My long term goals is single or multifamily houses to become financially independent (like every other aspiring graduate xD).After I graduate I plan to hang out in the San Diego area, hopefully find a property to house-hack (though I realize that multifamilies are crazy expensive, so I'm looking for alternatives).

@Arthur LackeyA self-directed IRA is not a means to fund your investment in real estate.Rather, such plans are a means to diversify the IRA beyond stocks and into alternative assets such as real estate.An IRA can purchase real estate, but then it is the IRA - not you - that owns the real estate. 

This may not apply in your case, but for many new investors they get so focused on how to become one that they ignore the red flag signs of where extra money has to go in, but they are also told that, as you said, by countless "experts" who aren't there to help them (you), they are there to sell you a class.

It’s just an alternative.  

I need a tenant to tell me if they are unable to so that we can work some alternative out.

I have read countless books including a few out of the bigger pockets store, and the classics like think and grow rich, and rich dad poor dad.

It may not be a bad alternative for the long run.

I do not know a whole lot on  it, but I would guess it would be a significant investment to get the necessary hook-ups installed on your land.I think Hipcamp is more of an alternative for state and national park campgrounds.

‘sounds like a good alternative to one SFR assuming it costs and cashflows about the same as one. 

Especially considering your alternative choice, go blindly invest in the stock market and hope it appreciates... but betting on "appreciation" is a gamble and "hope" is not a strategy.Collin