nervous about wild camping

arumba

Guest
Am new here and just bought a Elddis 130 although had a Bessacarr MH and Abby caravan. We have always stayed on cc sites but fancy the idea of wild camping but nervous as to how safe is it at night?

Arumba
 
I found a wilding spot close to home that know is as safe as you can be sure and stayed there the night so if there was a problem did not have far to go. Now when we wild we stop have a look around and if it does not feel right move on but we do not move on that often now.

All the best
Rob
 
Thanks Rob I think we will do just that. ---- Has anyone had any bother at night and if so what kind? and how have dealt with it?

Arumba
 
We had 53 nights away last year wild camping, and never had a problem. Good luck.:dance:
 
don't park in a big car park where there might be kids hanging around in cars. We parked once on the Gower in a large car park and there were horns and lots of revving going most of the night.
 
arumba said:
Am new here and just bought a Elddis 130 although had a Bessacarr MH and Abby caravan. We have always stayed on cc sites but fancy the idea of wild camping but nervous as to how safe is it at night?

Arumba
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We have been wilding for for 8 years and have only one insident in FRANCE where we where wooken at about 3am with a torch shining through the windscreen but all was ok
in the uk we have had no probs
enjoy
 
I've had a couple of forest rangers/council people come round in 30 years. And a nosy bunch of jobsworths they are too, in my opinion.

Anyway, how you deal with them is always the same. Be very polite, tell them you have just arrived, are too tired to drive at the moment (it will be unsafe), and you will leave first thing the morning. Then stick to your promise.

You get to stay the night. They get the satisfaction they have done their job and "moved you on." It's a win/win scenario.
 
I've been a caravaner for over 30 years and always stopped on sites.
I purchased a motorhome just over 6 months ago and at first carried on staying on sites, I suppose doing what we new.
At the end of the season many of the sites shut down so there was little choice so after reading the experiences of folk on here we went for it.

We spent the weekend in a car park in Abergavenny.

The wife slept like a log and I was jumping up and down with every noise but I've got over that now and am quite relaxed.

You'll get used to it.
 
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Tell us which part of the country you are in (and where you would like to go) and somebody will suggest some good spots.
 
we've had drunks asking if we had anything to drink,i was quite sympathetic,know the feeling,but couldn't help.portugese customs pointing machine guns and torches at me at 2 o'clock in the morning.i told them to hang on and got my much more powerful torchand blinded them while giving them a telling off about waking the kids,also a number of times woken by various wildlife,cows sheep horses scratching their stupid arses on my van,not much you can do about that! just remember to stay aware while curbing your natural paranoia ,they really aren't ALL out to kill you,just a few of them, and keep your sense of humour
 
n brown said:
cows sheep horses scratching their stupid arses on my van,not much you can do about that!
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Maybe don't park in someones farmyard? LOL

On a serious note, Have a good read of some of the threads, there's lots of advice & Do's & Don't etc..
I'm just back from 6 nights in the Scottish borders/Keilder Forest. 3 nights in Forestry Car Parks, 2 in Kelso, & 1 in a Layby near Hexham. Dog woke me up one night in Kelso after a fox woke her. Only problem with the Layby, was it was also being used by 3 logging trucks, which meant a 5am start for them, which did wake me, but i was asleep again within minutes.

But don't discount sleeping along with the trucks. 3 or 4 trucks in one place can often means its quite a safe place to stay. Drumochter Pass on the A9 or Cartgate Roundabout on the A303 are good examples of this.
If anything, a night alone in a pitch black forest car park in deepest darkest Scotland may scare the hell out of you!! But we're all different! just don't watch Dog Soldiers before you go on holiday!!
 
It seems to me that taking a dog would be a good idea, they generally hear noises before we do and usually let you know about them.
We don't have a dog, but we have been lucky so far, that we have had hardly one problem.

Many years ago, we hired a motorhome in Germany, and stopped overnight in Bavaria in a layby. Whilst having breakfast the following morning an Audi towed another Audi into the layby, unhooked the towed car and drove off.
About a hour later plain clothed police knocked on the door to the van and asked us to move to the other end of the layby, away from the dumped Audi. Apparantly they suspected the vehicle was a car bomb. I concluded that 'the other end' of the layby was just not far enough away and suggested to the police we move further away.
We were not allowed to leave until we had given them a full itinery of our intended route and address and because 'her indoors' had been so bleedin nosey, she were able to give them a full description of the tow vehicle, it's registration, the number of people inside and what they were wearing ...:rolleyes2: I knew she was not listening to me at the breakfast table that morning, too busy nosying at what was happening outside the van!!!:)
 
Beemer said:
It seems to me that taking a dog would be a good idea, they generally hear noises before we do and usually let you know about them.
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Unless the dog was kidnapped by dastardly hedgehogs.... No, I am sane, honest :D
 
Hi and welcome to the site, like Maingate has said, it would be an idea to tell us what part of the country you are, i'm a lone female and i allways wild camp, only had one scary moment in all my 20 years of camping, iwould suggest for your first time find a nice pub car park, obvioulsy ask permission, or you could try a canal location, theres ususally boats moored up and you get chatting to the boaters, you could also keep watchin here, theres loads of meets taking place throughout the summer,

enjoy wherever you go but dont forget to share your experience with us

Jen
 
For your first wilding adventure you might want to choose a quiet rural spot away from towns or cities. I always try to look at the surrounding area. If there is a nearby housing estate for example I would avoid it. if it’s ten miles or more from any major urbanisation then it should be ok. If it’s a car park, will it be one the boy racers frequent at night? Look for tyre marks. They are a nuisance. They won’t generally do you any harm but may keep you awake so a spot where it is not likely to attract the supped up Corsa brigade is a good idea. I also tend to avoid spots that are clearly visible from a main road. A. I can’t stand traffic noise and B. For some reason motorists think it’s funny to blare their horns at motorhomes when passing at 3am. I am not sure why but it seems to be a UK thing.

As far as being attacked is concerned it’s very unlikely and let’s face it if a nutter is on the loose he isn’t going to be bothered by the invisible force field that many think exists around campsites! The only incident we had was in Germany in the Black Forest where at 3am a nutter started trying to get into the van. We were parked with 6 other vans and he tried them all. I called the police and shouted at him, telling him I had called the police and eventually he left. There were a few shaken campers in the morning but he didn’t gain access to any vans and to be honest if he was high on something I don’t think being on a campsite would have made any difference.

Animals can also disturb your peace. Sheep rub against our scooter rack, We had a field full of rutting stags in France once (That was scary), a wild boar attacked the scooter rack and a donkey took a chunk out of the scooters seat!

Generally though, it’s a great way to camp!
 
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