Using AI at Hipcamp: An Introduction

Hipcamp’s mission is to get more people outside, and the limiting factors in executing that mission have always been our ability to reach more campers and Hosts faster—and give them great experiences. We saw AI as a way to accelerate those efforts, and adopted them quickly. In late 2024, we found only a few use cases, but in recent months, we’ve undergone a monumental transformation in how we make great products and technology.

We’ve seen a lot written about how to vibecode startups from scratch, and we wanted to share our experience retrofitting an already-existing marketplace enabling millions of trips per year into one that’s accelerated by AI.

Here, we plan to highlight the tools we use and love across engineering, product, design, and analytics. We will also explain how they’re now integrated into how we build. Our hope is that these articles can spark insights for how AI can enhance any business, and discussions that enable us to improve our processes as well. We recommend reading them in order, but also encourage you to browse the series to find what you’re most interested in.