It’s that time again — another ‘how-to’ sharing the essential tools of the adventure cycle-touring trade. This time I’m going to deal with what is often a stressful thought for every rider:
“Where the hell I am going to sleep tonight?!?”
It’s a right, not a privilege
It is my belief that there is always, always somewhere to sleep that doesn’t involve handing over your passport and a wodge of cash. I believe that it is every human being’s nature-given right to sleep without having to pay for the privilege.
Maybe some would consider this delusional, delinquent, idealistic, barbaric or (I often hear) impossible! But in my experience it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that’s exactly what you need to get you to that place where you can rest your head.
I mean anywhere
In four months of cycling from England to Turkey, across all of Western and Eastern Europe, I spent a total of five nights in paid accommodation. (Two in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; one in Tongeren, Belgium; one in Verdun, France; and one in a random motel somewhere in Romania, if you’re interested.)
It was difficult and stressful — at first. But soon, the realisation that it was not only possible but actually quite easy became a source of incredible liberation.
I put most of my success down to stubbornly refusing outright to even consider paid accommodation as an option. It wasn’t an option. I was on the most threadbare shoestring of a budget imaginable. (And I was an expert in stubbornness!)
If an average hostel in Europe costs 10 EUR a night, my first four months would have cost an extra 1,200 EUR (on top of my 4.7 EUR-per-day food budget) — about 20% of what I thought was my entire round-the-world trip budget for several years! Compare that to 150–200 EUR for a good-quality lightweight tent and the numbers speak for themselves.
Talk to people
If you’re unsure about your surroundings and there are people around, stop and talk to them. 99% of people, when asked, will be very happy to help you find a suitable spot for your tent, and it’s always best to have the locals’ blessing if possible — what’s the worst that can happen?
Often you’ll find that this will lead to other social encounters of the most welcome (and welcoming) kind, and this is one of the enviable experiences that few but the cycle tourer have the opportunity to enjoy.
Know when to stop
If you’re out in open country, allow at least an hour to locate a suitable place to camp. If you’re in or approaching a town or city, you need to consider whether you need to stop for anything, and if you’ve got time to make it through and out the other side. You’ll also need time to check the area and set up your camp before dark — putting up a tent in the dark isn’t fun, but cooking in the dark isn’t such an issue.
Obviously the amount of time you need will depend to a large extent on where you are — sometimes you’ll be spoilt for choice, but if you’re not in a particularly remote area, chances are you’ll need to ride for a while before you find the beach/spinney/pastureland you’re looking for.
If you’re in a busy area, have dinner first, and sneak off the road to your camping spot under cover of darkness. It’s not ideal, but you’re unlikely to be noticed after dark, unless you wave your stove around a lot.
Understand yourself better
Yes, there’s stuff living out there — mostly dogs and ants, in my experience (and, if in England, little bunnies). If a dog finds you in your polythene cocoon in the woods, it’ll leave you well alone (after noisily swiping your breakfast if you left it outside). No animal will come to you looking for a fight, because random aggression hasn’t generally been an evolutionarily stable strategy.
And humans don’t roam the fields and forests at night brandishing lethal weapons. Why? Because they’re afraid of humans roaming the fields and forests at night brandishing lethal weapons. Get over it! Once you’ve quashed the nerves, you’ll start seeing potential camping spots everywhere, and boring your friends by incessantly pointing them out.
A lot of our survival in the past depended on our overactive imaginations, which were (and still are) great at cooking up wild fantasies of savage beasts and hostile tribes hiding behind every rock. Because of this, and especially once it gets dark, people are surprisingly uninquisitive of anywhere outside the places they already know.
Now, of course, we’ve slaughtered all the man-eating wildlife and have (mostly) got used to living in each other’s company, so it’s safe to chill out. I’ve been hiding my tent just out of sight of roads all over three continents for months on end and have never encountered anything more than an invitation to come and sleep somewhere warmer and/or enjoy a glass or two of the local tipple. It’s worth mentioning that my experience is entirely typical of bicycle travellers.
Actually, you’ll be surprised where you can get away with putting a tent, sleeping rough or blagging a horizontal surface! Sometimes, in ‘emergencies’, it’s been fun seeing what’s possible in this regard. I’ve slept in bus shelters, inner-city parks, building sites, roadside verges, subways, empty garages, petrol stations, fishing boats, tramps’ hovels, hotel gardens, under tables, even about five metres from a busy main road in full view of anyone who cared to stop and take a look!
The last one wasn’t ideal (the mud was really sticky), but I got my head down undisturbed for a few hours!
Of course, if you’re out in the Sahara or crossing the Mongolian steppe, you can put a tent anywhere you please. The world is your campsite — enjoy it!
Camouflage
Your main sleeping option is your tent. Try to get one in a suitably-inconspicuous shade of green — Vaude and Hilleberg make some lovely colours. This will serve you best in the wide variety of environments you might find yourself in on a world tour, because if it’s green, stuff grows there, and if stuff grows there, people live there, and people don’t see a green tent in a green field at night. Other colours will get you by as well.
