HipCamp Reviews

We have a pretty parklike area on our land that is fairly private so when I heard about hipcamp, I decided to give it a try. The experience has been wonderful so far. We've hosted some really nice and polite, communicative people. Hipcamp paid us the expected amount promptly. We hope for many more positive experiences and we highly recommend hipcamp. I see some people have had bad experiences.

Reading their reviews, it seems to stem from them either choosing a camp that did not show enough information (ie too few pictures) or accepting more people than they should have instead of canceling and running them off for violations. We have set our limitations in our ad and plan to be vigilant about that to protect everyone. So far it has been very fun and respectful for all parties involved.

We live next door to a neighbor who signed with HipCamp. The office accepted the host membership without performing a proper vetting. We have strange people walking around and camping very close to 3 private properties. We are not impressed with a camping

Venue with no bathrooms or running water. What a mess. We have complained bitterly and the camping continues. We live in a residential setting and do not approve of camping so close to our homes. I am not a camp director and don’t care to answer their questions about what’s close by. I do not recommend this business model that rides on the back of poorly organized camp hosts.

Love the platform, I am a host as well as a camper

Our property is located in a RURAL dry, treeless, desert-like terrain. (grasses, tumbleweeds,etc.) We own several acres/parcels. (Some are fenced, some are not.) All property has established roads to each piece. (dirt, rock, gravel)

Recently, we have found folks ILLEGALLY camping on our property, thanks to HipCamp.com.

Those who advertised through this website FAILED to warn of IMPORTANT issues:

Boundaries

Where do I begin? We booked two nights with a new hipcamp user. This was also our first time using hipcamp as a lot of the places around us were booked, we decided to give it a try. When we went to the spot I thought we were in the right place. We had to ask a neighbor for directions and we were in a no trespassing area. When we did find the spot there was houses around which when you camp you don't want to be around houses it was a dead end road and it was a little more private than the second place we found.

When we contacted the gentleman he was super nice offered us two free nights and refunded our money since we were unable to contact him being up in the mountains we had no reception. He had told us he didn't think we were camping to the weekend and the camping spot was not available yet. So we went home and tried another hip camp spot. We tried to book with another spot and it was already 6pm in the evening we had not heard from the second people.

So we sent them another message and said if it was after 8:30 p.m. we would just Camp the following day but didn't want it late at night. The person accepted our booking which counted as two days but gave us a refund and hipcamp tried to keep the the service charge for Monday even though it was too late for us to go camping at 10:30 at night when the host acceptediur request. Also the refund from the other gentleman who wasn't ready for us they tried to keep that service fee as well until we complained about it. My concern is that hipcamp is still making money off a cancelled bookings, on the sites giving back partial refunds and not giving a full refund they're keeping a portion of what they call a service fee.

I think it's very shady business. I also think that if somebody books a campsite after 8 p.m. they should not be billed for that night as everyone knows you can't set up a camper tent Etc in the dark...come on . And the second spot that we camped at had a beautiful picture next to a creek when we got there the house was literally 15 ft behind us along with 4 other houses in a row. On the other side of the creek was highway 74 in front of us. We heard cars all night. Our small pop up tent barely fit and they were charging 40 a night for a small area in front of their house in the mountains because they provided electricity. There was no privacy as a women to pee anywhere as behind the house was a steep mountain with lots of boulders.

So disappointed. We had to complain to get a refund for the Monday they charged us for and we weren't able to go monday, we were only able to camp Tuesday. Don't think I'll be using this site again. to use a campsite here in golden is only 25 with electricity and working bathrooms. Like to make a suggestion for hipcamp if this company were mine I would make the owners send a video of the camp spot and the area surrounding and also provide the footage of the camp spot and what really is available. To be approved by the company. Cuz if this is the case I can post my backyard on hipcamp and somebody can camp out back there for $30 text me if you're interested LOL. That's just a joke

As a host of a 150 acre property, we had high hopes for HipCamp. We were poached by Mckinzie Schulz to add our beautiful property to HipCamp -- assuming they found our highly rated listing on Airbnb. We gave HipCamp an honest shot as we thought the HipCamp guests were genuine campers, people that respect nature, and live by the mentality of pack in/pack out and "leave no trace behind" which is listed as a requirement in order to camp through HipCamp.

We have had a small percent of guests that actually fit into this mind set. Most of our guests were inexperienced and looking to drink and party. The most recent issue occured when multiple guests started showing up for a 4 person reservation - even though our Welcome Guide and email correspondence with the guest said NO additional people on the property, no parties, no smoking, no garbage left at the campsite, and no pets. We worked with the guest and agreed to 14 people total and charged accordingly. To our dismay, an additional 9 people showed up totaling 23 people for a 4 person reservation.

