Free/wild camping tips

[Blue Hills]

Can any of you nice folk offer good tips for finding free camping spots when touring?

Or tales of places you have freecamped/bivvied?

Particularly unlikely ones?

No precise locations of course. Can't be having those on the web.

I do have an arrangement with an individual to share spots.

On the understanding that any wider publicity for spots will result in, some fine or windswept day, a cross and mysterious mound of earth being discovered by a stray dog/walker.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Beer gardens. Pitch tent after pub closes and with permission.

 

[Blue Hills]

That's interesting.

In this country?

Have you done it? More than once?

 

[Milkfloat]

Woodlands, pitching after the dog walkers have gone home.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

That's interesting.

In this country?

Have you done it? More than once?

Yes and yes and few have kept the toilet access unlocked.

 

[Blue Hills]

Yes and yes and few have kept the toilet access unlocked.

Do you offer any deal to them, to drink/plaster yourself the evening before/to buy breakfast from them?

 

[Blue Hills]

Woodlands, pitching after the dog walkers have gone home.

What time do you reckon the dogwalkers disappear? I always had the idea that it was possibly rather late, possibly walking off a row with spouse/bending the dog's ear about the madness of it all.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Do you offer any deal to them, to drink/plaster yourself the evening before/to buy breakfast from them?

Usually eat there and have a drink. But do not get plastered or anything.

 

[raleighnut]

And just before the doggers arrive?

At least there is 'entertainment' on tap.

My 'freecamping' is pitch at dusk and away near dawn, or at least get the tent down then cook brekky.

 

[Gravity Aided]

In the States,(OT) I used to ask the small town volunteer fire department, or village hall if I could set up there, or in a park.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Carry one of these, for exterior building hydrants.

 

[raleighnut]

Good advice here for camping in America, might work in the UK

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...howtocam.htm&usg=AOvVaw0AvJsxv5-VpsMyR2y8Zy2T

 

[Dayvo]

Me and a mate slept in a football stadium in Denmark. I rolled out my exped in the stand (lie-downs) and snuggled down into my sleeping bag. Slept excellently.

Put our tent up on the grassy part of a quiet-ish petrol station in Sweden.

Slept at the back of a supermarket (on the unloading bay) in Germany.

Slept in the open in the middle bushy/treed bit of a large roundabout in France.

My cousin was getting married near Oxford and the do was at a fancy hotel. My girlfriend and I camped in the spacious grounds of the hotel. Next morning we showered and breakfasted as normal guests.

As long as you're out of sight, you should be safe. Toilet facilities are handy to have near by, otherwise take it with you (at least to the nearest rubbish bin, otherwise dig and bury it).

Make sure you've got water to last the night: food can be bought in the morning.

Just go and do it.

 

[MontyVeda]

Back in the day, when 'wild' camping was just called camping... I / we would find a secluded spot and pitch after sundown. I've camped on the top of Swinside near Keswick (not very flat), on the banks of Windermere and Coniston (both a bit rocky), amongst the trees on Windmill Hill near Avebury (perfect), and just outside the circle itself on a subsequent trip. We pitched up on the edge of a field once, only to wake up to find we were camped on a track used by a sizeable herd dairy cattle; with said cattle all trundling along it in our direction... never packed up a tent quite so quickly before or since! We were once woken by a grumpy farmer in Cumbria who demanded £1 each before telling us to clear off. Just gotta play it by ear, and be prepared for that grumpy farmer... although that's only happened once.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Good advice here for camping in America, might work in the UK

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwidvdbZsf7bAhVlIsAKHWd8CO8QFggnMAA&url=http://www.phred.org/~alex/kenkifer/www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/humor/howtocam.htm&usg=AOvVaw0AvJsxv5-VpsMyR2y8Zy2T

That won't work in Louisiana, and some parts of Missouri and Illinois. Louisiana is also still under Napoleonic Code, you're guilty until proven innocent.