkins, a giant maze, good food, and enough different experiences to entertain toddlers, bigger kids, teens, and adults.

With so much to experience, there are some things worth knowing before you go to get the best visit possible. Check out these top tips and frequently asked questions, and remember to contact them directly to verify details or find out more.