Drawing on Herzberg's two-factor theory, this article suggests that visitors to rural tourism base their overall evaluation with an experience on their consideration of two types of aspects referred to as either 'motivators' and 'hygienes' by using the critical incident technique. 233 critical incidents described by 121 participants are categorized into three exclusive factors which are named as experiential factor, cognitive factor, and affective factor. The application of Herzberg's two-factor theory to rural tourism suggests 'satisfiers' to come from the experience-activity itself, experiential factor. While more peripheral elements constitute 'dissatisfiers', cognitive factor. The paper provides the advancement and broad application of Herzberg's theory to further understand rural tourists satisfaction.