Wild Camping in Europe
Wild Camping in Europe
Wild Camping in Europe
“A Search for Solitude”
In late October, we landed in Europe to embark on a multi-year overlanding adventure through Europe, north Africa (including Morocco) and west Asia (including Armenia, Georgia and Turkey). I lived and worked in Europe about 25 years ago and spent my vacations and weekends exploring Europe in a van. When we were planning our trip, we knew that Europe had changed. But we didn’t know how much until we landed and began exploring Europe.
In the old days, there was a lot of “wild camping” in Europe. However, over the last 25 years more and more people have bought “motorhomes” (and other similar vehicles) in Europe. And countries and regions of Europe started to restrict where you can spend the night. This trend was accelerated during and after the pandemic, when, like in the US, even more Europeans bought motorhomes.
There is still plenty of wild camping in Europe. Some of these wild campsites can be found on Park4Night, but they can be crowded, especially if they have good reviews of them. As a result, it’s often better to find wild campsites yourself. For example, in Spain we discovered great wild campsites on parking lots next to medieval towns and on roads by the ocean.
A Search for Solitude
However, the popularity of “touring” in Europe has caused us to change our overland adventure planning strategy. Instead of wandering through regions, finding wild campsites as we go, we often use wild campsites as “bridges” between more established campgrounds (or wild campsites on Park4Night) that we think might be good places to stay for a few days. And when we do find a great wild campsite, we often stay there for a few days. We are also going to be selective about where and when we go. For example, you won’t find us wandering around the Dolomites in July or August looking for wild campsites. Instead, we will explore the Dolomites during the shoulder season and even then we might book a campground in an ideal location (surrounded by biking, climbing and hiking) ahead of time.
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Adventure.Wolves
