Camping Got Hip

Want to rent your own waterfall? This Airbnb-style company can make it happen

Hipcamp allows you to search available campsites in state and national parks as well as privately owned land.

Photo by Bruce Lemmons/Panoramio

When work wears you down, imagining a weekend in the great outdoors may be the only thing that gets you through. And new website Hipcamp can help make those daydreams a reality, with an innovative booking service that takes the stress out of finding the perfect campsite.

Hipcamp boasts a comprehensive database of campsites across the country, pulling photos, reviews, booking information, and other pertinent details into one helpful listing. The online collection covers everything from state and national parks to smaller campgrounds and private land. Not only can eager campers search for spots by location, but they also can narrow down results by available amenities and activities.

"Hipcamp is the best place to discover and book awesome places to camp," says co-founder Eric Bach. "We're bringing the world's public campgrounds online, while developing brand-new private camping experiences."

The California-based company was founded by Bach and Alyssa Ravasio in 2013. Last year, Hipcamp raised $2 million in investments, allowing the service to spread across the United States. Hipcamp officially launched in Texas in February. By July it had spread to the rest of the country.

Hipcamp's draw is the company's innovative land sharing program. Like the popular rental booking site Airbnb, landowners can list their property, and interested campers can gain access to the area for a reasonable fee. It's a win-win situation as far as Hipcamp is concerned: Landowners benefit from the new source of revenue, which goes toward helping conserve these pristine areas, and campers get access to grounds that are off the beaten path.

"Land sharing connects landowners that have awesome plots of land with a network of campers that are excited about new camping opportunities," Bach says. "The new camps range from ranches, farms, geodesic domes, yurts ... hell, you can even rent out your own waterfall!"

In just the few months since the program's launch, Hipcamp has been able to list more than 100 private spots across the country, and the company continues to reach out to private landowners in Texas.

"We've gotten a ton of support from the Lone Star State and feel that it is totally under appreciated; there's so many rad camping adventures to be had," Bach says.

These "rad" adventures aren't just for camping pros, either. In addition to increasing public access to our country's amazing landscapes, Hipcamp wants to inspire people to connect to nature. The company hopes to make the process of finding a campsite so hassle-free that camping newbies can easily get acquainted with the great outdoors.

"I always say that we use technology to get people away from technology, and in this day and age, that is becoming increasingly important," Bach says. "Every day we work to make the outdoors more accessible. I believe that spending time outside leads to healthier, more balanced, and more creative people."

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Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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