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Step 11Motorcycles and Trespass Camping
Here's are instructions by Tim on Bumcamping in Japan
Tim:
Here I am on my Portuguese Casall dirt bike somewhere in Morocco.
It's got a 50cc two-stroke Sachs engine and a gearbox with an infinite number of gears.
It's a magic carpet that can fully transform my surroundings with a twist of the throttle.
It runs all day on a couple of liters of petrol. When I ran out and everything was closed, I'd get enough gas out of the hoses of a closed gas station to keep going to the next village.
I'd get a couple liters of water at the last dark village before camping. One to drink and another for my bath/laundry.
Then I'd look for a place to hide/camp. Evasive action for me means driving randomly, which usually means taking right turns onto smaller roads then into an orchard or scrub.
Lay down the bike and chain it to a tree, pitch tent with no lights.
No line of sight to road, trail, or house. Paranoid/shy from solitary travel.
100 days trespass camping between morocco and sweden. Usually I didn't know where I was. Bathe and wring out clothes. Hang it on the tent. Dry by morning. Or rained on.
Eventually the shirt went to pieces in my hands from wind and sun.
That was a four month trip. I spent a few hundred dollars, not counting airfare. I ate bread, yogurt, and food gleaned from the fields after harvest. The car cost $100 in Rotterdam because it had a rust hole. Then traded for the motorcycle, which I could ride all day on a liter or two of petrol. I only rode a couple of trains and didnt' stay in a hostel. I stealth camped or stayed with friends from home or people I met by helping them fix their cars by the roadside. After I sold the motorcycle I hitchiked back to Holland, which I don't recommend, but I met some nice and interesting people that way.
In Sweden and some other countries there's an "anti-trespass" law that says you're allowed to camp on any private land as long as you're more than a certain distance from a house.
Settlement patterns in Europe are good for random stealth camping. Farmers tend to live in villages away from their fields and there are nice little one-lane roads going everywhere through the countryside.
In Mexico the beaches are all public land 30 meters above the high tide line. Some places it's best to camp near a house or business. Talk to the owners and pay them a few dollars for their trouble and they'll keep you safe. In low population density places I count on invisibility for safety.
Car camping in the States, I like orchard country or desert that's not rich enough to graze. Then there isn't a fence between you and sleep. Gringos like to own and control everything, which sucks when you're looking for freedom and your map isn't detailed enough to show you the tiny pockets of land where it's concealed.
Tim:
Here I am on my Portuguese Casall dirt bike somewhere in Morocco.
It's got a 50cc two-stroke Sachs engine and a gearbox with an infinite number of gears.
It's a magic carpet that can fully transform my surroundings with a twist of the throttle.
It runs all day on a couple of liters of petrol. When I ran out and everything was closed, I'd get enough gas out of the hoses of a closed gas station to keep going to the next village.
I'd get a couple liters of water at the last dark village before camping. One to drink and another for my bath/laundry.
Then I'd look for a place to hide/camp. Evasive action for me means driving randomly, which usually means taking right turns onto smaller roads then into an orchard or scrub.
Lay down the bike and chain it to a tree, pitch tent with no lights.
No line of sight to road, trail, or house. Paranoid/shy from solitary travel.
100 days trespass camping between morocco and sweden. Usually I didn't know where I was. Bathe and wring out clothes. Hang it on the tent. Dry by morning. Or rained on.
Eventually the shirt went to pieces in my hands from wind and sun.
That was a four month trip. I spent a few hundred dollars, not counting airfare. I ate bread, yogurt, and food gleaned from the fields after harvest. The car cost $100 in Rotterdam because it had a rust hole. Then traded for the motorcycle, which I could ride all day on a liter or two of petrol. I only rode a couple of trains and didnt' stay in a hostel. I stealth camped or stayed with friends from home or people I met by helping them fix their cars by the roadside. After I sold the motorcycle I hitchiked back to Holland, which I don't recommend, but I met some nice and interesting people that way.
In Sweden and some other countries there's an "anti-trespass" law that says you're allowed to camp on any private land as long as you're more than a certain distance from a house.
Settlement patterns in Europe are good for random stealth camping. Farmers tend to live in villages away from their fields and there are nice little one-lane roads going everywhere through the countryside.
In Mexico the beaches are all public land 30 meters above the high tide line. Some places it's best to camp near a house or business. Talk to the owners and pay them a few dollars for their trouble and they'll keep you safe. In low population density places I count on invisibility for safety.
Car camping in the States, I like orchard country or desert that's not rich enough to graze. Then there isn't a fence between you and sleep. Gringos like to own and control everything, which sucks when you're looking for freedom and your map isn't detailed enough to show you the tiny pockets of land where it's concealed.
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Aug 19, 2009. 1:36 PMdonaoh
says:
If you are going camping in an isolated filed, ensure there are no wheat, barley or any crop growing. A farmer probably wont mind if you camp on his land, he will get really annoyed if you camp in the middle of his crops.
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