Camp · Craft
A Good Camp Is Chosen an Hour Before Dark
Wind, water, ground and law: four questions that take two minutes to answer and decide whether the night is restful or one of those nights you tell stories about.
Sleep, fire, ground, law
Camp
Camp is where a trip is won or lost. A good one is dry, quiet, out of the wind and legal, and it is chosen an hour before dark by somebody who was thinking about it since lunchtime. A bad one costs you the night and the next day with it.
Almost every miserable night outdoors comes down to one of four things: cold from below, water from above, wind, or a place you should not have been. Each has a straightforward fix that costs less than the gear people buy instead.
Read the camp craft piece for the choosing, the sleep system piece for the warmth, and the law piece before you assume a beautiful spot is yours to use.
All stories in Camp
Camp · Craft
A Good Camp Is Chosen an Hour Before Dark
Wind, water, ground and law: four questions that take two minutes to answer and decide whether the night is restful or one of those nights you tell stories about.
Camp · Camp
Fire Discipline
A camp fire is the best thing about a night outdoors and the fastest way to be banned from a landscape. The difference is entirely in how it is built, contained and removed.
Camp · Kit
Sleeping Warm Is a Question of the Mat
Most people who are cold at night bought a better sleeping bag when they needed a better mat. Here is how the system actually works, and what each part is for.
Camp · Rules
Where You May Actually Sleep in Europe
Wild camping in Europe is not one rule with exceptions. It is twenty-odd national rules, regional variations underneath them, and a large grey area where the local answer decides.
Where do you sleep best?
Questions we get asked
Rooftop tent or ground tent?
Rooftop for quick overnights on rough ground, insects and animals, at the cost of fuel, height and having to break camp to drive anywhere. Ground for space, quiet and leaving the vehicle free, at the cost of needing flat, clean ground. Most long travellers end up preferring the ground once the novelty passes.
What temperature rating do I need?
Treat the comfort rating, not the limit rating, as the honest number, and assume it applies to somebody warmer than you at the end of a hard day. A bag rated to zero with a mat of R-value four is a competent three season system in most of Europe.
Is wild camping legal in Europe?
It varies enormously and often by region rather than by country. Scandinavia and Scotland allow responsible wild camping in most places, much of central and southern Europe forbids it with fines that are actually issued, and everywhere private land needs permission. The article sets out the practical rules country by country.
Field notes
One letter a month from the track
New long reads, new routes in the Route Book and the occasional hard-won lesson. No advertising, unsubscribe in one click.