Living in a van doesn’t require to spend EVERY night of your life in your vehicle.
Actually one of the greatest benefits from this lifestyle is to be able to store it for a week or two as you travel abroad, or simply park your « home » a few nights as you enjoy other alternatives. And that’s what Julien and I recently did as we traded our van for a few nights of Hipcamp glamping. Since we live full time on the road in our converted Sprinter, we thought it would be nice to enjoy a little getaway from our regular getaway!
If you wan to try hipcamp yourself, follow this link for a discount:
With the help of our friends at Hipcamp, we were lucky enough to find two completely different types of glamping options on our route.
We should make it worth it if we’re going to ditch our van, right? With over 300,000 campsites, cabins, RV Parks, public parks and more, let’s say we had more than a few wonderful options! If you’ve never been on Hipcamp.com, they are basically the directory for one-of-a-kind camping/glamping escapes! This is where you’ll find your next treehouse stay or a « Pinterest » tiny house with a beautiful sunset view.
Julien and I were in the Palm Springs area when we finally decided to try the site for the first time. We were on our way to San Diego, hence the reason I’ve booked places that made sense with our itinerary. We also wanted to feel like we were far away from major cities without having to drive on long stretches of dirt roads or going too far out of the main route. Using the search tool on their site was really user-friendly and quickly offered several options for our upcoming adventure.
On our first night, we booked an African Safari Eco-Tent and a lovely Tiny House for the second day. Both options looked great and we were really excited to try them out!
Spending the night at Laurie’s African Safari Eco-Tent was truly amazing and way above our expectations! She invited us to check in early and we were able to enjoy the most beautiful sunset up there in the Valley. Communication between us and Laurie was very easy. Once you created your account on Hipcamp, it allows you to message the hosts very smoothly. Keep in mind that some of the locations are ‘’off-grid’’ so it might get tricky to find your Hipcamp glamping location. However, both of our hosts were really clear on the confirmation email so we didn’t have any issues with this.
The African Safari Eco-Tent is located on a gorgeous 2.5 acres property overlooking one of those California rolling hills.
We got there in the afternoon and unpacked our belongings and food for the evening. While we were unpacking, Laurie and her rad husband Howard were taking a walk on their property and we were lucky to spend some time with them and their super friendly dog Koulou. Julien and I were so intrigued by how they started this project and we learned about their trip to Botswana where they had this idea. Laurie also used to build homes in Costa Rica when they first met.
Boho-chic inspired design, we felt like home in this African-like tent. Fully equipped with an outdoor kitchen, we were able to cook and dine right on the patio. From the bed, you would get this beautiful view of the garden and sunset. Inside the tent, there’s a wood stove to warm up the place as the night in California can get quite chilly in January. Right next to the tent, you‘ll find a nice little bathroom where you can enjoy a hot shower! Living in van shows you how to use just the amount of water or other resources you really need, so we laughed when our hosts told us the solar-powered hot water tank was holding « only » 40 gallons! “That’s pretty luxurious for us,” we said!
On the second day, we drove down to Ramona, where we easily found our little tiny house.
The views of the valley were just breathtaking out there! Did you know that this area is well known for its local wineries? Spending a Saturday night in a little cabin at a walking distance from a vineyard definitely sounded great to us! Our host Becky also provided us with some ideas of things to do in the area. We really enjoyed the hipcamp.com experience and we’ll definitely try it again in the future when we feel like it. If you want to book a glamping experience, follow this link for a discount.
