Vultaggio Royal Tree Farms (formerly Schmuckal Tree Farms)

Our take

This farm sits about 13 miles south of Traverse City in Kingsley, and it comes with a naming wrinkle worth clearing up before anything else: it’s recently rebranded from Schmuckal Tree Farms to Vultaggio Royal Tree Farms, but the schmuckalchristmastreefarms.com website is still what actually runs the operation’s online presence. If you’re searching around and keep seeing the old name, that’s not a sign you’ve found a different or defunct business – it’s the same farm mid-transition.

Choose-and-cut, not U-cut

Unlike some farms in this list that hand you a saw, this one has staff walk the field with you and do the actual cutting. If your idea of the “cut your own tree” experience specifically includes swinging the saw yourself, this isn’t that – it’s the choose-and-cut model, where your job is picking the tree and staff’s job is getting it down.

Weekends only, and that’s a real constraint

Based on the 2025 schedule, the farm runs Saturdays and Sundays only, roughly 9am to 5pm, from around Thanksgiving weekend through December 23. There’s no weekday visiting option at all, which is worth knowing if your schedule is more flexible on weekdays than weekends – you won’t have that choice here. It also means all of the farm’s visitor traffic funnels into two days a week, so expect a busier atmosphere on any given visit than at a farm with a full weekly schedule to spread people out.

What’s included at no charge

Free hayrides carry you through the process, and a bonfire plus complimentary hot chocolate and popcorn balls round out the visit – a nice, no-extra-cost touch on top of the tree itself. Popcorn balls specifically are a less common offering among the farms in this batch, a small but genuine point of difference.

The rebrand is worth a second mention

Name changes like this one are easy for a returning customer to miss, especially with a small local business that doesn’t have the marketing budget to widely announce it. If you visited under the Schmuckal name in past years and are now searching for “Vultaggio Royal Tree Farms” and coming up empty, try the old name too – and vice versa. Until the farm’s own web presence fully transitions to the new branding, both names point to the same gate, the same fields, and presumably the same staff running the choose-and-cut process.

Species and what we don’t know

Douglas fir, Fraser fir, and Canaan fir make up the tree selection. What we don’t have: any pricing information at all, and no confirmed 2026 season dates as of our last check – the 2025 season opened in late November, but a repeat of that exact window isn’t guaranteed.

Bottom line

If you’re near Traverse City and want a short, reliable trip to a long-standing choose-and-cut farm with free extras, this is a solid option – just plan around the weekend-only schedule, and don’t be confused if the name you find online is Schmuckal rather than Vultaggio Royal.