Take off any shiny labels on the outside of the tent. Remember how useful you thought the reflective patches on your panniers would be at night — well, now they’re useful for showing passing drivers exactly where you are. Make sure they’re facing away from the road!
I used a green poncho as a waterproof in heavy rain, a picnic blanket, and finally a great way to make my bike inconspicuous and keep it dry at night.
You don’t always need a tent
I travelled with a bivvy bag for several months, in addition to the tent, and used it whenever I could. I miss it a lot and wish I had it back. It’s a lot more inconspicuous than a tent, and I much prefer the feeling of sleeping outdoors than that of being cooped up in a cramped tent.
You can also utilize a poncho as a tarpaulin shelter (or a ‘basha’ in military-speak), if you have a bit of light para-cord or a few cargo bungees such as the ones that might be strapping bags to your bike. Slide under this with your bivvy bag and chopped-down foam mat and you’ll stay dry even in a downpour.
For the full British Army experience, you can leave your boots on as well. (Probably best not to bring the SA-80 though.)
Relax, it’ll be fine
I guess the main message that I’m trying to get across here is that you should prepare as well as possible, and then, when you’re on the road, never give up hope. Hope is one of the most powerful motivators we have.
Keep in mind the idea that there’s a sleeping place at the end of the day’s process which is waiting for you. Once you get the hang of finding it, you’ve got a dependable tool for getting a good night’s sleep anywhere in the world — free!
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Nice article Bro, enjoyed reading that. I’ll have to go off into the British Columbia wilderness at some point armed with a tent and see what happens. More likely it’ll happen when the weather is somewhat better that present though!
great article.
I loved reading your article…so right with your words about hospitality, hope and our imagination… keep on biking!
Hi Tom
Thanks for another excellent article. I’m a newcomer to your blog, but I found it so engaging that I sat down one weekend and read it all the way through. I’m pleased to read that you’re planning to develop the site into something more — I shall definitely be coming back, and look forward to seeing it progress.
All the best for your continuing adventures.
well, I used to calculate an annual rate of “free nights”, wich means nights sleeping somewhere you don’t pay for (a kind of “illegal nights”, at least in Europe)
This was a few years ago, when I was still young and adventurer (like you guys hanging around this blog).
I used to land att about 30 nights per year, wich was ‚I think, a quite honest result for a working guy leaving in Europe.
Now comes what might interest you Tom: I got married. And the first 2 years increased my rates from a month to 3–4 months … and then suddently to 5 to 7 nights a year: we got children…
I was wondering about your rates and their future?
Interesting! Well, when I was on the road, free nights were about 95% of them. Now I’m renting a flat in Yerevan, so we’re down to the 5% when I head out for a night’s camping somewhere. Over a year, then, I guess about 50% is close!
I guess the future travels will weigh in at around 80% free nights — my wife is slightly more inclined towards the occasional hot shower/bed than I am…
ive been on the road with the bike for about 6 years now,by the way, love this site, its killed a couple hours blissfully as I take a break. Its not the cycling I find , after all the motion is the same weather it be snow sand or a runway, its that last hour before it. I get more of a buzz now from ticking off countries where ive camped, of nearly 100, 2 have beaten me-the vatican and monaco, a blemish that kind of has me wishing to go back and try again! Ive had a gun shot over my head, hippos, elephants, a sloth bear and lions around it and to cap it off a lion on top of me in it! Hail black wolf tents I say! i find it incredible that whn cycling for a spot at night that people still call out hey white man– or the equivelent, and I know I wont sleep a muscle in most places (bar sudan, iran norway) if I know somebody has seen my tent. Ive spent the last 7 months in europe and with using the hospitality sites and my tent havnt paid for a solitary night! I find around big city airports is a winner, and train lines to be a close second if you can handle the noise.
cheers for the read
lockie
Wow — what a story! How did you manage to end up in a tent with I lion on top of you, might I ask? I assume it wasn’t being over-friendly?!!
Lovely post. I agree with you on the bivvy bag — I’ve only had a bivvy bag on most of my previous tours and I loved half-waking up in the middle of the night, half-opening my eyes, seeing millions of stars and falling asleep again. Nowadays, I’m a grownup, with a partner and a tent and other grownup things and, while we usually just use the tent inner, i’m still missing the feeling of feeling like I’m sleeping out in the world.
[…] How to camp anywhere and not get busted – Ride Earth […]
A great alternative to tents and bivy bags is a camping hammock. Search for Warbonnet Blackbird
No need to sleep on the ground if you’re in an area with trees.
That looks like a great sleeping solution, as long as there’s somewhere to hang it — thanks!
