a red tent next to a white SUV by the side of a river in the wilderness

There's apparently a crisis in our countryside. Wild camping, we're told by breathless headlines and concerned influencers, who only seem to have discovered the outdoors during lockdown, is destroying Britain's precious landscapes. Social media feeds overflow with evidence of the carnage: abandoned tents flapping like prayer flags to the gods of poor planning, fire scars on pristine hillsides, and enough abandoned camping chairs to furnish a small village.

But here's the thing that makes me want to shake sense into the lot of them: the 'problem' isn't wild camping. The problem is that we've become so disconnected from the wild that we wouldn't recognise it if it bit us on our Gore-Tex-clad backsides.

The Great British Wilderness Amnesia

Let's start with a uncomfortable truth: in a country where wild camping is legally permitted in only one nation (Scotland) and one tiny corner of England (Dartmoor, bless its ancient soul), how exactly are we supposed to learn how to do it properly? It's like teaching someone to drive by letting them behind the wheel for five minutes a year, then expressing shock when they perform like your nan after one too many sherries.

The rest of Britain treats wild camping like it's some sort of dangerous delusion that must be stamped out with the same enthusiasm we once reserved for burning witches. Meanwhile, our European neighbours look on in bemused confusion as we argue over whether it's acceptable to sleep under the stars in the land that gave birth to the concept of the ramble.

Since my teens I’ve spent large portions of my year living outdoors in the UK, including a full year of wild camping solo. During that time, I discovered something that would astonish the Instagram experts crying about overcrowding: the vast majority of our countryside, for 10 months of the year, is gloriously, magnificently empty; and even during summer most of it still is.

Not just a bit quiet - properly, utterly, blissfully empty. There were weeks when I saw no other humans at all. And this in Britain. Our tiny, overcrowded island where apparently there's no room to pitch a tent without causing environmental apocalypse.

The Lemming Effect

The real problem reveals itself every summer with the predictability of midges appearing the moment you've forgotten your head net. Like some bizarre migration pattern programmed into our collective unconscious, everyone decides to go wild camping at exactly the same time (school holidays), to exactly the same places (anywhere they've seen on Instagram), using exactly the same approach (follow the crowd, pitch next to someone else, then complain about the crowds).

I call it the Lemming Effect, though that's unfair to lemmings, who at least have the excuse of following evolutionary programming rather than social media algorithms.

Picture this: you've finally worked up the courage to try wild camping. You've bought all the gear (most of it likely unnecessary), watched all the YouTube videos (good luck with that!), and decided to head for that stunning lake you saw on someone's feed. You arrive to find... other people. Quelle surprise! But instead of doing what any sensible wild creature would do, namely, bugger off somewhere else, you stay. You pitch up right next to them, adding to the very problem you came to escape.

The next person arrives, sees your little camping village, and thinks, "Ah, this must be the place!" They add their tent to the collection. Soon you've got what looks like a festival site, complete with the environmental impact and social dynamics that make wild camping feel about as wild as a Center Parcs holiday.

Meanwhile, five minutes in any direction, pristine spots sit empty, waiting for someone with enough imagination and sense to read a map; exactly the same problem we have with laning.

Fear, Laziness, and the Death of Adventure

The deeper issue here isn't about camping etiquette or ‘Leave No Trace’ principles, though we'll get to those. It's about what we've become as a culture. Somewhere between health and safety regulations and the algorithms that feed us curated experiences, we've developed a collective case of what I call Wilderness Agoraphobia.

We're terrified of being alone. Not just uncomfortable - genuinely, viscerally afraid of solitude in ways that would baffle our ancestors. We'd rather endure crowds than risk silence. We'd rather follow well-trodden paths than risk discovering something new. We'd rather complain about overtourism than walk fifty metres beyond the car park.

Then there's the research issue, or rather, the complete absence of it. Map reading has become all but extinct. Why bother when you can just follow someone else's GPS coordinates? Why develop the skills when you can just follow the digital breadcrumbs of previous visitors?

This collective laziness means everyone ends up in the same places, following the same routes, making the same mistakes, then wondering why their wild camping experience feels about as adventurous as queuing for a ride at Alton Towers.

sun shining on a pretty lake amongst hills and mountains

The Therapeutic Truth

Here's what the critics don't understand, possibly because they've never experienced it: genuine wild camping, the kind where you don't see another soul, where your only company is weather and wildlife, is profoundly therapeutic. It's not just pleasant or relaxing; it's healing in ways that no indoor therapy session can replicate.

This isn't hippie romanticism; it's lived experience backed by robust research. There's something that happens when you strip away the constant input of modern life, when your survival is in your own hands and you have no time for scrolling through feeds that make you feel worse about your own existence.

I literally built my business, Feral Therapy, and am writing a book around this principle. I teach wild camping, survival, and outdoor skills for the benefit of mental and physical health. Not camping in car parks with facilities and Wi-Fi, but properly wild camping where the nearest human is measured in miles rather than metres.

But this only works when it's actually wild, when you're far enough from the madding crowd to remember what you are underneath all the social conditioning that taught you to fear your own competence.

A green field that continues into tall hills and mountains

The Scottish Car Camping Conundrum

Or: How to Sleep in Your Vehicle Without Causing an International Incident

For those wondering about vehicle camping in Scotland, let me enlighten you with the kind of bureaucratic clarity that makes Brexit negotiations look straightforward.

