Pandemic turns up a hipper way to camp
I hadn’t planned on camping my way across the United States with my husband and two young sons, but last month, my family pitched a tent from Houston to Minnesota and back. The trek, which our 7-year-old took to calling “the trip of a lifetime,” was born not out of wanderlust but necessity.
My husband, Shawn, and I had been holed up in our East End home with our two sons, a first grader and a toddler. The only family trip on the books was our weekly drive to pick up our Plant It Forward farm share in Montrose. Then in late May, Shawn’s best friend, Nick, died at home in Minnesota. Shawn had to go say goodbye. Sending my grieving husband to drive for days alone didn’t feel right. Suddenly, we faced a dilemma: In the summer of COVID-19, when travel mainstays such as airplanes and hotels feel precarious, how could we safely get from Houston to a suburb just south of Minneapolis?
We decided to camp. The Texas Medical Association recently released an infographic ranking the COVID-19-associated risk levels of common activities. Camping falls in the lowest-risk category alongside daily rituals such as opening mail and pumping gasoline –– the latter of which we’d also need to do quite a bit in order to drive 2,500 miles.
Plotting our course just a few days before our departure, I discovered Hipcamp. Like
Airbnb for campers, glampers and RVers, Hipcamp allows travelers to book stays on private land. All Hipcamp sites must be on at least 2 acres, and though tent camping is a common offering, rentable dwellings range from yurts to treehouses to cabins. Pictures of the grounds, a list of amenities, instructions and reviews accompany every listing. Most sites cost between $15 and $30 per night. Some campsites have toilets and showers, but many –– including half of our stays –– don’t.
Hipcamp includes sites at state and national parks, but it was the private land connection that piqued our interest. Public parks –– when they’re open –– have much larger camper capacities than private acreage. We wanted sparsely populated open air, not tightly packed campgrounds. Hipcamp founder and CEO Alyssa Ravasio unveiled the platform in 2013 as a one-stop listing for campsites at public parks across the country. Early feedback from app users was positive, with one caveat that was beyond Hipcamp’s control: Parks were always booked. There weren’t enough places to go.
“I’m sure living in Texas, it’s intuitive to look to private land as a place for outdoor recreation, but for a lot of us, that was a new concept,” says Ravasio, who lives in San Francisco, where Hipcamp is based.
Hipcamp began reaching out to private landowners, creating an extensive network of rural getaways, many of which would otherwise be unknown and off-limits to the general public.
“As we’ve begun to partner with everyone from ranchers to farmers to nature preserves, it’s expanded the impact that Hipcamp can have,” Ravasio says. “Now, it’s not just about getting outside. It’s also about learning about animal sanctuaries, organic farming and how ranching can be done in a way that’s restorative to the soil.”
The 2019 North American Camping Report released by Kampgrounds of America estimates that 78.8 million American households camped in 2018, a high that capped off five consecutive years of growth. Though the pandemic first threatened to reverse that trend, recent studies about the relative safety and overall health benefits of being outdoors during COVID-19’s reign have helped fuel an uptick in camping once again. After sweeping cancellations in March and April, Hipcamp has seen about three times as many campers during June and July 2020 as the same time last year. The company also introduced Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-informed COVID-19 protocols designed to keep both hosts and campers safe.
On our trip, we avoided parks and other public spaces, opting instead to camp at small farms, wineries and an animal sanctuary. Everywhere we stayed, people were far outnumbered by fireflies and on one occasion, potbellied pigs.
Mark Newman, who owns 99 Bottles Winery in Garner, Iowa, and was one of our Hipcamp hosts, says he’s had about four times as many campers this summer as he has had in previous years. When my family and I stayed at 99 Bottles, we saw all seven of Mark’s official campsites, each secluded and nestled in hilly farmland. He says he enjoys providing city dwellers a rural escape –– pandemic or not.
“These days, most people live in a cacophony of noise that comes from engines, tires and airplanes,” he says. “My wife and I like hearing the birds.”
Though Mark greets plenty of weekend campers, especially from neighboring Minnesota, he estimates that half of his visitors these days aren’t vacationing.
“I often see two people, traveling light, with a tent. One or both of them is working from their computer, and they’re leaving the East Coast –– usually New York City,” he says. “They’re headed to Portland or Salt Lake City or Omaha, never planning to go back to New York again.”
Stories that are different than ours but also the same: trips of necessity, mined for silver linings and solid ground. On our way to bury our friend, we held 10-dayold goats, tasted pinot noir made just yards from our tent, caught bass on a fly rod and stared at stars until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.
When I asked him what advice he’d give to families considering a similar adventure with young kids, Shawn didn’t hesitate: “Drive during naptime,” he said. “And buy good gear –– especially bug spray.”
Shawn’s friend Nick –– a brilliant geologist and grill master –– loved camping, and he was good at it. Our first night outside, as our 18-month-old slept in the tent and our oldest son chased grasshoppers by a rock-bottom pond, Shawn and I sipped wine from coffee mugs by a fire. There was no turning back. We grinned at our audacity, toasted Nick and thanked him for a cool front in June.