Opting into Hipcamp’s professional photography program is a great way to make your listing more marketable. Our carefully-vetted photographers take 10 to 15 photos of your listing, submit a recommendation and a review, and then our photo curation team organizes the photos for optimal performance and “verifies” your listing.

We’re pleased to offer this professional photography service, valued at $250 to $500, to selected regions in exchange for a free night stay for the photographer—we have pre-negotiated rates we pay the photographer, in addition to providing them with non-monetary perks. All photographers follow a specific shot list and style guidelines we provide.

If this service is available in your area, you can request a photographer on your Host Dashboard, and we’ll try to connect you with one as soon as we can.

Why request a photographer

Hipcamp listings that receive professional photography, and who allow a Hipcamp staff member to choose the first and second photo of their listing, can receive 2 to 15 times more bookings than other listings.

This is because professional photos allow us to market your listing on our social and email channels to millions of Hipcampers, as well as select an optimal first photo on your listing itself.

How it works

1. Request a photographer

In your Host Dashboard, you can request a photographer for one listing at your property. While requesting, you’ll also be prompted to select the day you’ll be ready, which ensures you can get your land picture-perfect before a photographer contacts you.

2. Accept your photographer’s shoot request

A photographer will contact you through your Hipcamp messages. Because photographers use the standard camper booking request process to schedule a photo shoot with you, it’s important that you accept their request if your listing is set to Request to Book.

We understand that giving up a free night might be tough, but because this is a $250+ value service and will contribute to your listing’s success, it’s important that you accept the booking request. Our photographers are limited in number so if you decline, expire, or cancel their shoot request, you may not get another request for some time.

3. Prepare for the photographer’s arrival

The day of your scheduled shoot, your land should be completely ready for the photographer. That means cleaning up any clutter or debris and ensuring your listing looks its best.

You don’t have to be on your land while the photographer is there, but it should be extremely clear where to park and where to find the listing. It’s especially important you provide any gate codes or access tools to the photographer beforehand.

If you are on the property, remember that photographers are there to shoot your land and generally cannot answer questions about how to optimize your listing or address any support issues you’re having. Please direct those here.

4. Pay nothing, allow our photo team to curate your photos

Within 3 days of their trip, the photographer will upload their recommendation, review, and photos. Our photo curation team will then organize the photos so that the best photos are first. It’s extremely important that you keep the photo we select for the first slot intact, because we select the photo we know will get the most clicks from campers.

What types of photos will I get?

All photographers follow our specific shot list, requiring 10 to 15 photos total. Each photo will follow our recommended style guidelines, which means they’ll be bright, warm, and appealing to Hipcampers.

What if I don’t like my photos?

We carefully vet every photographer that joins our professional program because we want to offer a consistent, on-brand style of photography that we know resonates with Hipcampers. Allowing our team to sort the professional photos on your listing can more than double the number of Hipcampers that visit your listing.

More generally, professionally-shot listings can get twice as many bookings as listings that did not receive professional photography in their first month (when our team curates the order of the photos.)

We’re excited to offer this $250+ service at no cost to you, and in exchange we hope that you’ll allow us to use our data insights on what Hipcampers are most likely to click on to select your first photo.

If a photo is inaccurate or inappropriate, it can absolutely be removed. However, if the photo is accurate, we ask that you keep it on to adequately set expectations with future campers.

What if I don’t like the order of photos uploaded by photographers or campers?

Campers choose Hipcamp over other hosting platforms and public camping websites because of the user-uploaded photos and reviews our community provides. Being able to see photos from real campers helps establish trust across the entire platform, simultaneously setting accurate expectations and the stage for a smooth camping experience at your listing.

Hipcamp Hosts are able to re-order their own photos at any time, but it’s important we continue to offer user-uploaded photos and reviews to our community in order to maintain trust.

We highly recommend keeping our photo curation team’s first photo intact, as it was specifically selected to optimize your listing’s performance in searches.

Check out some examples of professionally-shot listings below: