Not all imitation is flattery! :(
The site owner admits to being a privileged white girl from parents with money. She may have camped a little in her college days, but really has no idea of nomadic living or travel. Sadly, all she did was steal the coding from Airbnb. They never even used the Airbnb website or app long enough to understand what the issues are for the common man: Navigation. The map feature is terrible. To plan a trip from home, you need a tablet or laptop with Google maps on the screen, and Hipcamp on another device. Exactly the same as Airbnb - unless you are looking at a city and know everything about that city, it is a hellish process! To wander around driving or towing an RV, or driving with camping gear in the trunk of your car, it is VASTLY more difficult! To fix this issue you simply need to have a Hipcamp overlay over something like a Google Maps visual. One of the critical errors of this website is that it assumes we are traveling around the country on a leisurely pace. It assumes that we want to spend the weekend or the week smelling the roses. Many of us are just on our way from point A to point B. It's more of a survival of your bank account, and less about vistas. The vistas and the babbling brooks are nice, but with this website you are paying a premium for them. Pricing. Weekend camping is one thing, and RVing full-time is totally another. Much like how Airbnb eliminated cheap hotels, as soon as the Hipcamp sites hit $25 or more, you switch to looking for a truck-stop, Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Camping World, Planet Fitness, casino, etc. in the direction you are traveling. Simply find one of these quickly on Google Maps, park, go to sleep. When someone wants $45 ($53 with Hipcamp fees and taxes) to back your RV off a tight street into a tight driveway, the original vision for Hipcamp is lost on me! Optimization for iPads. At least as bad as Airbnb, if not worse. Every great coder in the world keeps three iPads on their desk, each with an older iOS. Even with the latest iOS, I had multiple issues with the Hipcamp website. * I could continue, but I see no point. This review was written after viewing their site for only 20 minutes, as I head out soon from San Diego through Vegas to Toronto! No doubt I will use them a few times in desperation, but that's about all...quite ironically, the same pattern I have used with Airbnb the past 2-3 years! Only when desperate!