A Good Camp Is Chosen an Hour Before Dark

Ask experienced travellers about their worst night outdoors and you will hear the same story with different scenery. They drove too long, arrived in the dark, took the first flat thing they saw, and then spent the night in wind, or in water, or being moved on by somebody with every right to move them on. The fix is embarrassingly simple: stop earlier.

Stop an hour before dark

An hour of daylight gives you the ability to reject a site. That is the whole trick. With light you can see the drainage, feel the wind, check the ground, look up at what might fall and, if it is wrong, drive on to the next option. In the dark you have one option and you take it.

It also means pitching, cooking and eating in comfort, which sets up the following day far better than an extra fifty kilometres does. On a long trip the habit compounds: parties who stop early are less tired, make better decisions and cover more ground over a month than parties who push.

Water: where it comes from and where it goes

Never camp in a dry riverbed, a wadi or the flat gravel outwash below a valley. It is the most inviting ground in any landscape, and it is inviting because water shaped it. A storm twenty kilometres upstream that you cannot see or hear can send a wall of water down a dry bed in minutes, and this kills people every year.

On ordinary ground, look for the slight rise rather than the perfect hollow. Watch for the vegetation line that marks where water stands. If you can, camp on gravel or sand rather than grass or clay, both because it drains and because it takes no damage from your presence.

Every bad camp in the world was chosen by somebody in a hurry, in the dark, who could see only one option.

Wind decides comfort

Wind is the difference between a pleasant evening and a night listening to a tent flap. Look for natural shelter, a bank, a stand of trees, a rock face, but check what that shelter might drop on you. In open country, use the vehicle as a windbreak and pitch on its lee side, with the tent's low end into the wind and the door away from it.

Be sceptical of the view. The most beautiful camp sites in the world are on exposed ridges and headlands, and they are the ones nobody sleeps at.

Look up, then look down

Above you: dead branches, loose rock, cornices in winter, coconuts in the tropics. All of them fall, usually at night, usually in wind. Below you: ants' nests, animal trails, sharp stone that will find your mat, and ground so hard that pegs will not hold. Sweep the pitch by hand, not with your boots, and take the two minutes to remove the one stone you will otherwise find at midnight.

Legality and courtesy

Know before you pitch whether you are allowed to be there. In much of Scandinavia and in Scotland responsible wild camping is a right; across most of continental Europe it is forbidden or restricted, and enforcement varies from indifferent to expensive. On private land anywhere, ask. Farmers and landowners say yes far more often than travellers expect, and the ones who say no would have moved you on at eleven at night anyway.

Courtesy is the part that keeps this possible for everybody. Arrive quietly, keep the camp small, keep noise and light low, screen the camp from the road if you can, and be gone reasonably early. If you would not want a stranger doing it outside your house, do not do it outside somebody else's.

Leave nothing, including the ring of stones

Take out everything you brought, including food waste, which is not compost in a landscape that does not grow it. Bury human waste properly at least fifty metres from water, or carry it out where the ground or the crowd demands it. Dismantle any fire ring you built and scatter the cold ash. The measure of a good camp is that the next traveller cannot tell you were there, and the reason it matters is that the next traveller may not be allowed to stay if they can.

Questions we get asked

How far from water should I camp?

At least fifty metres, and further where regulations say so. It protects the water from your camp, protects you from rising levels and insects, and keeps the access clear for animals and other people.

Is it safe to camp alone?

In most of Europe, yes, and the statistical risks are lower than in a city. The practical precautions are ordinary: be discreet, do not advertise your position, keep the vehicle ready to move, and trust an instinct that says a place is wrong even when you cannot say why.

What about animals?

Depends entirely on the region. In bear or big cat country, food storage discipline is not optional and local rules apply. In most of Europe the animals that will actually visit are rodents and insects, and the main defence is not leaving food out.