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Camping - WillCycle - Page 3

Camping

Back to basics – how to wild camp in the UK

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Wild camping in the rain

Camping  in  the  wild,  or  wild  camping? What exactly IS wild camping? As a South African, I was baffled when I first encountered the term “wild camping”. I soon discovered that, to most Brits, if you say “I’m going camping”, what they understand you to mean is that you’ll be camping on a formal camp … Read more

Bampton Cycle Shelter

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The Bampton Cycle Shelter

A  cycle  tourer’s  dream What’s a Bampton Cycle Shelter? Is it a new kind of cycling infrastructure? Well, yes, and no. Many cycle tourers, like me, prefer to wild camp when touring. Wild camping brings with it some challenges: for starters, in England and Wales, more often than not, wild camping is trespass. Though I … Read more

Wild camping and the new PCSC Bill – a guide for cyclists and hikers

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Is wild camping in the UK a crime?

Did  the  PCSC Bill  turn  wild  camping  into  a  crime? Such a deceptively simple question, but it turned out to be rather difficult to get an answer to it. Well, at least a straight, reliable answer. I’m a huge fan of wild camping, and personally find the UK’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill … Read more

Welcome To My Garden

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An  alternative  to  camp  sites I only recently became aware of Welcome To My Garden, and I already think it’s a superb site. So what is it? That’s easy to explain: much like Warmshowers offer overnight accommodation to cycle tourers, Welcome To My Garden offers a camping spot for the night in people’s gardens. In … Read more

Carry On Camping – quest for better campsites

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Cycle  camping  in  the  UK Camping is great – that feeling of waking up under canvas is a great start to the day. Of course, wild-camping – as in camping away from formal camp sites – is the best, but there are issues with it, too. For starters, some people prefer to have showers and … Read more

Giveaway – Food For The Road

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Food For The Road - a cycle touring cookbook

Food  For  The Road Food  For  The Road is a new cookbook with a difference: it’s aimed specifically at cooking delicious meal, using just a single pot. The booklet is small – intentionally so – and will take up no space at all in your panniers. It contains 19 recipes, one of which is for … Read more

Mass campout postponed

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Best-laid plans, and all that On Sunday, I had a gorgeous ride. Unfortunately, some 2 miles from home, things changed rapidly. While cycling downhill, along a very narrow rural lane, I crashed. From the state of my bike’s front wheel, it seems something must’ve gotten stuck in the spokes, breaking at least 10 spokes an … Read more

The WillCycle Mass Campout

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A cluster of dome tents on a mountainside

A  mass  campout? Indeed! You are invited to participate in the WillCycle Mass Campout, on the 18th of June, 2022. Now we dealt with when it will happen, we’ll swiftly move on to where it will happen. Here’s where things get, well, interesting. A  virtually  physical  event Wait, or maybe a physically virtual event! This is getting confusing, … Read more

The Cheshire Ring – a Travelling Ouballies Ride

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My laden touring bicycle

The  Cheshire  Ring If you’re a regular visitor to WillCycle, you’d know that I’m quite a fan of cycling the very many canals in the UK. The reasons are simple, and very obvious: canal routes are often extremely stunning, are almost entirely traffic-free and are relics from the Industrial Revolution. I freely admit to being … Read more

Scrummy recipes for delicious camping meals

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Food,  glorious  food I have a confession to make: I’m not a foodie. In fact, sometimes I’m quite envious of people who seem to find far more pleasure in food than I ever would. To me, food is primarily fuel. As a result, I’m not a good source for recipes. However, the people I interact … Read more

Your first cycle camping trip

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Cycle camping at Redlake, as part of a mini cycle tour

Excitement! The night before you set off on your first ever cycle wild camping trip on your own, you will probably be nervous. And more than a little excited! It’s a big thing you’re doing – stepping out of your comfort zone, and into the unknown. Of course, when we’re nervous, we’re most likely to … Read more

Kit Review: A Trangia-copy spirit stove

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Trangia  copy? Yes, mine’s not an official Trangia, but a very well-made copy that you probably wouldn’t be able to tell apart from the original. Why did I get a copy? Easy – I wanted just the stove, and didn’t want to spend much, as this will be my backup stove. Why  a  backup  stove? … Read more

Tips for staying warm while camping

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Warmth – an  essential  element Many people tell me they won’t go camping unless the weather is very hot, as they don’t want to be cold overnight. If done right, even in surprisingly cold weather, you should be able to stay toastie-warm. The tips I listed below should help you remain warm. Active  or passive … Read more

Wild camping & cycle camping in the UK

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Cycle camping (mainly wild-camping) and cycle touring tips and advice

What is wild-camping? Wild-camping is camping away from formal camp sites. In the UK, wild-camping is legal in almost all of Scotland, but against the law in England and Wales (with the exception of parts of Dartmoor), unless you have explicit permission from the landowner. Here’s where things get a bit complicated: yes, wild-camping is … Read more

Coleman Performance Gas review – best avoided!

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Avoid Coleman gas cartridges!

Camping gas explained Gas cartridges for camping stoves mostly use butane gas, which is cheap, and in mild to warm temperatures offers good performance. The trouble with butane is that it really performs poorly in the cold, and your gas stove may completely fizzle out just when you’re most reliant on it. Manufacturers of such … Read more

Earth, wind, fire and ice

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Cycle camping at Redlake, as part of a mini cycle tour

Cold-weather camping I’ve been forced to delay a planned winter camping trip on Dartmoor by a combination of having to do out-of-hours work over several weekends, and the severe weather we’ve been having for a while. Seriously, going camping in such a remote spot as I was planning to, while there were 80+mph gales blowing, … Read more

Are YOU ethical in your adventures?

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Adventure,  or  conquest? Once upon a time, explorers set off from Europe with a view to “conquer”, and that Eurocentric view persists in some form or another to this day. If I was to ask you who discovered the Victoria Falls in Africa, you’d probably answer that David Livingston did. If you answered that, you’d … Read more

C2C to see what there is to see

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Hadrian's Wall

Crossing England from sea to sea The island of Great Britain is longer than it is wide, meaning there are lots of opportunities to cycle a “coast to coast” of some sort, crossing the island (mostly) from east to west, or vice versa.  There are many well-known cycle touring routes that cross northern England, with … Read more

Is cycle touring dangerous?

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Will I die if I go cycle touring? Will I be run over, or murdered as I’m sleeping in my tent? Will I be attacked, robbed and possibly beaten? Is cycle touring dangerous? Let me start answering those questions by asking you how you define dangerous. Some things are obvious: walking up to a pride of hungry … Read more

The death of wild-camping in the UK?

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wild-camping is simply the best

Wild-camping, at least in England and Wales, is strictly speaking against the law, unless done with the explicit consent of the landowner. Here’s where things immediately become murky: against the law is not the same as being a crime. In fact, under the law (at least in England and Wales) trespass is a civil offense, not a criminal offense.

What this means in practice is better explained with an example: Imagine you own a piece of land somewhere, and I trespass onto that land, for whatever reason (but I’m not breaking any other laws, and certainly not damaging anything on your land). In this scenario, your options are extremely limited. Basically, you can ask me to leave. If at that point, I humbly apologise, and start packing up, legally there is nothing further you can do. If you tried to frogmarch me off your land, I can charge you with assault, which is a crime, and if you break anything of mine, that may incur some extra charges.

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