We Rented a Treehouse in Portland on a New Airbnb-Style Site for Camping

LandApart is a new Portland-based service that lets landowners rent out their outdoor areas—like Airbnb but for the forest.

I woke up with my arms wrapped around a giant tree trunk—literally hugging the tree. I was wrapped in a sleeping bag, lying next to five people on cold, wooden planks.

We were camping in the sky—in a treehouse 200 feet in the air.

Hummingbird Hill is a hip treehouse just 20 minutes from downtown Portland. But being in it, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.

I rented the house through LandApart, a new website based in Portland that lets private landowners rent out their outdoor areas. Think of it like Airbnb, but for the forest.

LandApart has been in development for the past two years. The site's co-founder and CEO Ven Gist says he and his friends came up with the idea after realizing it was hard to find places to camp—something anyone who's tried to find no-reservation campsites in forests near Portland have probably experienced firsthand.

With nearly 200 state parks, access to public outdoor areas in Oregon doesn't seem like it should be a problem. But, as Gist explains, this access is stifled because of overcrowding.

Related: Don't Have Campsite Reservations? Try These Seven Spots

"Every place in the world has an access problem with public outdoor access. On the East Coast, they don't have it. Here we have it, but it's crowded," Gist says. "We have places to hike, but not places to stay, and that's the important thing because that's when you experience the elements and the change around you and experience that time in nature."

In terms of accessibility to nature, it's not the worst problem to have, but it does limit some people from getting outside, especially alone. Gist says they wanted to find a way to completely redesign the experience of deciding where to go camping.

Related: Mount Hood Cabins You Can Rent

At first, they were going to create a site that helped people find public campgrounds. Then they realized there was an untapped outdoor resource: private land.

They began calling up landowners, sending postcards and scouting lands to get a database of places for the site. They were worried people wouldn't want guests on their land due to privacy concerns. But for the most part, he says the reaction has been the opposite.

"At this point, we're getting calls every day—focused in the Northwest for the most part," he says. "A lot of the landowners don't even care how much they're making. A lot of times they're excited to share; they live there for a reason and they want people to enjoy and value their land for the same reason they do—to allow people to reconnect to the land in a different way."

The site—headquartered in Portland and Denver—officially launched this past Earth Day, and now has 31 properties, including nine in Oregon.

So we decided to rent a treehouse.

If you're unfamiliar with the treehouse craze, educate yourself here and here.

There were other options. For example, Camp Lizard—which is 190 acres of land an hour and a half outside of Portland that you can camp on for $10-$40 a night.

(LandApart) (LandApart)

Camp Run A Muk is a "30 foot deluxe glamping yurt decorated in a bear theme" just south of Seaside. It also has a king-size Tempur-Pedic bed, another king bed, a full-sized mattress, stocked kitchen, big TV and a bunch of other flossy stuff for $100/night.

(LandApart) (LandApart)

But dude. Treehouse. It was only 20 minutes from my house in Southeast Portland—close enough to order a pizza, which is so not the point, but whatever.

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The land hosts get to set their minimum stay. For Hummingbird Hill, it was two nights. I messaged the host to see if I could only do one night, which he agreed to.

Hummingbird Hill cost $84 for each night, which includes a 15 percent booking fee that goes to the LandApart—this is one of the higher priced spots, which go as low as $10 and as high as $2,000 for a 300-person event space with a barn. Most fall in the $25-40 range.

Related: Top 9 Hikes Around Mt. Hood

The treehouse is described as being in an "urban forest 13 miles from downtown Portland" with "unfinished, limited amenities." As described, it truly was "camping in the trees."

When we arrived, we parked and lugged food and drinks up a small trail next to the host's home several times. We still had to bring all the gear we would if we were camping, besides the tent.

I was expecting the treehouse to be nicer.

It's bare bones: There's a chemical toilet, the windows are completely open, and there's a twin mattress with a wool blanket on the ground. I pictured paper lanterns and string lights and piles of cozy Pendleton blankets.

Basically, we were camping—except we were 200 feet in the air.

Still, the host did provide a card table, binoculars, bird-watching book, mattress, wool blanket and a cooler. And my merely moderately outdoor-loving friends wouldn't have wanted to camp in the middle of September in just tents. Having the roof and knowing the ground would be dry was a big plus, even if it meant crawling down a ladder after three vodka sodas to pee.

And there are things you can't get in a tent, like waking up to a view of the Multnomah Channel and Sauvie's Island, off a gorgeous balcony made of tree branches.

Later, I learned the host works at the Oregon Paleo Lands Institute, which sheds even more light on the greater purpose of l;LandApart—it's a conservationist, environmental endeavor. The host's entire lifestyle, from his free-range chickens to tiny cannabis plants, was about appreciating nature.

The next day, I felt that grime you get from dew, pine needles and dried leaves: the Oregon musk. I crawled over to the balcony, took it in, then crawled down to get brunch 20 minutes away.

It all looked great on Instagram.

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