There always is going to be a fine-line between wild-camping (Not camping on organised sites) and traveling free-loaders.
My very first wild-camping experience was in the north of Scotland at a lovely little beach. We parked-up and enjoyed the peace, eat a little food, had a couple of drinks and soaked-up the scenery. Then, to relaxed to move and seeing no-reason to move I just continued to relax until it was morning.
The lady staring at us, hands on hips, glaring but staying her distance, said nothing.
We walked a little down a lane around the headland and couldn't believe the sight we saw in such a lovely spot. A very old converted commercial vehicle was parked-up and looked as if it hadn't been moved for months, in-fact, quite possibly, it was unable to move. Inside were 5 dogs but no people, outside the van were boxes of rubbish various other containers, the remnants of camp-fires, litter trapped amongst the gorse and heather, tin-cans, bottles and an unhealthy smell.
We were wild-campers judging wild-campers and though there was huge difference in our reasons for being there and the way in which we conducted ourselves its probable that the public and authorities view us similarly.
Wild-camping and living in a van full-time are different, even so, the latter can be conducted in an acceptable manner. Wild-camping is discouraged or banned in most EU countries other than, "Staying overnight, for one night to restore driving ability" even then there are regional variations and in some countries you are not allowed to even sleep on private land by agreement.
The above information is part of 2 pages titled, "Sleeping in the motorhome away from camping areas" from the Burstner handbook.
My view is that, "staying overnight to restore driving ability" is as much as is needed to allow flexibility. If someone knocked at my door and asked to stay-overnight because they couldn't find a suitable place and were tired I would probably even feed them, certainly fix them with water grey and black dumping even hook-up but if someone parked-up and stayed without asking and making a reasonable excuse I'd ask them to leave and call the police if they didn't.
Richard.