Hi Tom! Just a funny story I though I’d share. Years ago I was cycling with a friend from Amsterdam to Nice and along the way we stopped in Lausanne to visit a friend who was living there. Well, we stayed out rather late and decided to sleep in real beds for a change. After being refused a room at a couple of hotels, which perhaps was not surprising as we probably looked and smelled a bit dodgy, we decided to fall back on camping. We got back on our bikes and rode downhill toward Lake Geneva. After stumbling about in the dark for a while we got our tent setup on the lakeshore and hit the sack. We woke up to discover that we had pitched our tent beside a boardwalk that runs along the lakefront. Various joggers and dog-walkers looked at us curiously as we spread our wet clothes in the sunshine. We had a spendid view of the mountains across the lake and no-one bothered us at all despite our having camped in an area that was in all likelihood off-limits to the likes of us. Good times…
[…] and I’ll be on my tod for at least half of the journey. I plan to camp as much as possible (for free), and keep my costs to a minimum, but my largest concern is the cold. On a previous tour we had the […]
[…] here. http://www.mark-ju.net – wildcamp.htm thebmc.co.uk – a great pdf from the bmc tom.ride-earth.org.uk – how to camp anywhere and not get busted guardian.co.uk – holidays wild camping environmental impact Rating 3.00 out of 5 […]
Great article. I really admire your tenacity, and loved the pictures on your flickr site. Great stuff.
Nicely put together Tom, honest and straight to the point.
It’s true isn’t it — in some sense, we do each have a right, as people, to stay in a place and pass the night.
To deny that is basically the same as denying another’s right to drawing breath.
Done respectfully and, as you say, if possible with local peoples consent, it’s all good, and, especially in Europe/USA, can actually start to heal the massive amount of fear and paranoia that we have all learned to feel.
So go for it, sleep out.……you might just help someone to trust people again.
I could not have put it better myself — “you might just help someone to trust people again”
Hear! Hear! Fabulous post, Tom.
In case your readers think you are crazy and that wild camping is only for idiots, here is my own siren song of praise for nights out under the stars: http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/2011/03/praise-wild-camping-tents-trump-star-hotels-time/
Well conveyed: Hope more powerful than our fears. As college students touring ohio thirty years ago we asked a farmer for permission to sleep in his fields. He insisted on throwing our bikes into his pickup and taking us to his church’s campground, for which he as caretaker had the key. It was an idyllic spot with a pond where we skinny-dipped, and swung from a rope falling into the water after a hard day’s pedaling.
Not sure who was more pleased, we at our good fortune or he at his opportunity to lend a hand.
Hey tom,
Great article. Really useful for us. Pitching our tent is the one thing we are slightly anxious about on our upcoming expedition in Thailand (we leave in just under 2 weeks!). But your article has given good tips and in many ways will be a reminder to just relax and ask a local!!
Thanks
Rachel
First visit to the site and I enjoyed the article. Funny you should say “humans don’t roam the fields and forests at night brandishing lethal weapons” — I was free camping in a field in Southern Laos when I was warned in broken English to beware of guys with guns. I ignored the warning and went to sleep in my tent. Sure enough about midnight some guys with guns turned up blazing away. Luckily they were just shooting for birds and weren’t interested in me!
Cheers
JD
Hi Jarrod, Thats funny I had the same experience in Laos. No coincidence cos I was staying in the same field as you. We sure had a nice time. I guess its more dangerous to step over a sign in Alaska “No tresspassing” and camp out there. They wouldn’t be hunting for birds.
Haha, I got a laugh over the guys with guns in Laos. The worst I ever did was near a marijuana field in Chihuahua. Bad, bad timing for darkness. Bad, bad idea. We hid like the paranoid tourists that we were, and we were happy to get out of there in the morning.
The only advice I would add to your post is to have a good lighting system. Spending the winter cycling in Albania and Greece, I seem to find myself looking for a place to camp in the dark each night. Sometimes a warm tea in a warm café is a great way to spend the first couple cold hours of darkness. Having good lights makes that a much more comfortable option.
Great article, definitely feel like I’m a step closer to heading out and getting it done. I plan on hitch-hiking through France to Spain and will hopefully be wild-camping, along with utilizing resources such as couchsurfing and hospitalityclub.
It’s definately nice to hear such a positive approach for once.
Cheers!
Jack
You should try wild camping in Holland, they really, really don’t like it. Got myself nearly arrested once for daring to try and camp in some remote woods. A dog-walker reported me and a policeman told me he’d been looking for me for half an hour just to tell me to pack up and ship out!
In the Netherlands I always asked around for camping spots, and ended up sleeping in a wonderful variety of places — a boathouse, a narrowboat, a back-garden, a garage floor and a yard behind a cafe!
sooooo y not hike and camp her in USA!!! much safer and dont have to wory about getting killed buy ppl hew want money,rape,and what ur worst nightmear may come true.i say USA IS MY LAND OF THE FREE.come camp and hike or live with the rest of us that want to live in peace!!!
On the other hand, there are more gun-owners and ‘no trespassing’ signs in the USA than anywhere else I’ve been…