What do you need to Wild/Free Camp in a Van?
So now that we know what Wild Camping is and what the rules are (click here to read part 1), we can look at a few tips for helping your wild camping experience run smoothly by discussing the facilities you should carry on board. This doesn’t have to be much, and it doesn’t have to be fancy, but your experience will be greatly improved by having the following:
- A bed. The DVLA require you to have a fixed 6ft bed (amongst other things) to qualify as a motor caravan. But when I first slept in my van I used a cheap inflatable mattress and got by just fine. A few years ago I also wild camped in my car, and used an inflatable mattress then too. You could just as easily sleep on a camping roll mat, or in a hammock, or just whatever will give you a good nights sleep!
- Water. Having water onboard is a must. It’s clear that you’ll need it to drink, but also if you are planning on cooking the chances are you will need water to cook with, and to clean up afterwards. You’ll need two containers, one full of fresh drinking water, and an empty one to collect the used dirty water: the grey water, which you can dispose of later. You’ll also need some sort of sink/bowl as a middle man. With a proper sink set up with water tanks and taps this is simple to achieve and you can easily fit your own. Or if you’re keeping it basic it’s also doable, but I’d advise a funnel for avoiding spills when filling/emptying water containers. There’s probably great opportunity here to make a “packing the kitchen sink” joke, but I’ll leave that to you.
I carried two 25L containers of water, and would get through maybe 5 litres a day, but from speaking to other wild campers it would seem that I am incredibly stingy with my water, although I’d rather describe it as efficient, and you could very easily end up getting through far more than that.
- Cooker and food. Again, this can be as simple or elaborate as you like. I started out with just a single camping stove and some boil in the bag meals, then later upgraded to two hob rings and an oven. Again in my old car it was a very simple set up of a £20 camping hob and a pot and kettle. If you’re taking food which can spoil then you’ll want a fridge, or coolbox, and this will also mean you can take longer wild camping trips without worrying about new food every day or two, but you'll need a way to power it.
Of course there’s no need for you to take any food. I took a girlfriend of mine on her first ever wild camping trip (in a tent) a few years ago and to keep it simple, and our bags light, we just parked our car at a pub, went in for a big meal, walked from there into the hills, camped, and the walked down in the morning for a big fry up at a café. It was a great trip and still felt “wild”, plus it had the added benefit of us not needing to argue over who would do the washing up! You could easily use the same tactic with a van.
Things you think you need, but really don’t...
- Toilet. I never had a toilet in my van and I got by just fine. I did this by always taking advantage of public conveniences and using the facilities whenever I visited a café, pub, tourist visitor centre etc throughout my day. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to park up nearby to public toilets which are left unlocked at night, and of course when all else fails you can commune with nature by getting in touch with your inner bear and simply sh*t in the woods. I never said this would be glamorous! And of course if you do decide to use a natural "loo with a view" then you must also bury your waste and burn or bin the toilet paper. There's only one thing worse than stepping in dog muck, and that's stepping in what you think is dog muck and then realising there's toilet paper next to it!!
If this seems a bit much for you then there are portable toilets which you can buy and fill with special fluids, I don’t know much about them though. My dad came on a road trip to Scotland with me last year and insisted on buying one to take with us. However, it was never taken out of its packaging as there really isn’t any need provided you’re on the ball and plan well.
That said, the pee bottle (a bottle dedicated to being used as a urinal, it really as simple as it sounds) is an absolute must for me. It means that if you wake up in the middle of the night and don’t want to brave the rainstorm outside, or you wake in the morning to find that your secluded night-time park-up is actually a tourist hotspot during the day, you can simply fill the bottle and empty it out later.
- Shower. I ummed and ahhed about fitting a shower in my van and in the end opted not to. I found it’s really easy to find places to get washed, there are showers on beaches, motorway services, and even in some public toilets that are free to use. Many gyms, swimming pools and climbing walls allow you to use the showers for a couple of quid, as do some campsites, and some of the more mountainous/remote areas I’ve been to have agreements with places like schools, village halls or sprots clubs which will let you grab a quick shower for next to nothing.
There’s also the good old-fashioned jump in a river/lake, which is a great option for summer, but not so much in winter. And if you’ve got a sink or bowl you can always just have a sink wash and scrub with a wet towel. Your parents didn’t grow up having a shower everyday and it never did them any harm, it won’t do you any harm either!
- Solar power, or electric in general. Sure, it’s nice to have, but I lasted 3 years without really needing any electric in the back of my van. I’d charge phones, cameras and laptops through the 12v cigarette port in the driver’s cab, or take my chargers into pubs, cafes, and information centres and charge devices in there. I had a long string of fairy-lights which were just powered by batteries, and when all else failed my trusty head torch would see me right.
- TV. I’ll be honest, I just don’t get the point of a TV in a campervan, especially when wild camping. I watch TV to escape from where I am, when I’m wild camping I want to immerse myself in it, so a TV just wouldn’t fit in. That said, I do like to put on some music, or read a book, or play an instrument, and I keep meaning to learn to draw… so I guess they’re also forms of escapism in a way? And I will confess that some of the best wild camps I’ve had have involved a downloaded series on my phone and a binge-watching session, no one’s perfect right!? I never claimed to be a purist!
I get that, although you don’t need them, you might want to take along some of the above mentioned. So take them with you. Your needs, and your experience, will be different to everyone else’s, it’s wild camping, that’s sort of the point.
In the next post (Part 3) of this Wild Camping series I’ll talk about how to find a good spot to park up, what to look out for, and how to make sure it stays just the way you like it