The end of "wild" camping?

[horizon]

There are three things I want from a campsite:

1. A hot shower
2. Enough security to lay out my stuff and sleep without worry.
3. An even patch of grass.

I've travelled all over North America and Europe in my younger days sleeping literally by the roadside and loved it. But those three requirements aren't met when wild camping (well, maybe no.3). I don't know if it's better by yourself or with someone else.

On my last trip to Spain I was forced to camp wild but I wouldn't choose to now. Maybe it's the hot shower!

PS I think I've already posted about my experience camping wild in the Ashdown Forest and being shot at by lampers .

[Tangled Metal]

It's not legal to wildcamp in Lakeland hills but enough people do it to know there's not an issue if you're responsible. Even large outdoor organisations take kids out wildcamping on the lakes. There's a popular spot for the outward bounds organisation and it's a midden. Seriously nasty case of used toilet roll pieces to every little nook and cranny. Including where there's little streams that most responsible wildcampers get their water from. That really shocked me. Always look upstream some way from where you intend to get your water from. It's not just dead sheep but faeces and used toilet rolls you're looking to avoid.

Yes people can be shocking. How folk can feel they are having a wonderful experience at one with nature and then trash it shocks me. Many London parks at the end of a summer's weekend are awash with junk left by partying folk. Moistly young I fear. London Fields, hipster central, has a particular problem.

It's the groups that's the problem at this site. I know from a few local sources it's them leaving the mess.

One guy camped there a few days before the group then came back as they left. It went from OK to a mess in that time. Another guy knew one of the people who worked for the organization and he admitted it was their mess apparently. Hearsay and inconclusive evidence but... Well could you control a load of 10-15 year olds with only a couple of staff to help?

Angletarn near Patterdale BTW. The group has a place Coniston and / or Duddon Valley I believe. I much prefer the other angle tarn. Although if it was clean the one near Patterdale does have a promontory going into the tarn centre that's fairly dry and flat for tents/tarps. Just get hassled by geese at certain times of the year.

[Tangled Metal]

Do you always get flat patch of land on campsites? Probably just a lake district issue but not as many flat campsites around.

[horizon]

Do you always get flat patch of land on campsites?

No you don't. In Spain you don't even get the grass. And there must be lots of wild camping spots that are much better than a campsite. So it's security and the hot shower that swings it for me.

BTW, I don't even think security is much of an issue. The problem is that with cycle camping, it's harder to make a quick get away and it's nice to organise your stuff by laying it out on the ground. Other people probably manage this better than I do (and take less stuff perhaps).

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

So are they putting in the same league a big camper with a few people in, that can get noisy and spend some time in the same place; and the cheerful cyclist that would pitch a small tent in the evening, and departing early the following morning without leaving any trace?

You are probably referring to the OP post with a link, and remember height barriers, which stop campers patronising the local trade......always use a supermarket carpark for you food, no height barriers, well not that I have seen.
Pasted many carparks miles from nowhere with height barriers in the camper.

It seems that travellers can park legally for a few days................but just try that in your tent on your own
You would get arrested I am sure............or if two people just parked up for the night they would move you on.
We get travellers all over my local area...............locals now barricade the gates to fields with bales of hay.

On the other hand for the last 35 years we have travellers in many places several foot from the highway and they don't get moved at all
Villages of them even...............

I walked probably 35 miles one day and after putting up my tent a big footed booby turned up and turfed me off a gigantic field way from houses etc.............nothing going on in small northern villages to do...........pah.
I will stick to my wild camping...........they got to find me first

[Gattonero]

^
Yes, I was referring to the humble cyclotourist that is no real nuisance. And I agree with you: choose a discreete spot, pitch late and leave early leaving no traces

[mercalia]

well it seems that wild camping in Hungary is a no-no now?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-45860488

[Freddie]

I doubt that would apply to cyclists, mercalia, it seems unlikely.

Interesting that the UN is going against Hungary trying to solve the problem of homelessness, Hungary says "Homeless people are offered day and night accommodation where they are able to eat, to clean themselves and to sleep." yet "In June, United Nations housing expert Leilani Farha called it (the law against sleeping rough in pubic areas) "cruel and incompatible with international human rights law".

What a inhuman thing to provide a stable environment from which the homeless can become productive, fully functioning members of society again...I take it Ms Farha would prefer people not be housed? A rather odd position for a housing 'expert'.

[meic]

The article said that Hungary had provided 11,000 places and there are 20,000 homeless people.
Nothing to do with wild camping, well almost nothing depending on how much of a predicament you find yourself in.

[willem jongman]

I am sure this is primarily another attack on refugees. The human rights situation in Hungary is indeed rapidly deteriorating, not to mention the corruption in the higher echelons of the regime.