Hipcamp

What is Hipcamp?

Hipcamp is a marketplace for travelers to find unique campsites and lodgings offered by independent property owners.

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How it works

Got a farm? Or an undeveloped piece of land in the country or near a lake, river or beach? Or, maybe, just a big back yard? Hipcamp will help you rent it out to people wanting unique camping and traveling experiences.

Property owners sign up. And then just describe the property by answering a series of questions posed by the site. You’re allowed to list almost any type of property, from a vacation rental to a farm, vacant lot, cabin, treehouse or yurt.

Hipcamp review

After filling in the details, including any amenities your property might have, ranging from wifi and toilets to simply water, the site asks you to set a price. The site may suggest rates, based on comparative listings. However owners determine what to charge and when to make their space available.

Hosts also set rules, such as how many people can be accommodated with a single booking; whether guests can bring dogs or have a campfire on your property; and what time guests check in and out.

Are you going to get tons of bookings from this site? That depends on where you own land. If you’re in a suburb, probably not. If you’ve got a wooded lot along a river, lake or stream — or a parcel near popular resorts or hiking trails — you could cash in.

Cancellations

Hipcamp also has property owners choose a cancellation policy from six suggested by the site. These range from a super-flexible policy, which gives refunds to anyone who cancels before showing up, to a super-strict policy that provides no refund at all for cancellations that provide less than 30 days notice.

Commissions & fees

Hipcamp takes a 10% commission on bookings, which includes a 3% Stripe payment processing fee and an insurance policy that covers $1 million in excess liability coverage.

Landowners take home 90% of the price they set for each booking. Payments are made weekly.

Recommendations

We like this site. The fees are reasonable and the range of properties you can list is vast. The site says it has 3.5 million regular customers. This makes Hipcamp far smaller than Airbnb, of course. But you can’t list your vacant lot on Airbnb.

If you want to list a property on Hipcamp, you can click here. If you include our referral code — kathyk0a162d — you’ll get an extra $100 on your first booking.

What their users say:

Few landowners have reviewed the site, but numerous campers rave about the site. The site gets a 4.4 rating out of 5 on TrustPilot.

9/3/2023