Here's the crucial distinction: you have no legal right to camp in your vehicle in Scotland, it's merely tolerated. This makes it a privilege, which means you need to act like it.

The Right to Roam legislation covers wild camping on foot, not in vehicles. What may be tolerated is camping in your vehicle provided all "camping activities" take place within the vehicle's footprint. Simple enough, you might think. You'd be wrong.

What constitutes the vehicle's footprint, you ask? Well, that's where it gets delightfully murky. Some legal eagles argue that roof tents extend beyond the footprint and are therefore prohibited. Others maintain that a roof tent, being attached to and folding up above the vehicle, remains within said footprint. Many people continue using them regardless, which is odd to me given Scotland's charming habit of delivering weather that would strip paint from a battleship, often in August. Anyone who's spent more than five minutes north of the border will tell you to expect to be battered from all sides.

What's definitely clear is that camping tables, chairs, awnings, and anything that extends your living space beyond the vehicle itself are a no-no. So you can sleep in your roof tent (maybe), but you can't put up a gazebo next to it for your morning yoga session or cook your breakfast in the drizzle.

Here's the beautiful irony: if you pitch a tent, you can set up camping chairs, tables, awnings, around it without legal issue. But do the same beside your vehicle, and suddenly you're in breach of the regulations. Meanwhile, the Highway Code actively encourages you to pull over and rest when tired, for everyone's safety, no less, but not everyone will be thrilled when you actually do it for more than a power nap.

Listen, I never said this would be clear-cut! The truth of the matter is this: I've been camping in my Landy for well over a decade in Scotland and I rarely see anyone who can complain about anything, even in the school holidays. It can easily be done respectfully and within accepted practice, you just need to use your brain, and remember that discretion is essential when you're relying on tolerance rather than rights. Abuse the privilege and watch how quickly it gets withdrawn for everyone.

The Simple Solutions

So what's to be done about this crisis that isn't actually a crisis? The solutions are so obvious they'd be laughable if they weren't so consistently ignored.

Timing is Everything! - Don't go during school holidays. Seriously, it's not rocket science. A couple of weeks either side of peak season and you'll miss 90% of the crowds wherever you go.

Follow Your Own Path - When you see other people, head in the opposite direction. I know this requires the revolutionary concept of thinking for yourself, but humour me.

Actually Look at a Map - Those squiggly lines and symbols aren't decorative. They represent actual places where you can actually go. Study them, notice the thousands of spots that exist beyond the twelve locations everyone photographs for Instagram.

Clean Up After Others - If you find a spot that's been disrespected, litter scattered, fire scars, general evidence of human stupidity, why not stay there and clean it up? Bring extra bin bags. Make it better than you found it.

Learn Some Basic Skills - This shouldn't need saying, but apparently it does: don't wild camp if you're not prepared to do it properly. Learn ‘Leave No Trace’ principles. Understand how to maintain hygiene without facilities. Know local byelaws. Accept that some areas require you to move on after one night. These aren't unreasonable restrictions; they're the basic courtesy of sharing space with wildlife and other visitors.

a lone green tent sat in a wild setting with 2 horses grazing by the side

The Passing Place Principle

And while we're on the subject of basic competence, can we please, for the love of all that's sacred, learn to use passing places correctly? They're not parking spaces. They're not photo opportunity stops. They're not places to have a picnic whilst blocking the road for everyone else.

If you're being overtaken, you pull into the passing place. If you're doing the overtaking, the other vehicle pulls into the passing place and you drive past them. This isn't quantum physics; it's common courtesy backed by basic logic.

The Real Crisis

The actual crisis isn't wild camping. It's the collective forgetting of how to engage with the natural world as anything other than a backdrop for our digital performances. It's the assumption that if something looks untouched, it must be fragile. It's the belief that humans are inevitably destructive rather than potentially regenerative.

Wild camping, done properly, leaves landscapes better than it finds them. Wild campers who understand what they're doing become advocates for conservation, not threats to it. They develop the kind of intimate knowledge of place that comes only from sleeping in solitude, waking with the weather, and moving through the land with respect.

But this requires something our culture seems determined to avoid: effort. The effort to learn skills, to plan properly, to venture beyond the obvious. The effort to be alone with your own thoughts, to sit with uncertainty, to navigate by something other than borrowed pin drops.

an bed and mattress set up outside under a fly net that is hanging from a lovely old tree

The Invitation

Right now, whilst the critics are raging and the crowds have retreated to their centrally heated complaints department to type furiously about other people's camping habits, is the perfect time to plan your own genuine wild camping experiences.

Between now and next May, you'll hear precious little whinging about overcrowding, mostly because so few people are actually out there to do any crowding. The landscape lies waiting, patient and generous, ready to remind you what wild actually feels like when you give it a chance.

Study those maps. Plan those routes. Book those days off. Learn those skills. Then head out into the parts of our countryside that remain beautifully, wonderfully, therapeutically empty for those brave enough to venture beyond the well-worn paths.

The wild is waiting. It always has been. The only question is whether you're wild enough to remember how to find it.

Just remember to use the passing places properly on your way there - some of us have places to be.

The 'Problem' with Wild Camping - Or: How We've Forgotten What Wild Actually Means