Hipcamp, an online travel booking company created in 2013 by San Francisco camping and outdoor enthusiasts Alyssa Ravasio and Eric Bach, offers a new “Land Sharing” program for travelers in the same way AirBnB, CouchSurfing.com, and VRBO did before.
Hipcamp is a platform that offers camping options on the private lands that cover more than 60 percent of the U.S. The online platform works similar to Air B&B, where prospective campers enter a destination city, and Hipcamp suggests camping or Land Sharing nearby. Those with private properties can list their land for a $500 credit on their own adventures.
In an effort to bring the sharing economy to the outdoor traveler, while expanding the community of campers across the country, Hipcamp also boasts one of the most comprehensive camping-on-public-land guides, integrated into its website with 2,196 parks, 8,630 campgrounds and close to 300,000 campsite listings nationwide.
Campers can escape the crowds of popular tourist destinations and experience new activities outside the city – from organic farming, wild foraging, outdoor classrooms, group campouts and indigenous land stewardship.
Oz Farm Dome. Photo by Lisse Lundin.
Some of the properties featured in the new land sharing program are a former flower-child commune turned organic farm, where you can book a Tai Chi yurt or your own geodesic dome (Oz Farm); lodging near the only swimmable lake in Big Sur (Heart of the Wild); a pond-side respite in Mendocino, CA (Mill Pond); and housing on 600 acres in Shasta with nearby private waterfall (Clear Creek).
“By connecting landowners who want to keep their land undeveloped with responsible, ecologically-minded campers, we can use recreation to fund the conservation of this land,” Hipcamp Founders said. “And land sharing isn’t just important for the environment, it also creates an entirely new way to get outside.”