The evening turned into a party. People smoked even though we are in an extremely high fire area and state it is not allowed. Someone brought a dog and refused to remove it so we agreed to a pet fee. Guests used firewood without paying the firewood fee. The guests left a full dumpster amount of trash behind. We explained to the guest that if they do not remove the illegally dumped trash, we would file a police report. In the end, they came back removed the trash.

Again, the guests knew they were responsible for all garbage. To top it off, after adjustments were made to the reservation to accurately account for total guest number which we felt content with, Annelise Poda from Support reversed the amount of guests (even though a picture was provided of all 23 guests), leaving us with an outstanding bill for unauthorized guests and firewood used. We are also now in the process of implementing our steep smoking fee with the guests because of the time, effort, and stress this has caused. If Annelise did not reverse the accurate guest amount, this would have been resolved.

I would give a negative 5 stars if I could. I tried to book a site, but their listing was incomplete and dishonest, so immediately I tried to cancel the the reservation but even though I tried to contact the immediately, there was no response from the host by phone or online, no one to talk to at the website, 2 days later after contacting my credit union to cancel payment to them, they emailed me back asking me to not follow through with my back and that they would give me a refund.

They did but charged a fee for customer service which I should have never even needed. What a complete shoddy business and ripoff. Stay away from these con artists.

My boyfriend and I rented a “yurt” through Hipcamp because the Airbnb we got cancelled at the last minute. There were hardly any photos of this “yurt” but we were desperate for a place to stay in the area due to an event going on. Luckily we drove to the site early to check it out because the site was a DUMP. Literally.

There were parts of furniture, cars and junk everywhere. The “yurt” was held together with tarps and duct tape. There were holes all over the tarp and clearly it looked like the owners just dumped old crap from their house in it. The bed wasn’t made, it literally looked like someone was currently sleeping in it. We were so freaked out we drove 2 hours home completely exhausted. Hipcamp also refused to refund us the $100 (!!) we spent.

A friend of ours also used Hipcamp and got scammed. They booked a plot of land to camp on out in Palouse Falls and the address was wrong, by the time they found it, it was literally a dump with broken down cars everywhere. The host wouldn’t respond to emails and his phone was disconnected. They stopped by the neighbors house to make sure they were in the right place and they said this happens “all the time”!

How on earth are people getting away with scamming campers!! And Hipcamp isn’t doing anything about it!! Beware of this site!

I have been and still am a hipcamp host and I've also hosted on airbnb and freelance. We host about a thousand campers per year on 6 sites on our 722-acre ranch.

We work daily to provide clean, beautiful overnight lodgings, tent sites and cabins, for domestic and foreign visitors.

Yes, we do well financially and, yes, our ratings are very high.

Part of that is us and our ethic and the other part is the hipcamp.com platform and approach. I only wish all the businesses I deal with were as responsive, friendly and helpful as hipcamp. These folks take their mission seriously, as we do.

We're not without our slip ups and faults, nor are our campers, nor is hipcamp. All human.

Hundreds of 5-stars come from somewhere, though.

Gary- River Ridge Ranch

Just got spam from HipCamp. They worded the email as if I had contacted them, and asked if I was still interested in hosting. Of course I had never heard of them. I hate spam and I hate slime ball tactics like this. Not sure where they got my info. If you're legit, act like it.

I rented a campsite through this portal and the only part of the experience which went well was how easy it was to pay them. After they had my money I was hosed. The camp site I rented in no way resembled the one I got when I arrived with my tent. The landowner stated outright the campsite I viewed and booked was what everyone thinks they are getting but they assign you to whatever they have available when you arrive. It's called bait and switch... This property had nothing but GLOWING reviews but when I tried to leave my own terrible review, there was no way to do so. Hipcamp provides ZERO support! Buyer BEWARE!

After hosting a eclipse event that I rented 3 sites out on our place through hipcamp for $00.00 each. They customer paid hipcamp and hipcamp has not paid me. At first they kept saying sorry for not disclosing how you get paid. Then they said great news funds will be sent out August 23rd. 2017 and will take up to 24hrs to get. Since then they will not return calls, emails etc. Its now August 29th and I still have yet to be paid. They have removed all contact phone numbers from their website and the number that were there are disconnected. I have already made a claim through the Federal Trade Commission and will go the bbu and others. I'm looking for other people that have been burned by this group to get a class action going. five 0 three 9 one 0 three 4 two 3